Vacation is over for B’s
Cassidy’s team back on clock
BOLTON — Defying the 90 degree temperature reality of the weather, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy made a brief declaration yesterday.
“Summer,” said Cassidy, prior to the Bruins’ annual golf tournament at The International, “is over.”
Indeed it is over for those in the hockey world, and Cassidy didn’t sound the least bit sad about it.
The Bruins rookies officially report today before taking off to their four-day rookie tournament in Buffalo tomorrow. The veterans check in on Monday before taking off the next day for a 10-day China excursion.
There won’t be as much of a youth influx as last year, but there are still a couple of important spots for rookies to grab for.
Trent Frederic, Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and Jack Studnicka will be vying for the third-line center spot — the trio also will go with the veterans to China — while Ryan Donato and Anders Bjork will push for the vacant top-six right wing spot. All five will be in Buffalo. Donato will also be in China while Bjork, coming off shoulder surgery, remains stateside to get in as many games as he can here.
Having a good rookie camp will be almost imperative for all the hopefuls.
“This is truly an evaluation,” said Cassidy. “The guys that can step up at this camp amongst their peers probably have a much better shot because it’s not like it used to be when you had five weeks to look at them. We’re going to China, so some of the young guys we won’t even see until we get back, so this is really important for those young guys to separate themselves, and there’s maybe a little more importance on it than other years.”
On the blue line, there is not as much opportunity for rookies. While there’s always room for someone to play his way into a job, the numbers are clearly not in their favor. The B’s currently have eight NHL defensemen with the signing of John Moore.
At some point, that depth surely will be tested, but right now, having that many legitimate big league defensemen is a problem for Cassidy to solve.
“I don’t love it when there are eight guys who have proven themselves in the league because there are two guys every night who are disappointed,” said Cassidy. “We’ve got good people so to the end of the day, if we do it that way, we’ll live with it. The depth part of it later on always comes in handy. We’ve seen that two years in a row here.
“But originally, if all eight are healthy, it’s not fun.”
He plans to stick with the six who are working best.
“If we’re winning hockey games, it’s going to be tough to change the lineup every night,” said Cassidy. “We’ll certainly mix guys in, back-to-backs, this and that. If it’s not going well then it’s an easy switch. You motivate guys by pushing their buttons and creating competition. I’m hoping like everyone else that it goes well, we’re winning hockey games and you’re doing it because you want to keep guys fresh. But it’s not automatic that we’d rotate guys in and out.”
Another question facing Cassidy, one for which he hasn’t found the answer yet, is whether to break up the top line of Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak to create some secondary scoring that disappeared in the playoffs last year. The trio was one of the best lines in the league last year, but Pastrnak has also shown chemistry with Czech countryman David Krejci, most recently at the World Championships.
“It’s an easy switch, whatever we decide,” said Cassidy. “We’ve done it in-game, in-period, 10 minutes in, in the third period. For me it’s not a difficult switch at all. (Pastrnak) has played with both Bergy and Krech. So who gets to move up? We’ve played Danton Heinen up there when Marchy was hurt. We used Bjork at the start of last year. The other guy that we haven’t used that could go up is Donato. We’ve gone through Plan A, B, C and D. Who would be the best fit? At the end of the day, for me, it’s who takes the ball and runs with it.”