Twenty games may not be enough to conclude whether or not a player is a good fit to a new team. But with the way things were going for Elias Lindholm, who had signed a huge seven-year deal with $54.25 million that reasonably brought high expectations, it was fair to begin to wonder.

The overall team play was uninspiring enough to send coach Jim Montgomery and his .715 points percentage packing and Lindholm, the B’s most expensive offseason acquisition, had not been having much impact on games, at either end of the ice.

But that’s slowly changing. It started with a line change that Montgomery had implemented before he was fired. The original plan had been for Lindholm to play with David Pastrnak. It was an obvious pairing of top center and best goalscoring wing. But for whatever reason, that the pairing did not click. Lindholm was moved to a line with Brad Marchand and Justin Brazeau and it’s been working.

While points have not come easily for any forward combination, Wednesday’s 6-3 win on Long Island represented a breakout for both top two lines. Brad Marchand had a pair of goals, coming off two of Lindholm’s three assists while Pavel Zacha scored two third period goals, coming off two of Pastrnak’s three assists. Lindholm also had a key defensive play, thwarting an Islander odd-man rush with a great back check and stick lift.

It’s still too early to declare the signing a success as it would be a failure, but at least there are some promising signs.

“Every game he seems to be more comfortable with how we want to play with our systems that are intact,” said coach Joe Sacco. “I think there was a little transition for him defensively, especially how we play with our low forward doing a lot of the work. Not so much man-on-man. It’s a little bit of a hand-off situation for him. Just getting used to playing like that. He started out with a different line at the beginning of the year. Now he’s playing with Marchy more than he was David at the beginning of the year and that takes a little while as well. I thought last game, it was a solid 200-foot game from him again, helped us offensively as well. I like the way his game’s trending right now.”

Marchand, of course, had played for over a decade with one of the best two-way centermen in the history of the game in Patrice Bergeron. He had decent success with Charlie Coyle last season but that dried up at the start of the season. After a process of elimination, Marchand and Lindholm were paired together along with right wing Brazeau and it’s looked pretty good.

“We’re starting to build some chemistry I feel with the line. All the lines are. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than you’d like,” said Marchand. “There are some things that we were working on as a team to implement this year that maybe it didn’t take quite as quick as we would have liked. The last four or five games, we’ve definitely felt more comfortable and you can see that we’re coming together, which is nice to see, especially with what’s gone on. But Lindy’s been a great player for this group and you can see his comfort level’s building every game. He’s making a lot of plays. Sometimes when the bounces aren’t going your way, you can get frustrated, but he’s had a great attitude in continuing to go through it. I love playing with him. He’s a very smart player. He makes a ton of really good plays and reads the ice very well. You can see he’s getting comfortable. It’s tough when you come in. He went from Calgary to (Vancouver) to our team in a short period of time. It’s hard to continually learn a new system. But you can tell he’s getting comfortable in ours and his game’s really grown.”

Lindholm is happy with the way his game is trending, but he believes his defensive game still needs work.

“Just closing quicker in the D-zone, trust my teammates more. I think once I start doing that, it’s going to be easier for everyone in the D-zone,” said Lindholm.

The offensive breakout against the Islanders was welcome, especially with the way the B’s out-chanced the Canucks by a wide margin on Tuesday and had a goose egg to show for it.

“It’s huge,” said Lindholm. “We’ve been struggling and trying to improve. The Vancouver game, we’re going to win more of those games more than we lose with what we created. Their goalie played well and obviously we didn’t bear down on our chances. It was nice to play the day after and put a couple in the net.”

As a means to jump-start the offense within games, Sacco has loaded up a line with Lindholm between Marchand and Pastrnak for the occasional shift, but he is of no mind to make any permanent changes right now. He likes the chemistry of both top lines, especially with the growing confidence of Pavel Zacha with Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie.

But somewhere down the road, whether it be due to an injury or chemistry going cold, Lindholm could see getting another crack at playing with Pastrnak.

“For sure,” said Lindholm. “Sometimes it’s good to take a little bit of time away and try to find your game. Once it’s time and we’’re both on our game, it’ll be there. Obviously, seeing him more close up now and seeing what he likes to do out there, it’s definitely easier to find out what to do on the ice.”…

While Pastrnak was coming off a three-assist night, he’s got two goals in 15 games now. In his previous three games going into Friday’s game against the Penguins, he had a total of six shots on net, not terrible but not his usual output, either. He also passed up a shot on a 2-on-1 on Wednesday.

“I think we’d all like to see him shoot a little more in those situations,” said Sacco. “He’s a gifted goalscorer, he’s a gifted player offensively, so typically he makes the right reads. But sometimes you have to give those guys some space to try to find their game offensively. I think it’s coming for David. Hopefully, when he gets in those situations again, maybe he’ll decide to shoot on that 2-on-1 instead of passing it over.”…

Sacco went with the same lineup for the Penguins, though he did make the expected goalie switch, going back with Jeremy Swayman.