Bruins head coach Marco Sturm has decided to shake things up at the top of his roster for a Friday night showdown with the Kings.
Powered by the Morgan Geekie-David Pastrnak connection for the majority of the 2025-26 season to date, Sturm will split up his two top goal scorers, with Pastrnak slated to skate to the right of Matej Blumel and Pavel Zacha. It’s an all-Czech line for Boston, which has not been seen since the 2022-23 season, when it was David Krejci who centered a line with Pastrnak and Zacha.
“It’s so cool,” Blumel, who has appeared in two games for Boston this season, said of skating with Zacha and Pastrnak. “When I signed here, it was kind of my wish to suit up for game a with those two, and I’m very happy about it.”
Blumel’s opportunity to move up the depth chart and with some countrymen comes after what was a solid bounce-back effort in Anaheim. While he was not credited with the goal, Blumel’s net-front jam on Lukas Dostal helped the puck get over the goal line for a Boston power-play goal in the first period. He also had a block and a pair of hits to his name in the losing effort.
And with Blumel occupying the Bruins’ top-line left wing spot, Boston will slide Geekie down to the right side of their second line, with Marat Khusnutdinov in the middle and Alex Steeves at left wing.
It’s perhaps Boston’s best chance at diversifying their attack against an L.A. squad that returns home (for the first time in over two weeks) allowing the 10th-fewest five-on-five goals against per 60 (2.20), and the seventh-fewest scoring chances against per 60 at five-on-five play, at 23.93 per 60.
But breaking up the Geekie-Pastrnak combo is certainly a risk for the Bruins.
Since the start of last season, the Bruins have scored 66 goals and hold a plus-19 goal differential in 1,040 minutes of five-on-five play with Geekie and Pastrnak together. In 373 minutes with Geekie on the ice but without Pastrnak, the Bruins have scored nine goals, and hold a minus-7 goal differential. Pastrnak has remained a scoring presence without Geekie, with 21 goals in 543 minutes sans Geekie, but also holds a minus goal differential (minus-5).
This season, Geekie has been on the ice for just one goal for in almost 72 minutes without Pastrnak on his opposite wing.
Elsewhere in the lineup, the Bruins will throw Riley Tufte back into the mix in place Jeffrey Viel. Visibly wobbling and requiring help off the ice, Viel appeared to injure himself on a takedown from Ducks captain Radko Gudas at the end of their fight following a Gudas hit on Bruins winger Mikey Eyssimont.
The Bruins, for what it’s worth, are coming off what a 33-shot performance in their 4-3 loss to Anaheim on Wednesday. It was their most shots in a losing effort since landing 38 shots on goal in an Oct. 18 loss to Colorado.
The Bruins enter Friday having dropped three of their last four games overall. The Kings, meanwhile, have lost six of their seven home games (1-4-2) out of the gate this season after being a dominant home team a season ago, and fell in the shootout against the Sharks on Thursday night.