Welcome to a new week, folks, and the Bruins are rolling into it after a clean 2-0-0 weekend.
Boston knocked off Anaheim on Friday night and followed that up with a win over Los Angeles on Saturday night. The reward is a practice day today before tomorrow’s game in Dallas against a Stars team that has won back-to-back games over the Colorado Avalanche and the Chicago Blackhawks.
Dallas has opened the season 4-3-1, which is hardly a thunderclap of a start, but that doesn’t make the trip any easier. The Stars are the kind of opponent that can turn into a tough road test fast.
Meanwhile, down in Providence, Mikey Eyssimont keeps lighting it up.
The Bruins’ AHL affiliate beat the Hershey Bears 6-1 on Sunday, and Eyssimont was front and center again with another hat trick. It was his second hat trick in four games, and he’s now tied for the AHL lead in goals with seven.
Per the Providence Bruins, Eyssimont’s performance was the first hat trick by a Providence player since 1994, when Sergei Zholtok (R.I.P.) scored three in a 5-5 tie.
Ryan Tattle also picked up his first AHL point in the win, logging an assist.
There was also a quirky scheduling note floating around about the Bruins that’s worth filing away for the fans who live for the calendar as much as the standings. CSB sent around a study ranking NHL schedules by how friendly they are for fans, and Boston came out second in the league.
The study isn’t exactly a hard science, but it did weigh weekend daytime starts, weekend home games, Saturday home games and weekday daytime starts.
According to that breakdown, the Bruins have the most weekend daytime starts, the most Saturday home games and the fourth-most weekend home games. The idea is pretty simple: more games when fans can actually watch them, fewer awkward weekday matinees that make following along a pain.
Methodology: CSB scored all 32 teams’ 42 home games across five factors - weekend home games, Saturday home games, weekend daytime starts, weekend rivalry/division games, and weekday daytime starts (scored in reverse, since workday matinees shut out most fans). Each factor is scaled 0-100 across the league and averaged equally into the Fan-Friendly Schedule Score.
So, by that measure, the Bruins are about as easy a watch as you can ask for. That’s especially true if you’re trying to avoid those random weekday afternoon starts that no one can really watch.
In Other News...
Bruins Just Turned A Zadorov Scratch Into A Bigger Problem
Nikita Zadorovs night on the bench against the Kings was already notable because it came after a double-minor penalty in the previous game against Anaheim, and Bruins coach Marco Sturm made it clear the decision was about discipline as much as anything else. For a team trying to keep its footing, a healthy scratch for a veteran defenseman is never just a routine lineup call, especially when it follows a lapse that drew attention in the first place.
The situation got more awkward when a social media exchange involving Zadorovs agent and a fan started feeding speculation about where things might be headed next. No formal trade talks have been reported, but the chatter added another layer to a story that began with one bad penalty and has now turned into something bigger for Boston to manage. [Read more 🡒]
Bruins Roster Crunch Is Turning One Forward Into Trade Bait
Matthew Poitras being cleared to play has only tightened the squeeze on Bostons forward group, and the Bruins responded by placing Mikey Eyssimont on waivers and sending him to Providence. It is the kind of roster move that says as much about logjams as it does about performance, because Eyssimont has been productive in the AHL and still found himself on the outside looking in when the Bruins had to make room.
The problem for Boston is that there is simply no easy path back into the lineup right now, even with Eyssimont doing enough in Providence to keep his name in the conversation. When a player is producing down below but has no obvious opening upstairs, that is often where trade chatter starts to build, and the Bruins appear to be there now with a depth piece who may be more valuable as an asset than as a spare forward on the roster. [Read more 🡒]
Bruins Suddenly Have A Matt Poitras Problem They Might Welcome
Matt Poitras has gone from a low-profile one-year, two-way signing to a player the Bruins have found ways to fit into the lineup almost immediately. After getting past a lower-body injury, the young forward has suited up for six games and chipped in five points, enough to draw steady praise from coach Marco Sturm for handling his assignments and taking advantage of the openings created by injuries around him.
The bigger wrinkle for Boston is what happens when the lineup gets healthier. Sean Kuraly was scratched while Poitras kept earning looks higher up the board, and Kuraly has since been preparing to return, which only tightens the competition for ice time. For a team trying to sort out its depth on the fly, Poitras has given the Bruins a useful problem, even if it is one they may have to solve sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]