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Mason Lohrei is final cut from B's camp |
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Ty Anderson
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The youth movement — or the closest thing to a youth movement in about six years — is finally and officially here for the Boston Bruins.
Up front, that became ‘official’ with word that both Matt Poitras and Johnny Beecher will make the team. The expectation is that Wednesday’s Opening Night showdown with Chicago will come with Poitras between Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie, while the 22-year-old Beecher will skate between Milan Lucic and Jakub Lauko.
The Bruins fully plan on using Poitras’ nine-game run with the Bruins (when they’ll have to decide whether or not he remains with Boston or returns to OHL Guelph for another year of juniors seasoning) as a tryout of sorts, and expect to slot the 19-year-old preseason standout in a variety of roles and with different linemates.
Beecher, meanwhile, will look to keep a strong hold on his fourth-line spot after winning the job over the likes of Patrick Brown and Marc McLaughlin in camp.
But one notable name missing from the Bruins’ Opening Night roster is defenseman Mason Lohrei, who made up Boston’s final cut from camp late Monday night.
“Mason [Lohrei] has made our decisions really difficult,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said prior to Lohrei’s demotion. “He’s played well. Again, we’ve put him in similar situations with Poitras and playing them up and down the lineup and in situations that again, on the back end, you’re not going to get hit and you’re going to get exposed, if anything. He’s logged a lot of minutes.
“We continue to work on his habits without the puck. I think everybody starts to see the talent and the vision that he has the creativity, the confidence to be able to execute offensively. Whether that’s from his own goal line or the offensive blue line. The biggest adjustment to the National Hockey League is really defending against the top players and any players in the National Hockey League because they lean on you, and they press you. Mason’s going to have to continue to go through that. There’ll be some growing pains associated with it.”
And in a move that’s ultimately not all that surprising, the Bruins have decided that the 6-foot-4 Lohrei will go through those bumps in Providence before Boston.
For as good as Lohrei was during the preseason (and he was pretty damn good), there were still many times where the ‘green’ areas of his game came to the table. Whether that was handling pucks, the speed of his decision making, or handling physicality, it was obvious that Lohrei still had things to work on to round his game at the top level the game of hockey has to offer.
There's also an element of the Bruins looking to fast track Lohrei in terms of his in-game experience, and particularly when it comes to his ability to play all situations and log big minutes. That was not going to be the case for Lohrei in Boston, especially on the man advantage with Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, and Kevin Shattenkirk all looking like established power-play options for the B’s. It also didn’t seem like the Bruins had a rather high interest in Lohrei logging anything other than top-four pairing minutes.
There’s a sense that the Bruins want to accelerate the Lohrei timeline, but that they wanna make sure that when he comes up, it’s for good and it’s with him being a major player for the club. Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery by all means said as much during an on-the-bench interview with TNT’s Darren Pang last week, saying that Lohrei was either going to be on the Opening Night roster or be with the B’s later in the season.
Speaking following Tuesday’s practice, Montgomery admitted as much, saying that the Bruins felt he needed the AHL minutes for his development.
Lohrei’s demotion means that the B’s will begin their campaign with a left-side defense corps featuring Matt Grzelcyk, Hampus Lindholm, and Derek Forbort.
Ian Mitchell, meanwhile, will be the team’s No. 7 defenseman when things get underway on Wednesday night.
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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