Boston Bruins: 3 takeaways from dominant 6-1 win over Flyers

1. Moving Trent Frederic up to the third line was the correct decision by Boston Bruins’ head coach Bruce Cassidy.

At Friday’s practice, head coach Bruce Cassidy decided to switch Frederic and Bjork. This meant Frederic was on the third line with Coyle and Smith, and Bjork was on the fourth line with Kuraly and Wagner. While these were the lines in practice it was unknown if it would continue in last night’s game.

It turned out that those were the lines in last night’s game and so far, it looks to be a genius move by Cassidy.

Frederic, Coyle, and Smith played extremely well together and were the Bruins’ best line during the game. Coyle and Smith each had a goal and an assist, and Frederic continued his strong, physical-style of play and finally got is first NHL point with a nice pass to assist Coyle’s goal.

So moving Frederic up clearing positively impacted the third line, but how did it impact the fourth line?

I would say that the addition of Bjork to the fourth line had neither a positive nor negative impact on the fourth line. The line played well (not as well as with Frederic) but they still played well and didn’t play poorly.

Last night, this trio was really a force to reckoned with and I could definitely see them continuing to be for the foreseeable future. The physical styles of Coyle and Frederic combined with the scoring abilities of Coyle and Smith could really wreak havoc on apposing teams.

Like I said in my takeaways from the first game against the Flyers, if the team continues to play this well, especially Frederic, Ondrej Kase shouldn’t be put back into the lineup unless the team starts to play poorly, someone seems to need a rest, or he absolutely needs to be in the lineup because of an injury or COVID-related reasons.