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Two Swedes and a Spoon |
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Ty Anderson
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On Saturday night, and in his first game since Dec. 7, Boston winger Loui Eriksson recorded the primary assist on the Bruins’ lone goal of the night. It was just the welcoming that the B’s wanted from Eriksson, who missed 15 games with a concussion, his second of the season.
Logging just over 13 minutes in his return, Eriksson didn’t look like a player that had missed five weeks of game action. Nor did he look like a player that was coming back from his second concussion in just two months. The 28-year-old Eriksson didn’t miss a beat, even with completely new linemates, and that can only mean good things for this Black-and-Gold squad nearing full strength.
Skating on the Boston third line with Carl Sodererg at left wing and the crafty Ryan Spooner in the middle, Eriksson brought an added dimension of skill and defensive know-how to a spot previously occupied by Providence standout and NHL fill-in Matt Fraser. Their efforts -- combining for five shots as a line on the night -- paid off in the form of the game’s only goal, giving the B’s a rare victory on San Jose ice by way of a 1-0 shutout.
By now, you’ve heard the story on Eriksson and his up-and-down year in Boston. From the slow start to the injury woes, it’s been a year to forget for No. 21. And while it’s going to be/is tough to sell this fanbase on the idea that you traded a former second overall pick in Tyler Seguin to Dallas for a guy that’s skating on your third line, but if it works, it works.
And this third line -- right now -- works.
It’s obviously too soon to make any season-long predictions, but what you’re seeing right now is a chemistry between Soderberg and Spooner that pushes the third line from a group of potential complementary scorers to a bona fide offensively capable group. Add Eriksson into this mix and the Bruins ice three lines more than capable of potting multiple goals in the net on a nightly basis.
Factor that into the Bruins’ defensive style and the play of Tuukka Rask (recent slight struggles aside), and that’s one potent Boston Bruins club.
Will coach Claude Julien stick with it though? That’s still an unknown. A huge one, no less.
Third line center Chris Kelly (broken fibula) is still on the shelf and isn’t nearing a return any time soon according to Julien, leaving Spooner, a player with 10 assists in 18 games this year, a longer ‘tryout’ to prove his worth to this Boston squad. My take: He already has. Simple as that. On the wing though, keeping Eriksson in a limited role such as that of a third line winger, won’t come without some serious questioning from within (and from the outside for that matter), and may prove to be more of a detractor from his game if/when Kelly returns to his spot as the third line pivot.
In such a scenario, you could seemingly switch Eriksson with the guy that took his place on the B’s second line, Reilly Smith, without sacrificing much. But then it becomes an issue of where Spooner, who shouldn’t be sentenced back to bus rides with Providence, fits into the mix. The Bruins don’t want to use him as a winger, even if he’s not the most defensively responsible centermen, and taking such a skill out of the lineup seems rather shortsighted.
Of course, there’s always the option of dropping Kelly down to the fourth line and sitting Shawn Thornton or Gregory Campbell, but that seems like one of the most anti-Julien moves that could be made, at least before the playoffs anyways.
Where does that leave us? Well, with two Swedes and a Spoon on line three until they prove incapable of being everything they look like they could be. P.S., they look like they could be one of the most skilled third lines in all of the Eastern Conference (and maybe even hockey), so there’s that.
You could have worse problems, I suppose...
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