For about three months, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney made it known to the organization’s youngsters and tweeners that National Hockey League jobs were going to be there for the taking in training camp.

Part of that was because of the unavoidable salary cap fallout of the Bruins going all in and busting in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, of course, but it was also the acknowledgement from the Bruins that they could no longer rely on Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to carry the club for 82 games. (Bergeron and Krejci would later decide that they themselves no longer wanted that responsibility and both decided to walk away from the Bruins and the NHL before it broke them.)

But with the preseason drawing to a close Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, Sweeney and the Bruins have to love how some of their prospects and hopefuls have pushed them — in the best possible way, too — to this point.

Up front, 2022 second-round pick Matt Poitras has become the talk of the town with his breakout preseason performance.

Given the nod for Tuesday’s contest against the Capitals despite playing in Monday’s affair in Philadelphia (and with some wonky travel for a back-to-back), the 19-year-old Poitras delivered with a game-tying goal in the third period, was value-add at the faceoff dot, and showed that competitive fire that’s made him a borderline must-start when the NHL regular season kicks off next week.

“Overall, he competed,” Montgomery said of Poitras. “What you like is that, he lost some battles but he comes back and wins some battles. That was a big goal he scored to tie it up, and he continues to show a lot of poise with the puck.”

In action for four of the team’s five preseason contests to date, Poitras has recorded two goals and four points. Both are team highs. Poitras has also posted a 53.6 percent success rate at the dot, which is notable because if he does make the B’s squad, it’s going to be at center. Montgomery and the Bruins have outright said that they do not view the 5-foot-11, 180-pound or so Poitras as a wing at this point.

At this point, it would be a damn shame and absolutely indefensible if Sweeney and the Bruins didn’t at least give Poitras the nine-game trial to begin the 2023-24 season. By every measurement, he’s earned it. And if the Bruins are going to embrace the idea of incorporating some new blood, it makes all the sense in the world to give Poitras, who has tried to model his game after the Lightning’s Anthony Cirelli and Brayden Point, a look in meaningful NHL action.

Poitras entered this camp with the goal of making it difficult on the Bruins to send him back to Guelph. He’s done that – and then some.

Elsewhere on the center depth chart, it really feels as if 2019 first-round pick Johnny Beecher has broken through and won the fourth-line center gig.

Skating between Milan Lucic and Jakub Lauko in Tuesday’s overtime loss to the Capitals, Beecher had a productive evening, with an assist, four takeaways, and four hits in 16:15 of time on ice. Beecher also won seven of his 13 battles at the dot, and his 2:02 of shorthanded time on ice was second-most among all B’s forwards, trailing only Lauko and his 2:22 of time on the penalty kill.

​​“I thought that was a real effective line,” Montgomery said of the Lucic-Beecher-Lauko line. “I gave ’em some O-zone starts, but mostly D-zone starts. And, you know, I don’t know the stats. I didn’t look, but I thought Beecher did well on the dot and won some big draws for us. So the combination of speed and will was pretty evident. They did a lot of good things out there.”

One thing that I liked about Beecher’s game on Tuesday: When you watch him closely, it’s obvious how well he moves and how much ground he can cover as a 6-foot-3 center. And with the Bruins on the penalty kill, Beecher was able to close quickly on a Capital along the half wall and force a bad pass that trickled just over the blue line, which forced the Capitals to reset and allowed the Bruins to get a line change. Things like that matter over the course of a game and 82-game year.

The Bruins are also desperate for another left-shooting faceoff option, which gives Beecher a significant leg up on someone like Patrick Brown.

And on the backend, 2020 second-round pick and true first-year pro Mason Lohrei is making a late push to crack the Black and Gold’s NHL roster.

Deployed for 24:40 of time on ice in Tuesday’s preseason affair, Lohrei scored a goal with a tremendous offensive-zone activation, and added three hits and a blocked shot. The Bruins also let Lohrei run their second power-play unit (4:01 of ice-time on the man advantage), and gave the 6-foot-4 defender a solid shorthanded workload with 1:46 seconds of penalty-kill action.

“I thought Lohrei was really on his toes,” Montgomery said following Tuesday’s loss. “This is the best I’ve seen him jump into the offense, reallying supporting plays. I really love his goal because that’s the way we want to play. Like once we get the puck, we want to transition [with] five guys going. It was nice to see a defenseman pass to a defenseman for a goal.”

For Lohrei, it’s a preseason run that’s now included the goal, two shots, two blocked shots, and five hits. And with Lohrei getting hit with the all-too-familiar ‘Shiny New Toy’ syndrome from the masses demanding he crack this roster (and right now).

Now, for as solid as Lohrei has looked in the attacking zone, this is a player who is still learning what he can and cannot do at this level. (People gotta remember that Lohrei is not and hasn’t been a lifelong defenseman and is still very much learning the nuances and subtleties of the position to a certain degree.) You saw it a bit in overtime when Lohrei’s misplays led to the Bruins being pinned in their zone for a full minute. You’ve also seen it in the corners, along the walls, and behind the net. There’s been moments where you see Lohrei dazzle with a brilliant zone clear, and others where he’s hearing the footsteps or getting out-muscled by the men that play in this league.

It seems like the best course of action is still having Lohrei begin the year in Providence, where he’ll be able to log 30-minute nights without the pressure of playing top-pairing minutes for a team that still wants to win games. In Providence, there’s hands-on learning without the aforementioned NHL pressure, and there’s nobody standing in his way to get all the minutes he needs. In Boston, he’s not going to quarterback a power play over Charlie McAvoy and/or Hampus Lindholm. And there’s little to no sense in feeding him Derek Forbort’s penalty-killing minutes or third-pairing minutes. The Bruins absolutely need to load Lohrei up on minutes, have him take some lumps, and go from there. He’s too important in the grand scheme of things for the Bruins to do anything else with him.

This honestly reminds me a bit of the David Pastrnak situation in 2014. The Bruins had a long-term need at the position, but they decided that Providence was the way to go out of the gate. And after 25 games with the P-Bruins, Pastrnak was up with the big club and by all means never looked back.

There’s nothing that says the B’s can’t do the same when it comes to Lohrei.

But the fact that we’re sitting here and talking about a 25-game run instead of a full year in the minors? That’s absolutely huge, and really what the B’s need.

Bruins sign Brunet, make four more cuts from camp roster

In what was yet another transaction-heavy afternoon for the Bruins, the B’s made their first move at noon on Wednesday with the signing of defenseman Frederic Brunet to a three-year, entry-level contract.

A fifth-round pick by the Bruins in 2022, Brunet will make $860,000 per year on his deal, and is set to begin his pro career with Providence after a 2022-23 season that featured 16 goals and 73 points in 68 games between Victoriaville and Rimouski of the QMJHL.

Overall, the 6-foot-3 Brunet posted 29 goals and 128 points in 163 games in The Q over four seasons, and recorded two helpers in his lone AHL appearance of the 2022-23 season.

The Bruins also placed Jayson Megna on waivers for the purpose of assigning him to the minors, while forwards Marc McLaughlin, Georgii Merkulov, and Trevor Kuntar were all moved from Boston's training camp down to Providence.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, HockeyBuzz.com or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter/X: @_TyAnderson.

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