Jim Montgomery had a good problem on his hands.
Derek Forbort, a puck-eating, 6-foot-4 monolith on the penalty kill, was ready for postseason deployment following a month on the shelf.
Matt Grzelcyk, a puck-moving ace capable of driving play and walking the offensive blue line, closed out his sixth NHL campaign with a plus-46 rating. Only teammate Hampus Lindholm boasted a higher marker of goal differential (plus-49).
Both blueliners offer contrasting — but coveted — skillsets on a loaded D corps. But only one was going to take to the ice for Games 1 and 2 against the Panthers in Boston’s first-round series.
Montgomery ultimately opted to swap out Grzelcyk for Forbort, opting for more heft against a Florida roster with a knack for crowding the crease.
It was a roster reshuffle rooted in Montgomery’s resolute confidence in his team’s depth.
Even with Grzelcyk scratched, a top defensive pairing of Charlie McAvoy and Dmitry Orlov stood as an effective contingency plan.
“I think I‘ve just got to be a good coach and keep putting them on the ice,” Montgomery said Monday of an Orlov-McAvoy pair’s shaky showing in regular-season action. “Good things are going to happen. They’re too good.”
Boston’s bench boss sang a different tune on Wednesday night, minutes after a myriad of miscues and misplays on the backend sank his team in a 6-3 defeat.
“I think gives me pause to think about changes everywhere,” Montgomery said of potential lineup adjustments following the lopsided loss.
Forbort held up his end in terms of shorthanded reps, helping Boston’s penalty kill improve to a perfect 5-for-5 against Florida.
But the subsequent domino effect of Forbort’s return has led to lesser returns across a usually poised and crisp Bruins defensive unit.
Boston was knocked for 15 turnovers in Wednesday’s loss, with a number of those lapses in execution leading to pucks sailing past Linus Ullmark.
“I just think players didn’t make the best decisions at moments,” Montgomery said. “I thought for the majority of the first two periods, we were doing really good things with the puck. But the turnovers we had tonight were catastrophic.”
A Forbort-for-Grzelcyk swap is easily facilitated, so long as a reworked duo of Orlov and McAvoy can continue to drive play and snuff out scoring chances.
Neither has happened for extended stretches this week against a Panthers team that feasts off of its frenetic forechecking.
During an Orlov-McAvoy tandem’s 13:37 of reps at even-strength action in Game 2, the Bruins were outscored, 2-0. Florida held an 11-3 edge in scoring chances over Boston during that stretch.
An attempted zone exit by McAvoy in the third period put Florida ahead for good, with a skittering puck out high corralled by Matthew Tkachuk and eventually fed to Carter Verhaeghe for the Cats’ fourth goal of the evening.
“Once we got frustrated, we kind of tried to get individual instead of using our structure and how we played together,” Montgomery noted. “Our puck support kind of dismantled.”
Wednesday’s result continued a concerning trend from both skaters when stapled to the same D grouping. During regular season play, Boston scored eight goals during Orlov-McAvoy’s 139:30 of 5v5 action … and relinquished seven goals down the other end of the ice.
All night long, Boston’s transition game sputtered in its own end.
An outlet feed from Brandon Carlo into no man’s land was fed back into the low slot by Tkachuk in the second period, leading to Florida’s opening goal just 1:42 into the frame.
“I think it was us trying to make plays when plays weren’t there to be made,” Montgomery said. “Instead of just moving it north … It was just execution in certain areas of our game with the puck that really cost us tonight.”
Even with Florida’s snarl, injecting a puck-mover like Grzelcyk back on the blue line stands as a viable remedy for Boston’s current rut.
Grzelcyk’s flaws have been well-documented, especially against the punishment that presents itself in the postseason.
But his sterling play next to his old BU teammate in McAvoy has an even longer track record.
Just this year, Boston tilted the ice when the former Terriers took to the ice together. The Bruins outshot opponents, 327-270, and outscored them, 36-15, in their 604 minutes of 5v5 play.
Forbort might be the odd man out, but a PK unit without him still negated 39 straight power plays in the dog days of the regular season.
And giving a player of Orlov’s caliber the ability to drive his own D pair next to Connor Clifton stands as a tantalizing proposition.
Montgomery, in some respects, finds himself in the same spot he was in on the eve of the postseason.
The Bruins still have an abundance of options when it comes to rolling out a stout six-man grouping on defense.
The challenge at hand, however, is getting all those pieces to fit.
“Tere’s ups and downs in every series and it’s just playoff hockey so, take it for what it is and turn the page, that’s it,” McAvoy said. “Know that we have to be better moving forward.”
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