Welcome to the First Line, PJ.

Just one shy of his 100th career NHL goal, Boston Bruins forward PJ Axelsson's milestone is just minutes away, thanks to a surprising shuffle in lines.

Prior to Tuesday's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bruins head coach Claude Julien swapped third-line LW Axelsson with first-line LW Milan Lucic.

That was bad news for Lucic as well as Penguins RW Tim Wallace. Mount St. Lucic erupted and took out his frustrations over being demoted on the rookie Wallace in a one-sided fight late in the third period.

Julien has not been pleased as of late with the production of the Bruins' first line. I certainly don't think it was anything personal with Milan, but rather to "give both those lines a little spark," as Julien said.

After all, in the first 10 games of December, Lucic had registered at least one point in nine of those games, to go along with a plus-6, before going pointless in the two games leading up to the line changes.

Entering his 11th year in the NHL, all in a Bruins uniform, P.J. Axelsson has never been an offensive threat. Actually, every time I hear his name, I still think of him when he was paired up with Brian Rolston on the penalty kill.

Generally a third-line player, Axelsson has been an average player for the Bruins. He's been a fairly consistent player, averaging 72 games played a year since his rookie season. That's pretty durable considering his small 175-pound frame. 

Axelsson's numbers were always far from great. Take for instance this year. In 33 games played leading up the the last two games against Pittsburgh, P.J. had:

one goal, 11 assists, 40 SOG, -4 +/- rating, five power play points.

In the last two:

one goal, three assists, six SOG, +2, two PPP.

These two games, Axelsson also averaged over 19 minutes of ice time, including almost 10 minutes on the power play. This significant improvement is directly related to two things:

1) Confidence. When the best coach in the league puts a player on the top line on the best team in the NHL, self-confidence is greatly improved.

2) He's got a center by the name of Marc Savard, who is fourth in the NHL in points (48) and tied for second in assists with 35. Savard is an All-Star who, in my opinion, is still vastly underrated.

The newly acquired linemates have been putting up some uncanny numbers as a whole, too. Granted, it's only been two games, but the stats don't lie: four goals, six assists, 25 SOG, +2 rating, four power play points, one short-handed point, one game-winning goal, and more importantly, two victories by a combined score of 9-4.

The original first line of Lucic, Savard, and Kessel was one of the top lines in all of the NHL, so the decision to change it up was quite brave of coach Julien.

However, the decision was his, and it looks as though it was the right one.