Is the answer staring the Boston Bruins in the face?
The most likely option is that the second pairing sees a significant bump in its’ minutes whilst Zdeno Chara and his partner ease back on their ice time. Brandon Carlo and Torey Krug have shown they can match up with big lines so maybe they are the ideal choice to subdue Sebastian Aho and company.
Time and again, Carlo and Krug have proven themselves as a big part of the Boston Bruins’ young defensive core. Between them and the suspended Charlie McAvoy, they’ve allowed Boston to gradually lessen the captain’s ice-time. Carlo, in particular, has really stepped up already in this, his first NHL play-offs.
In doing so, the Boston Bruins have become far more mobile with the puck; Chara has been able to push forward more often and unleash that shot because he knows the youngsters will have the speed to cover for him.
At even strength across the regular season, Carlo has spent 38.7% of his time partnered with Krug, that number leaping to 71.4% of the time in the playoffs. Why attempt to fix something which clearly isn’t broken?
This Boston Bruins team has managed to make the Eastern Conference final and if that’s in part due to this defensive duo, why would you even consider tinkering with it?
Perhaps the only issue with promoting Carlo and Krug to first defensive pairing minutes is that you potentially stymie anything you could get out of Chara; if he sees a significant drop in time, which you’d have to assume he would in light of these two being promoted, surely he becomes less effective.
On the flip side, maybe not drawing the top line would open Zdeno to be a real scoring threat with his booming shot from the point.
It’s not too long now until Game 1 gets underway and soon the answer to this question will be revealed. Whoever is the beneficiary of McAvoy’s suspension will need to put in a huge performance for the Boston Bruins to start this series the right way.
Statistics courtesy of Dobber Sports.