BRIGHTON - With the regular season less than a week away, the Bruins are already sorting into different lanes at training camp, and Wednesday made that picture a little clearer.
Marco Sturm divided the camp groups into two very different buckets. Group B, which hit the ice at 10:00 AM, was made up of 15 players battling for a job in Boston.
Group A had 26 players who are more established at the NHL level. It was a practical split, and Sturm made clear it was about numbers and practice structure more than any grand statement about where players stand.
“That’s what camp is all about. Sometimes you just move players.
Sometimes it’s an age thing, sometimes it’s numbers,” Sturm said. “I can’t put everyone in one group because otherwise I would have way too many guys out there.
So, doesn’t mean anything and that’s what I was trying to explain to him. So he did fine.
All the guys who were in the other group were fine. But we had to make a cut just because of practice, that’s all.”
One of the more notable names shifted into Group B was Frederic Brunet. The 23-year-old defenseman had spent the first week of camp skating with Charlie McAvoy and had appeared in both preseason games, so the move stood out at first glance.
But Sturm’s explanation suggested there’s no need to overread it. Brunet is waiver-eligible, and the Bruins have 10 waiver-eligible defensemen who can’t all be lumped together in one group.
Brunet also has the CBA working in his favor. Veterans with more than 100 games played are limited to two preseason games, and eight Bruins defensemen who are under that cap have already played one. Sturm confirmed everyone still on the roster will dress for one more game, which sets Brunet up for his third preseason appearance.
Jordan Harris was the other waiver-eligible defenseman skating with Group B.
While the defense was being shuffled around, Matt Poitras was missing entirely. Sturm said after practice that Poitras suffered a lower-body injury on Tuesday morning and was helped off the ice by a trainer.
“Not for me, but [it complicates things] for him, for sure,” Marco Sturm said of Poitras. “These kind of short camps, you want to show, you want to deliver.
You want to prove to coach, the team, whatever, you name it. And if you get one injury all of a sudden, with only a week to go, all of a sudden you’re behind.
As a player, you don’t want that, so that’s hard on the kid for sure.”
Sturm later repeated that Poitras is day-to-day with the lower-body injury.
Mason Lohrei also exited practice early Wednesday, and Sturm said there will be an update on him Thursday.
Up front, the Bruins kept a couple of combinations together after testing them out Tuesday. JJ Peterka stayed on the first line with Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak after Sturm moved him there during the third period the night before. Morgan Geekie remained at right wing on the second line, where he was paired with Casey Mittelstadt and Pavel Zacha.
Sturm liked what he saw from Peterka, especially in a power-play role.
“That was one of the reasons why we brought [Peterka] in, and not just because skill and speed. The feedback we got from Utah [is] that he’s a hell of a power play guy, and especially on those elbows, he can really shoot the puck,” Sturm said.
“If you look at our power play, the 1-3-1, if you look at our three guys having David, JJ, and Geeks, that’s pretty damn good. So now we just got to make sure they click.”
The top power-play unit featured Peterka, Geekie, and Pastrnak.
Sturm also stuck with the line of Mikey Eyssimont, Dans Locmelis, and Tanner Jeannot. That trio has been together since the start of camp and was Boston’s most productive line Tuesday night. Still, Sturm said camp is the time to keep poking at different options rather than locking everything in too early.
“Probably they’re going to end up on the line again, but again, this is a training camp,” Sturm said. “This is [the] time to see different things, different combos, different line combinations.
So we just try to mix it up. Might as well see some of the other guys be in a different position and also with centermen like Locmelis or Poitras.
I know what the Kuraly line delivers, and it’s great, but now I just want to see what else, what options are out there.”
The Bruins are back at Warrior for morning skates Thursday and Friday before away preseason games in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, over the next two nights.
Bruins Wednesday Lines
Group A
JJ Peterka - Elias Lindholm - David Pastrnak
Casey Mittelstadt - Pavel Zacha - Morgan Geekie
James Hagens - Fraser Minten - Marat Khusnutdinov
Tanner Jeannot - Dans Locmelis - Mikey Eyssimont
Alex Steeves - Sean Kuraly - Mark Kastelic
Jonathan Aspirot - Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm - Will Borgen
Nikita Zadorov - Connor Clifton
Mason Lohrei - Henri Jokiharju
Jeremy Swayman
Michael DiPietro
Group B
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