At first blush, the scratching of Johnny Beecher for last Saturday’s game in Toronto may have seemed a bit rash to some.

The rookie centerman had scored three goals in his previous six games, not bad for a fourth line pivot. His faceoff win percentage is currently at 56.2%, impressive for a rookie. The emergence of Beecher and fellow rookie Matt Poitras has been key for the Bruins after the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.

But in important areas, especially for the role he’s asked to play, Beecher had been slipping. He knew, and so did coach Jim Montgomery. So the former Michigan Wolverine was given a quick reset in the form of a press box view in Toronto and it seemed to do the trick.

“I had a meeting with Monty,” said Beecher on Tuesday. “He just kind of called me in and asked me how I thought I’d been playing. And I just said there really hasn’t been anything too fantastic going on, not playing the game fast enough. And he just said that I needed to be harder to play against, more detailed, more physical, just playing a more well-rounded game. I wasn’t too shocked at the end of the day. I hadn’t been playing up to the standards they have for me and the standards I have for myself. Obviously, I want to be better and these guys deserve my best. At the end of the day, they just wanted me to watch a game, see it from above, see what it takes to be a hard player to play against, watching (Charlie) Coyle, (Danton) Heinen, (Brad Marchand), guys that very really lose puck battles. They’re always in the right spots. And just had to take it as a learning curve and move forward.”

Beecher said he zeroed in on center Coyle.

“He always just seems to be in the right spots and working as hard as he can. It’s very rare that he gets out-muscled off of a puck. That’s something that I’m really trying to implement in my game and something I was paying a lot of attention,” said Beecher.

Montgomery liked Beecher’s response in the B’s 3-1 win over Columbus on Sunday, as well as the work of the entire fourth line with wings Jakub Lauko and Morgan Geekie.

“I thought he did a good job,” said Montgomery. “I thought his line brought energy. They spent a lot of time in the offensive zone, which is always a good sign when your bottom two lines can spend O-zone time and extend and wear out the other team’s top players.”

The only negative from Beecher’s game was a third period offensive zone penalty shortly after the B’s had taken a 3-1 lead when he tried to salvage a missed check and was called for a leg trip. But the B’s survived that penalty, and Beecher (four of six on draws) was able to come back to help the team shut the door.

“That’s something at that point in the game they were looking to even the calls and I just got to be smarter. It’s just one of those things where you have to take ownership of it and realize you messed up and try and learn from it,” said Beecher.

“I’ve just got to take a better angle. We knew they would try and give them an opportunity with a couple minutes left and unfortunately it fell on me. But I was happy with how I was able to respond and come out later in the game, win a big faceoff and get a block.”

Sometimes, all it takes for a young player is a different view of things.