Boston Bruins
“Top guys need to be your top guys, and in those kind of moments, you need them even more.”
David Pastrnak has had plenty of success with Fraser Minten this season. Finn Gomez for the Boston Globe
March 13, 2026 | 3:05 PM
4 minutes to read
The warning signs were there.
Coming out of the Olympic break, the Bruins ranked sixth in the NHL in goals scored per game (3.39). But a peek under the hood showed some worrying signs of regression.
At the time, the Bruins were scoring 14.68 goals above expected (per Natural Stat Trick) — ranking behind only the Montreal Canadiens in outpacing their scoring rate via outlier shooting percentages.
The Bruins have punched above their weight for most of this season. But if Marco Sturm’s club was going to stumble in its sprint to the finish line, a sustained scoring slump loomed as a viable threat to Boston’s playoff hopes.
Such has been the case as of late for a Bruins team now holding onto the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference by a single point.
On Thursday night, the Bruins landed 41 shots against Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic. Only two managed to sail by him, both coming in the third period — and with San Jose already holding a four-goal lead.
By the time Sturm opted to reshuffle his forward lines in search of a scoring spark, it was too little, too late.
”I was just trying to get something going,” Sturm said after Boston’s eventual 4-2 loss — the team’s first defeat on Causeway Street since Dec. 23. “I feel like all the lines got stuck. I needed a little bit of a push. I thought David [Pastrnak] had a little something, just didn’t get enough help. … It was too flat for me today.
“Guys tried, but it was just not good enough. Top guys need to be your top guys, and in those kinds of moments, you need them even more.”
As Sturm noted, Boston’s “top guys” haven’t exactly delivered since play resumed after the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games.
Boston’s second line of Pavel Zacha, Viktor Arvidsson, and Casey Mittelstadt has been up to the task. In the eight games since league play resumed, the Bruins have outscored opponents, 9-2, at 5-on-5 action.
The same can’t be said for the rest of Boston’s big guns.
Pastrnak — who assisted on Fraser Minten’s tally on Thursday before adding a 6-on-5 tally with 53 seconds left on the clock — does have seven points in his last eight games. But only two of those points have come at 5-on-5 action.
Over that same eight-game stretch, both Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie have zero points at 5-on-5 play. That’s not remotely good enough.
Further compounding Boston’s issues? A sizable dip in the power play.
Once a consistent avenue of Boston’s scoring output this season, the Bruins’ man advantage is just 4-for-28 (14.3 percent) over the last eight games, while also coughing up a shorthanded goal to Lincoln native Collin Graf on Thursday.
“More on the outside than inside,” Sturm said of Boston’s power play on Thursday. “We wanted to be more inside today. We did it once or twice, and that’s about it. So again, that’s something we have to be better at, because that’s a big part of our game, our power play. We need them big time. Going back to our best players, right? Those guys just have to get it done.”
Something’s got to give in Boston’s forward corps beyond just relying on the Zacha line for some 5-on-5 scoring punch.
Sturm’s late-game reshuffle at least offered some hope of a necessary tweak to Boston’s forward grouping.
With the game already out of reach, Sturm rolled out a forward trio of Pastrnak, Minten, and Marat Khusnutdinov. Just 10 seconds later, Minten lit the lamp.
Pastrnak riding shotgun with a pair of younger players in Minten and Khusnutdinov has led to plenty of success over a solid sample size this season.
In that line’s 68:07 of 5-on-5 ice time together, the Bruins have outscored opponents, 9-3, and outshot them, 36-29.
Giving that grouping more run — especially if it gets Pastrnak rolling and coaxes more scoring out of both Minten and Khusnutdinov — could be a viable option for Sturm down the stretch.
As effective as both Pastrnak and Lindholm have been together on the power play, the same can’t be said for their cohesion at 5-on-5 action.
In Pastrnak and Lindholm’s 492:30 of 5-on-5 reps this year, the Bruins have actually been outscored, 23-21. Not at all what you’re looking for from a top forward line — especially one anchored by one of the top offensive talents in the league in Pastrnak.
Separating Pastrnak from Lindholm might be best for all parties, even if it remains to be seen who Boston turns to if it’s looking for another winger to pair with a reworked line of Lindholm and Geekie moving forward.
Bruins blue-chip prospect James Hagens could be a viable option, as Boston College’s season could come to a close as soon as Friday night if the Eagles fall to Maine in the Hockey East quarterfinals.
Adding a skilled forward like Hagens into the equation could give Boston’s forward grouping a boost for the stretch run. Still, it’s not exactly fair to expect a 19-year-old forward like Hagens to make the jump to the NHL and immediately solve a forward corps seemingly stuck in neutral.
Given that Sturm kept Pastrnak and Lindholm together as a line for Friday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, it seems as though Boston’s head coach isn’t fully committed to reshuffling his forward grouping.
#Bruins Friday practice lines, D pairs:
Khusnutdinov-Lindholm-Pastrnak
Mittelstadt-Zacha-Arvidsson
Eyssimont-Minten-Geekie
Jeannot-Kuraly-Kastelic
Steeves
Aspirot-McAvoy
Lindholm-Lohrei
Zadorov-Peeke
Harris-Jokiharju
Swayman
Korpisalo
— Jim McBride (@globejimmcbride) March 13, 2026
That could change in short order if Boston’s scoring slump carries over into a critical three-game road trip against Washington, New Jersey, and Montreal.
“We talked about it. I thought about it,” Sturm said Friday of switching Boston’s lines. “I’m not there yet. Might be different tomorrow. I just have to think about it. I didn’t want to rush anything.”
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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