Bruins’ fourth line punches back against Red Wings, showcases value ahead of grueling playoff push

"We need something to light a spark here."

Garnet Hathaway scored his first goal as a Bruin to lift Boston to a 3-2 win over Detroit on Saturday. Mary Schwalm / AP

By Conor Ryan

March 12, 2023

3 minutes to read

The Bruins’ checking unit of Tomas Nosek, A.J. Greer, and Garnet Hathaway isn’t exactly the trio Jim Montgomery calls on to land punches in the offensive zone.

Rather, their job description usually pivots to doling out pain just about anywhere else on the ice.

And with the Bruins mired in a two-goal deficit just 4:32 into Saturday’s matinee matchup against the Red Wings, Greer knew the task at hand the next time Montgomery sent them over the boards.

“We just told ourselves on the bench that, ‘Hey, we need something to light a spark here and we need to go out there and do something to ignite — not only our team, but the crowd,'” Greer noted. “I thought we did a great job of just hemming the D-men in their own zone, relentless pressure, [being] physical, and we play the right way and the offensive chances came.”

Hathaway’s first goal in a black-and-gold sweater with 6:06 left in regulation might have capped Boston’s three-goal rally against the Red Wings. But for Montgomery, it was the physical pushback issued by Boston’s fourth line that reversed his team’s fortunes against Detroit.

Where there's a will, there's a 'WAY. pic.twitter.com/1yGZe1LQlO
— x – Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 11, 2023

“I thought they were our best line all night long,” Montgomery said following Boston’s 3-2 win over Detroit. “Right from the first shift of the game, where I thought they got us going north. They had a lot of good looks and spent a lot of time in the O-zone, despite the fact that I started them in the D-zone a lot of times.”

Aside from the occasional bone-rattling check, a fourth liner’s shift is usually an arduous stretch of time spent under taxing circumstances.

Against Detroit, the Greer-Nosek-Hathaway line had just 16.6 percent of their faceoffs in the offensive zone. But during the 7:52 of 5v5 ice time they logged together, the Bruins held a 15-7 edge in shot attempts and an 8-3 advantage in scoring chances.

Those lopsided totals in favor of Boston paint the picture of a team controlling the puck-possession game. And most of those extended shifts were jumpstarted off of a faceoff win by Nosek (6-of-12 at the dot) or a puck-separating check from Hathaway and Greer (7 combined hits).

With the fourth line shifting the momentum of the contest, the Bruins thoroughly dominated Detroit after the opening 20 minutes.

Beyond the two tallies Hampus Lindholm and Patrice Bergeron buried in the second, Boston led the Red Wings in —

Shot attempts: 36-5
Shots on goal: 18-2
Scoring chances: 25-1
Hi-danger chances: 11-0

— during that period heading back down the tunnel for the second intermission.

“I thought we were more physical without the puck, and I thought we were more committed to hard offensive hockey,” Montgomery said of Boston’s turnaround after a sleepy first period. “We didn’t have any space? We were willing to put it in and go forecheck and/or possess it down low and then move our feet.”

The Bruins have been buoyed all season by a core of elite talent sprinkled throughout the depth chart.

If Boston orchestrates a deep playoff run into June, the usual suspects like Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Linus Ullmark, and others will leave their fingerprints all over such an undertaking.

But the grueling nature of playoff hockey often brings the best out of scrappy fourth-line units.

The Bruins are at their best when they’re pushing the pace through the neutral zone and dissecting defensive structures. Their stingy zone defense is a well-oiled machine at this point.

But over the course of a seven-game series, the Bruins will need some equalizers further down the lineup — those scrappy skaters who are just as happy eating pucks in the slot as they are landing welts during a furious forechecking shift.

If Saturday was any indication, the Nosek line seems up for the task.

“We always try to find a way to play that heavy fourth-line game,” Greer said. “Because we have so much skill up front that I think that we need a little bit of pushback whenever [things] become physical and we need to set the tone. We need to set the tone for not only those lines coming up, but also that [other teams are] not going to be able to push anyone around.

“And for us, especially this time of year, guys are battling to make the playoffs and people are giving their best shots with only about 20 games left. So we feed off that, we feed off the energy, we feed off the challenges and myself, Garnet and Thomas, we’re guys who are really energy-driven. And we like those challenges.”