The Bruins are heading into the final stretch of August with a few familiar questions still hanging over the roster, and the biggest one might be the same one that has followed them since Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci left: who is actually handling the center spot?
That issue showed up again when the NHL Network released its top 20 centers on Sunday night. Boston had no one on the list. David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman did land on their respective positional rankings, but down the middle, the Bruins were shut out completely.
It’s not exactly a shock. Boston has Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha, Fraser Minten, and Sean Kuraly as its top four pivots right now, but none of them fits the mold of the true No. 1 center the Bruins need. The lack of a Bruins name on that top-20 list only underlined the problem.
There was also a bit of former-Bruin movement overseas. Gemel Smith, who played three games for Boston during the 2018-19 season without recording a point and averaged 10 minutes a night, has signed with HC Prešov in Slovakia for the coming season. Smith spent last year with Grizzlys Wolfsburg in Germany, where he put up 10 points in 19 games.
His path has taken him all over the hockey map since the Dallas Stars picked him in the fourth round of the 2012 Entry Draft. In 91 NHL regular-season games with the Stars, Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Detroit Red Wings, he finished with 12 goals and 25 points. He also produced big numbers in Providence, where he had 16 goals and 24 assists in 47 games with the P-Bruins during the 2018-19 season.
And then there’s Matthew Poitras, who still hasn’t signed. Each day that passes without a deal makes it harder to know whether he’ll be at Warrior Ice Arena when camp opens next month. If the Bruins were fully committed to him, the argument goes, something would already be done.
Still, Boston hasn’t exactly shown a willingness to give up on him. It’s difficult to imagine them cutting bait with their second-round pick at this stage, especially after they traded Fabian Lysell to the Colorado Avalanche over the summer.
That move was unexpected enough. A Poitras departure would be harder to see coming, but at this point, nothing can be ruled out.
In Other News...
Bruins May Need To Cut Ties With A Familiar Center
The Bruins are again in the kind of roster conversation that tends to follow a team with more interesting young forwards than clean openings. James Hagens and Matthew Poitras are both pushing toward bigger roles, and Bostons current center picture has enough congestion that every available spot seems to come with a catch. The trick, as always, is finding a way to create room without upsetting the balance of the lineup.
One familiar option sits outside the organizations recent spotlight, even if he remains well known to Boston fans. Sean Kuraly has carved out a useful depth role since leaving the Bruins, and a reunion would come with the sort of practical appeal teams like when they are trying to manage a crowded middle six. The question is whether Boston can make the math work while keeping enough flexibility for the prospects it wants to see grow into the roster. [Read more 🡒]
Bruins Need Lukas Reichel To Become The Answer At Center
Lukas Reichel arrives in Boston with a familiar kind of appeal for a team looking to solve a long-running question down the middle: enough talent to dream on, enough uncertainty to keep the price reasonable. The Bruins brought him in last March and have spent the months since viewing him as a possible middle-six center, the sort of low-cost swing that can pay off if the former first-round pick finally finds steadier production after uneven stretches with Chicago and Vancouver.
Reichels next step matters because the Bruins still need someone to seize that center role and make it look permanent, not temporary. There is at least some organizational comfort in the setup, with head coach Marco Sturm and other German players in the picture, and Boston is clearly hoping that familiarity helps bring out a more complete version of the player they think is still in there. The question now is whether this is the environment that finally turns potential into something the Bruins can actually rely on. [Read more 🡒]
Bruins Camp Battle Could Reveal What Boston Really Values Up Front
Training camp is about to tell the Bruins a lot about where they stand up front, and the most interesting questions may come in the bottom six rather than on the blue line. Boston has a surplus of defensemen, but the forward group features a real battle for spots among players trying to carve out defined roles, with Lukas Reichel set to compete alongside veterans and prospects such as Mikey Eyssimont, Alex Steeves, James Hagens and Matthew Poitras.
The shape of that competition matters because the Bruins still have to settle their roster before the season opener against the Rangers on Sept. 29. For a team looking to sort out its identity, these decisions will say plenty about what it values from its depth forwards, whether that means experience, energy or the kind of upside that can force its way into the lineup. [Read more 🡒]