The Boston Bruins embark on a difficult four-game road trip to western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. It starts Wednesday night in Edmonton.
Here are just a few thoughts on the state of the Bruins while we wonder if these four games will reveal their true identity any more successfully than the first 56 did:
• The defense is a legitimate concern, starting with the third pairing. While coach Jim Montgomery has flipped Kevin Shattenkirk and Parker Wotherspoon on a regular basis, he’s stuck with Derek Forbort night in, night out. That’s understandable. Forbort has assumed the role of the fans’ new whipping boy and, yes, he has struggled since coming back from a stay on long-term injured reserve with a troublesome groin injury.
But at least we know that, in his three-year stint with the Bruins, he’s been a very effective stay-at-home defenseman and penalty killer when healthy. At the moment, he’s not that. But getting him right would be the easiest way of solidifying that spot in the lineup. The only way to do that is to continue to play him. If he hasn’t made strides by the March 8 trade deadline, then it will have to be addressed somehow through external solutions.
Also, having a revolving door on the right side probably doesn’t help. Shattenkirk is a good team player, but his strengths historically have been in the offensive zone and he’s got two assists in his last 13 games while his second power-play unit sees minimal ice time. It’s time to ride with Wotherspoon — someone with a little more net-front bite — for a handful of games and see what that yields.
• With Hampus Lindholm’s availability for the road trip in question, rookie Mason Lohrei was called up on Tuesday and traveled with the team to Edmonton. Losing Lindholm for any length of time would not be good for the B’s, no matter how big the drop-off from last season has been for the big Swede.
Still, it could be worth it to get another look at Lohrei to see how he’s progressed in his latest stint in Providence. In his last seven games with the P-Bruins, he has 1-6-7 totals and is a plus-7. If he’s an option come playoff time, it would be nice to know that before the trade deadline.
• OK, I’m all on board the Fabian Lysell train — at least to see what he can do at this level. And that has more to do with what we’re seeing at the Boston level than what the 2021 first-round pick has done in Providence — and Lysell’s been productive. In his last 21 games, he has 6-17-23 totals.
Meanwhile in Boston, Danton Heinen has been a great low-cost signing as a player who can be plugged in to just about any of the eight wing positions. But he’s not a long-term solution in the top-six, where he’s been playing on a line with Brad Marchand and Charlie Coyle. It would seem that the right-shooting Lysell would be a good fit in that spot.
Why hasn’t he been brought up yet? There could be a combination of a lot of things. Maybe after he had a disjointed 2022-23 season, management wants to give him a full year in Providence to iron out certain deficiencies in his game, much like it did with Jake DeBrusk in his first pro season. Maybe his no-impact training camp, when there were spots to be earned, still gives the brass concern that he’s ready for prime time.
But they’ve found a way to look at a lot of players from Providence this year. Lysell’s time is nigh.
• Fighting has become a less integral part of the game, but the Bruins are missing a vital fear-factor in their lineup. That was evident in Monday’s game when the Stars took some borderline runs at B’s defensemen and goalie Jeremy Swayman. Jason Robertson’s hit on Charlie McAvoy — a tad late but within the finishing-the-check margins — could have been disastrous as McAvoy’s head bounced off the glass. He was OK and it only served to bring out the best in McAvoy, who made a terrific pass to David Pastrnak for the equalizer and then won it in the shootout. But those runs at the team’s top defenseman can’t keep happening.
B’s management, presumably, knows this. They signed Milan Lucic for a reason. But they’ve chosen to keep him on indefinite leave for the rest of the season after charges of domestic assault were dropped last week.
No matter how much progress Lucic has made in his rehabilitation after his arrest last November, the Bruins learned last year in the brief Mitchell Miller saga just how much optics matter in this business. It’s hard to argue with the decision.
Still, that leaves an element that remains missing. Oskar Steen brought physicality but not enough to offset his one goal and no assists in 34 games. After clearing waivers on Monday, he was returned to Providence on Tuesday. Whether it comes in the form of a forward or a defenseman — and a tough D-man could take care of two needs in one stroke — it something that needs to be addressed at the deadline.