The Bruins are running into one of the clearest drawbacks of the NHL’s new preseason setup: there just aren’t enough looks to go around.
With the league shifting to an 84-game schedule under the new CBA and cutting the preseason to four games, the rules now limit any player with more than 100 career games to just two appearances. For Boston, that has turned every remaining exhibition into a juggling act for Marco Sturm, who has to squeeze as much information as possible out of a much smaller sample.
That squeeze is especially noticeable up front. Boston’s final preseason game has long been treated like a dress rehearsal for the opener on September 29, and the Bruins’ blue line looks likely to stay mostly intact from Friday night’s group. Charlie McAvoy is out for the first six games of the season, and Frederic Brunet appears to be in line as the team’s extra blueliner, barring any late change.
The real uncertainty is in the forward mix, where the shortened preseason is already shaping decisions. Sean Kuraly has appeared in two games, which means he won’t get another chance to lock down the fourth-line job.
That opens the door for Dans Locmelis, who will get a shot to show he belongs in that role. It’s a useful opportunity for the Latvian center, even if it may not have been the plan Sturm had when camp began.
Matthew Poitras has been hit even harder by the new format.
Locmelis is set for his third preseason game, while Poitras has only one under his belt. He was almost certainly headed for the fourth-line center spot on Friday night, but an injury this week will keep him out of the lineup and end his camp with just one game to make his case to the front office.
That’s where the new rules start to sting for young players. With only four preseason games and hard limits on appearances for certain veterans, there’s no extra runway for a player like Poitras to get another evaluation. Sturm’s effort to get him into the dress rehearsal game didn’t pay off, and now the Bruins have to make decisions with less information than they’d usually have.
Shorter camps and more meaningful regular-season games may be a win for fans, but they can leave prospects and PTO players in a tough spot. Poitras’s injury might matter less if he opens the season on injured reserve, but the bigger issue remains the same: Don Sweeney and the Bruins’ management group still have to sort out his future, and this camp didn’t give them the full picture.
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