Boston Bruins: Time To Move Things Around.

Dec 19, 2014; Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN; Boston Bruins head coach

(L) stands behind the bench during the third period against the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Centre. The Jets won 2-1. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Fedyck-USA TODAY Sports

The Boston Bruins have not exactly been firing on all cylinders. This team is full of talent. You wouldn’t know it by looking at the standings. At the moment, the Black and Gold are  17-14-3.  They’ve gone 3-5-2 in their last ten. Like the record reflects, the B’s are playing .500 hockey again. They’re now fifth in the Atlantic Division.  They barely beat the NHL’s current point piñata, the Buffalo Sabres.  No members of the Bruins are even approaching the leaderboard in any category.

So, what are they going to do?

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Puck Prose

Option # 1 – Pull an Edmonton. Fire everybody! Out goes head coach Claude Julien. Out goes general manager Peter Chiarelli! They even throw their mascot Blades to the curb in order to get the team back on track and ready to make an impact in the 2015-16 season.

Well, that’s not going to happen. The team’s just too good to fail (on paper at least).

Option # 2 – ‘Julienne’ the Bruins lines. Chop up the lines like they did earlier in the season. At this point, the only line that makes any sense is the Bergeron line. It’s the only line that’s hitting its mark consistently right now. It’s also time to officially consider them the B’s new top line until further notice. Now, what to do with the rest of the bunch?

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Here’s a few ideas, starting from the bottom on up.

Keep Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell together. They know each other well enough and have fantastic chemistry. Perhaps Claude Julien will let them go back to their regular amount of minutes now. We’ve seen that rotating three lines hasn’t done it for the B’s (especially with the amount of AHL players they’re still fielding.) Simon Gagne‘s status is up in the air. Who should the Bruins put in as a dependable, minute soaking winger?

They B’s currently like the way Chris Cunningham is playing, and he’s should be on the third line for Boston. The Bruins don’t want to recall either Ryan Spooner or Alexander Khokhlachev to play pick me up minutes, so who in the B’s organization do the Bruins have enough faith in to call up, but not to play serious minutes?

Jordan Caron.  I’m being totally serious here. Caron has been playing solid hockey in Providence. Caron finally got decent enough for the big Bruins to keep, and they sent him down to the AHL. Caron knows the team, he’s spent time on the fourth line, he would be a good fit, and it’s a great time to dangle him as potential filler for a trade later in the season.

The new Bruins second line has to be centered around David Krejci, and Milan Lucic should be paired with him. While this is certainly not a permanent suggestion, it’s time to move up Chris Kelly to second line wing. He’s a veteran who knows the system, and has proven he can work with nearly every Bruin on the roster.

That leaves us with the third line. It’s time to see what Cunningham can do with two players that really know how to play together. (I guess this means Cunningham will have to run out and by the Swedish version of Rosetta Stone.) Loui Eriksson has been hot (for him as a Boston player), winning the last two games for the B’s in overtime. Carl Soderberg has proven to be reliable and shares the team lead with points (twenty-three). Let’s put someone in there who plays larger than his size, has solid speed and can likely learn a thing or two from his Swedish linemates.

I’m sure people out there have ideas of their own. This is just one suggestion that the Bruins could use to fix some of their problems.