{"id":339268,"date":"2025-12-10T11:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339268\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T11:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:11:10","slug":"how-marco-sturms-lineup-reshuffle-paid-off-in-another-bruins-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339268\/","title":{"rendered":"How Marco Sturm\u2019s lineup reshuffle paid off in another Bruins win"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston Bruins\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“That’s what good teams do. They don’t complain. They just work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Boston
\n\tMarco Sturm’s lineup reshuffle led to two goals from both Mark Kastelic and Fraser Minten on Tuesday. AP Photo\/Nick Wass\t<\/p>\n

Marco Sturm got the good news on Tuesday ahead of puck drop in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

After missing five straight games due to injury, David Pastrnak was cleared to return to the ice.<\/p>\n

Then came the tough decisions for Boston\u2019s head coach when it came to carving out a spot for his franchise winger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The logical choice for Sturm would be to slot Pastrnak back into his usual perch atop Boston\u2019s top line next to Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, the emergence of several other forwards across Boston\u2019s depth presented an interesting conundrum for Sturm as far as how best to incorporate a 60-goal scorer like Pastrnak back into the lineup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite Pastrnak\u2019s standing as a top-line talent, a reworked first line of Geekie, Lindholm, and Alex Steeves was carving up defenses during his five-game absence. A former AHL regular in Steeves scored five goals in his previous six games, while Geekie posted nine points while Pastrnak was stuck on the shelf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Disrupting a second line of Pavel Zacha, Viktor Arvidsson, and Casey Mittelstadt also wasn\u2019t a palatable option for Sturm, not with Boston outscoring foes, 11-6, during that trio\u2019s 166 minutes of 5-on-5 reps together.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, Sturm chose to incorporate Pastrnak back into the lineup \u2026 on a third line next to 21-year-old Fraser Minten and 23-year-old Marat Khusnutdinov.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the ongoing reshuffle, Sturm also bumped both Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic down to the fourth line next to Sean Kuraly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a sizable gamble for Sturm.<\/p>\n

Beyond slotting Pastrnak further down the depth chart than his normal pedigree, Sturm was breaking up a grouping of Minten, Kastelic, and Jeannot that had functioned as his shutdown line for more than a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI went with my guts a little bit,\u201d Sturm said on NESN postgame of his lineup decisions<\/a>. \u201cAnd I thought that that lineup we had today gave us the best chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fair to say, Sturm\u2019s lineup tweaks paid off in a major way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boston\u2019s reworked third and fourth lines did most of the heavy lifting on Tuesday against the Blues, scoring a combined four goals en route to 5-2 win \u2014 Boston\u2019s third in a row.<\/p>\n

While Pastrnak recorded a pair of helpers in his return to game action, it was his new center in Minten who doled out most of the damage with his first two-goal game in the NHL ranks.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely a bit of an adjustment,\u201d Minten said of playing with Pastrnak. \u201cBut we\u2019re all trying to play within the same structure here, so it makes it easy to have different linemates and just know that those guys are gonna make really good plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further down the lineup, Kastelic buried a pair of goals on a relentless checking unit that finished with 12 total hits in the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In total, the Minten and Kuraly lines logged 20:53 of 5-on-5 ice time during Tuesday\u2019s game against St. Louis<\/a>. Over that extended stretch of action, the Bruins outscored the Blues, 4-1, and held a commanding 13-4 edge in high-danger scoring chances generated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As unorthodox as it might be for Pastrnak to skate on a line with a pair of youngsters, Sturm has unearthed some success when putting his best forward next to Minten and Khusnutdinov.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that trio\u2019s slim 13:10 of 5-on-5 reps this season, Boston has outscored teams, 3-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to limit his time a little bit,\u201d Sturm said of incorporating Pastrnak back into the lineup. \u201cBut also\u00a0\u2014 I needed two guys who could skate with him. That\u2019s the thing. They need a few games to get going. And I thought with Mints and Kuz \u2014 they\u2019re young kids. They have fresh legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust three young kids playing together,\u201d Pastrnak added of playing with his linemates. \u201cIt\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturm\u2019s decision to distribute depth across his lineup created a balanced attack for Boston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a testament to the effectiveness of Boston\u2019s fourth line that it was Kuraly who logged the most ice time among Bruins forwards at 16:00, with no skater recording less than 13 minutes of reps in the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is definitely just really fun playing hockey right now,\u201d Kastelic said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really matter who I am playing with or where in the lineup you are. Everybody is valued here, so that\u2019s the biggest thing. Just having a blast right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if Pastrnak will remain in his current spot on the third line moving forward.<\/p>\n

But, it creates a good problem for Sturm to tackle, much as he did ahead of puck drop when it came to juggling a forward corps that continues to punch above its weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s all about character,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we have in this room. Some guys had to go down a line, and they didn\u2019t complain at all. They just got the job done today, just like Kast and Jeannot. And that\u2019s what good teams do. They don\u2019t complain. They just work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Today newsletter<\/p>\n

Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Bruins “That’s what good teams do. They don’t complain. They just work.\u201d Marco Sturm’s lineup reshuffle led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-339268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}