But the Bruins opted to give Lindholm a look with Charlie McAvoy in a dominant top pairing during Saturday night’s 3-2 shootout win over Washington at Capital One Arena, and Lindholm responded with one of his best performances this season. The B’s defenseman saved a goal in the opening minutes when he knocked a Connor McMichael scoring bid off the goal line with Jeremy Swayman out of position, and then he scored Boston’s first goal on a floating wrister from the point through traffic.

Jim Montgomery had been preaching lately that his Bruins players need to change to more of an aggressive shooting mindset, and that’s exactly what Lindholm did on his second goal of this season.

“That obviously showed if you throw things at the net then good things are going to happen,” said Lindholm, who finished with three blocked shots and a hit in 26:08 of ice time in the victory. “I think we’ve all been trying to do that a little bit more lately.”

Certainly, Lindholm could have ended up being a bit of the goat when he took a high-sticking double-minor in overtime that left the B’s shorthanded for nearly the entire extra session, but Swayman and the penalty killers made sure the game got to the winning shootout. Shootout wins obviously won’t be a possibility come playoff time a few weeks from now, but it will be a major development for the Black and Gold if a potential McAvoy/Lindholm power pairing could bring out the best in both defensemen in the postseason.

The Bruins did it against Washington to get a look at how that pairing could shut down a top Washington offensive line featuring Alex Ovechkin and TJ Oshie, and at the end of the day both players were kept off the scoresheet.

“We’re just trying different things. Washington’s got a big, heavy line, Oshie and Ovechkin on one line. We’ll see how our top two D handle getting out there against them,” said Montgomery. “We’ve done it a couple times earlier in the year against certain teams and we want to see what it looks like again because they don’t get enough reps together, and they’re always out there at the end of games. The more opportunities they get to play with each other, the better they are in those situations.”

Clearly something needs to change for Lindholm in the playoffs as he’s got zero points in 11 postseason games with the Bruins over the last two seasons, and he struggled big time moving the puck against the heavy Florida forecheck a year ago.

Perhaps the McAvoy/Lindholm combo also gives the Bruins an option to think about in the playoffs to put together a big-time pairing as they famously did in 2011 when they put Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg together early in the postseason as a highly successful move that helped them eventually win a Stanley Cup.

It could arguably allow the Bruins to lock things down most nights for at least one half of the game, with McAvoy and Lindholm both capable of playing nearly 30 minutes a night in the playoffs, where puck-moving, defensive zone and everything in between would be covered against even the best of teams, while they cobble together the rest with Brandon Carlo, Andrew Peeke, Matt Grzelcyk and Parker Wotherspoon or Kevin Shattenkirk.

Certainly, it’s an option worth considering for Montgomery and Co. as the B’s get into the final stretch of dress rehearsals prior to the Stanley Cup playoffs.