For the first 12 full seasons of his NHL career, Brad Marchand not only played with the same centerman, that player was a future Hall of Famer who remains in retirement the standard of excellence in two-way play.

So it would stand to reason the Brad Marchand’s hockey life after Patrice Bergeron might have its bumps. He started the season with Charlie Coyle as his center and the fit was not exactly hand-in-glove. Then coach Jim Montgomery tried him with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak and that trio succeeded only was sporadically.

But recently Montgomery has gone back with the Marchand-Coyle combo and, this time, he’s had no reason to break it up. First the right wing was Jake DeBrusk and now Pastrnak is the third-man-in, much like he was when he joined the Marchand-Bergeron line, and the Bruins’ resident superstar has done a good job reading off his linemates.

So far, the line has been a hit. In the first four games of the homestand going into Wednesday’s tilt against Carolina, Marchand had two goals, Coyle had three and Pastrnak notched five. The line’s most impressive showing came when matched up against Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche’s top talent, when Pastrnak notched a hat trick.

What has helped Marchand turn a corner in his chemistry with Coyle?

“I think it’s just time,” said Marchand on Wednesday morning before the Bruins took on the Carolina Hurricanes. “You need games, you need practices together. I think both of us are different players than what we’re used to playing with and you just need time to build that chemistry in practice. We haven’t had a ton of it, especially lately (the B’s went two full weeks at the start of the month without an off-day practice for various reasons) but the more we play together and the more you interact and communicate, the better it gets. We’re starting to feel much better out there.”

Marchand knew that it would be an adjustment. Since Claude Julien promoted Marchand from the fourth line to play with Bergeron in the middle of the 2010-11 season, the two players had fit together perfectly. The B’s captain knew it would be an adjustment without Bergeron, but he admitted that the transition was harder than expected.

“I knew it would be really different. I kind of expected it would take time. I was kind of hoping we’d build chemistry immediately and it just felt like it was a little bit tough because we were bouncing around on different lines at different times,” said Marchand, second on the team in scoring with 21-23-44 totals in 46 games. “It was a little bit tougher than I expected to find that chemistry. Again, partially because we had different linemates quite frequently, so it wasn’t just one of us that had to get used to each other, there were three of us who were bouncing around and shifting. It just made it tough to find that chemistry early, but it was something we knew we had to continue to work on and build on. (Coyle) is playing incredibly now and he’s very easy to read off. I think we’re starting to find that chemistry and it’s been a lot of fun.”

How long this power trio can stay together remains to bee seen. It’s not just dependent on that line clicking but all the other lines doing their job as well. But so far, it’s been a pretty good weapon….

After a very slow start, Hampus Lindholm is starting to come around offensively. After going the first 10 games of the season without a point, he’s got 10 assists in his last 12 games. Lindholm now has 1-16-17 totals. He won’t come close to his career-high of 10-43-53 of last year, but at least his game is coming into better focus now, playing on a regular pairing with Brandon Carlo.

“(The defensemen) spend more time in the offensive zone, they have more time to read where the openings are and also they get more shots off and feel the puck more. And then then they also have more energy in the offensive zone because we’re not defending as much,” said Montgomery.

The coach never showed the same amount of concern in Lindholm’s game early in the season as many others did.

“He’s someone that’s helped us be in first place,” said Montgomery in assessing Lindholm’s season thus far. “He doesn’t have the numbers he did last year, but he’s generating maybe not has much offensively in scoring chances but it’s not as far off as what the production says. And defensively, he gets the hard matchups every night. He relishes it and he and Brando do a great job for us.”…

Rookie Matt Poitras was scratched up front for the Carolina tilt and Oskar Steen was penciled in. Montgomery said it was because he didn’t want to play Poitras on back-to-back nights. Kevin Shattenkirk was also back in and Parker Wotherspoon was out…

Jakub Lauko said on Tuesday that it took him a while to figure out that he was not going to be the same offensive player that he was in junior – he 41 points in 44 games at Rouyn-Noranda in the QMJHL – as the NHL and that he had to find his niche as an energy player. Montgomery could appreciate that, relaying a story of his own comeuppance.

“My first game in the NHL was with Basil McRae and after a week of playing with him, I’m like ‘Man, this is a lot different. In college I played first power play. He said ‘I played first power play in junior, too,’” said Montgomery, who had 95 points in 45 games in his senior year at Maine.

McRae had 53 career goals in the NHL, but his 2,453 penalty minutes helped him play 576 games in the bigs.