When David Krejci decided to put his National Hockey League playing days behind him, jetting to his native of the Czech Republic to finish his professional career, there was some worry of how that would affect the Bruins second line.

Following Taylor’s Hall trade to Boston, he eventually found an ideal fit on a line with Krejci and Craig Smith—the trio combining for 16 five-on-five goals in 16 regular season games and 10 additional playoff games last season.

But post-Krejci life has brought it’s up and downs for both the Bruins offensive depth and the play of Hall. An injury to Nick Foligno early in the season has caused head coach Bruce Cassidy to at times, throw his second, third and fourth lines into a blender, and see what the end result would be.

That certainly has played into Hall’s struggles through he first 10 games of the season.

But Hall’s benching in Tuesday’s 3-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators was a cold reminder that even when things aren’t going your way from an offensive standpoint, there’s plenty of other things to do on the ice to help your team win.

Cassidy wasn’t seeing much of that.

“Turnovers at the blue line when you have the lead in the third. We’re all trying to buy into, ‘Play behind their D unless you have a free pass to get through there.’” Cassidy said of Hall’s game. “It’s just winning hockey. You want to play late in games, you’ve got to play winning hockey. It doesn’t matter who you are on the team. He got away from that.”

Following Hall’s lackadaisical offensive zone hooking penalty at 11:42 of third period, Hall saw just two more shifts as the Bruins were balancing adding a much-needed insurance goal with holding onto their one-goal lead.

There was a 28-second shift following Hall’s escape from the penalty box and a 10-second sprint later in the period that ended his evening.

“We took some offensive-zone penalties in the third period that were bad. You’re in that type of game, now the temperature’s up, you’ve got some emotion, now you’re killing penalties again on kind of lazy plays,” said Cassidy. “We’ve got to get those out of our game, take hard penalties.”

When Cassidy had enough of Hall’s efforts, Jake DeBrusk was bumped up to the second line, skating alongside Coyle and Smith. It was another second line combination that failed to provide much offensive spark for the Bruins at even strength.

A Hall-Coyle-Smith trio has seen 48:18 of five-on-five ice time this season, outscored 4-2 in the process.

Hall’s third period penalty was far from the only blemish on his night. After making a nice read along the boards to get to a loose puck on his first shift of the night, Hall sent a soft cross-ice pass through the middle of the Bruins end and right onto the stick of Brady Tkachuk.

While Jeremy Swayman managed to stop Tkachuk’s initial shot, the rebound sat perfectly, allowing Zach Sanford an easy tap-in goal.

When the Bruins are operating successfully, they’re winning hockey games with a potent power play, a stout penalty kill, and consistent five-on-five nights from the Patrice Bergeron line.

When those three keys to success get away from the Bruins’ game is when depth scoring needs to step up and take the wheel: that’s where Hall comes in.

Hall will get his first chance to respond to his benching Thursday night when the Bruins host one of Hall’s former teams, the Edmonton Oilers.

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