It took a bit longer than Boston Bruins fans would've liked for the top six to come together and ignite the offense. It wasn't always their usual lines on Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins, as the Morgan Geekie and Fraser Minten goals featured a mix of combinations. Still, the upside was that the veterans showed up in a big way against a struggling Penguins.
With the difficulty of the schedule recently, it was hard to know whether the team was getting depth scoring because the veterans were getting shut down so well by the contending teams, or whether they weren't clicking. Either way, it wasn't a good sign.
Nevertheless, the Penguins were in it for half of Thursday's game, but the Bruins started to impose their will late, which allowed the top six to score four of the six goals. Most importantly, Pavel Zacha broke out with two goals, Geekie scored for the third straight game, and Peterka got going with two assists and was on the ice for Minten's connection with Geekie for the sixth goal.
The Penguins served as the slumpbusters on Thursday night, which will hopefully give the lineup some confidence heading into the matchup with the Florida Panthers on Saturday afternoon. It remains to be seen whether James Hagens will be able to dress in that one after leaving the game after a crosscheck from Samuel Girard, but the hope is that the same group can return to win a big divisional game.
Marco Sturm deserves a ton of credit for top six success
Marco Sturm could've easily read the room over the past couple of weeks and switched up his top six. Every time he rolled the same lineup out there, social media lit on fire with people wondering what it would take for him to give the forward group a different look. Through it all, the Bruins remained on top of the Atlantic Division, which gave the head coach some leeway.
If the forward lines now catch fire and carry the team through November, the head coach will look like an even bigger genius for sticking to his guns and keeping the lines that he thought would work. In a season where Sturm hasn't made many bad moves, this one he didn't make could be his best. We'll need to see this production consistently, but the Bruins' veterans are streaky enough that Thursday's slumpbuster could turn into a solid run.
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