Jim Montgomery Hopes Bruins’ New Line Combinations Generate More Offense

The Boston Bruins have started their centennial campaign the best way possible — capturing two wins on home ice before heading out West for the first road trip of the season.

Even with the two victories, Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery believes the team needs a spark in the offensive zone and decided to shake up the lines before Thursday night’s matchup against the San Jose Sharks.

Here are the lines and defensive pairings, according to The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa:

Jake DeBrusk – Pavel Zacha – David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand – Matthew Poitras – Morgan Geekie
James van Riemsdyk – Charlie Coyle – Trent Frederic
Milan Lucic – John Beecher – Jakub Lauko

Matt Grzelcyk – Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm – Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort – Kevin Shattenkirk

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Poitras and Geekie played the first two games on the third line together with Frederic and Montgomery is hoping the duo can have success with Marchand on their wing.

“The speed and creativity has been evident and we’re going hard to the net,” Montgomery told reporters of the duo after practice on Wednesday, per team-provided video. “I don’t care what your make-up is of your line. I don’t care if you’re a possession line or you’re a rush line. You got to get to the hard areas and you got to stop there and I see them doing that.”

Being new to the Bruins system hasn’t prevented Geekie from playing the style of hockey that brought him to Boston in the offseason as a free agent.

“I just liked the way he builds team game,” Montgomery said. “I especially like how he wins races to the net front and stays there. Takes a lot of punishment. I think he’s someone that’s gonna really help us with our net-front battle or net-front presence, five-on-five and on the power play.”

Geekie is looking forward to the opportunity of playing with Marchand.

“There’s a lot of things to be excited about. Obviously, (Marchand) is a heck of a player and shows what he can do for a long time,” Geekie told Bruins senior manager of digital content Eric Russo during the “Warrior One-on-One” segment. “I’m just going to try and go out there and try and make space for both those guys and try and make plays where I can.”

Having Poitras and Geekie on the same line also gives the Bruins a leg up at the face-off dot since both are natural centers.

“You can never have enough centermen, people that have played historically center,” Montgomery said. “Because now, they can replace each other and especially when you’re playing with a guy like Poitras … it saves him a little down low coverage time, which in our (defensive) zone coverage is very demanding … saves him for offensive creativity.”

Geekie has been equally impressed by the rookie’s play through the first six periods of game time.

“It’s probably just his poise,” Geekie said of the 19-year-old. “Young kid coming in, you think there’s a little bit of nerves … but you don’t see that in his game at all. He’s a great player and he’s a great asset to the team and I’ve had a lot of fun playing with him.”

Puck drop for the Bruins matchup against the Sharks from SAP Center in San Jose is slated for 10:30 p.m. ET. You can catch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.