Claude Julien finally got two points Thursday night to end a two-game skid, but it's safe to say he also got his team’s attention. 

Julien benched struggling forward Rich Peverley, opting to keep Ryan Spooner in the lineup with David Krejci returning and making Peverley a healthy scratch for the first time in his Bruins career.  

This wasn’t a case of Claude Julien being so impressed with Spooner that he thought the third line would be better off with him on it than Peverley. If it were about Julien wanting to keep Spooner in the lineup, he could have simply sat Jay Pandolfo or Jordan Caron and put Peverley on the wing, and it would have been no big deal. 

But the move obviously had very little to do with Spooner. Julien used the Pandolfo-Spooner-Caron line as his fourth line, which was made clear by Spooner’s 8:17 of ice time. That’s a lower total than Gregory Campbell, Boston’s fourth-line center, has gotten in all but one game this season, and Campbell had a 10-minute misconduct in the only game that saw him clock in with less than eight minutes of ice time. 

Much like when Julien made Michael Ryder a healthy scratch against the Blue Jackets on March 15, 2011, this was a case of the B’s coach both sitting a struggling key player and trying to splash some cold water on the on his sleepy team’s face. It was a case of him sending the message that nobody is safe from the embarrassment that comes with a night in the press box if guys don’t start producing. 

Julien also gave the start to Khudobin on Thursday, but that one isn’t worth reading too much into. Yes, Julien called out Tuukka Rask after the Winnipeg game when he said the B’s needed timely saves and didn’t get them, but Thursday seemed like a logical night to get Khudobin some work anyway in a very busy part of the schedule. Plus, it isn’t like there’s a real message that needs to be sent to Rask. It’s safe to say that he’s Boston’s guy going forward. 

The Peverley benching however, does raise questions in addition to the repeating the same question everyone’s been asking all year: Are the Bruins actually going to have a third line this season? Remember that time they won the Stanley Cup because (in addition to having those Thomas and Chara guys) they were four lines deep? Though the seldomly seen Paille-Kelly-Peverley trio looked good in the very brief glimpses Julien had given it early on, the Bruins have gotten essentially nothing from the third line this season. 

But those were the questions that everyone had before Julien benched Peverley. The ones that exist now center on how he’ll respond, who might be next if the Bruins don’t start picking it up and -- as it’s only natural to ask at this time of year -- whether this might be a sign that Peverley could be a goner prior to the trade deadline. 

Let’s start by taking a crack at the whole trade thing. With four goals and five assists for nine points and a team-worst minus-9 rating, Peverley has been a big disappointment this season and has not justified his $3.25 million cap hit (he’s in the first season of a three-year deal that he inked last season). However, if you’re looking at which guys the Bruins could potentially deal from their NHL roster in a trade to improve their team, Peverley shouldn’t be too high on the list. 

He has underperformed, but Peverley is the type of player the Bruins like: versatile in that he can play center or wing on any of the top three lines, and capable of killing penalties. Stranger things have happened, but the feeling here is that the B’s shouldn’t be looking to move Peverley unless it’s in a deal that provides a no-brainer type of upgrade. 

Asked to explain the move to bench Peverley, Claude Julien said in his postgame interview with NESN that the B’s “haven't been playing well and we have some players that are struggling a little bit,” and added that he hopes the healthy scratch will “take some weight off [Peverley’s] shoulders and [he’ll] come back a little hungrier."

Comparing this to the Ryder situation of two years ago, Peverley will have to stay on his toes going forward if he wants to avoid another benching. Though Ryder bounced back with an assist and seven shots on goal in the game that followed that March 15 scratch, he went without a point with a minus-1 rating over his next four games, leading to Julien making him a healthy scratch twice more. 

On a night when the Bruins once again didn’t bring their A game but at the very least came away with a win, Julien can only hope that his team gets the message that he’s not afraid to sit guys in order to wake them up. Julien’s had a reputation for being loyal to his players almost to a fault, but his patience is rightfully wearing thin.