Why Nick Ritchie faces a steeper uphill climb than most with NHL's potential return this summer

Nick Ritchie never imagined he’d find himself in a spot like this. 

Of course, it’s one thing to pack your things and go from the sunny beaches of Anaheim to Boston in the whirlwind of a couple hours. But such cross-country inconvenience is a scenario that comes with the territory as a pro athlete, one that Ritchie experienced firsthand when he was dealt from the Ducks to Boston shortly ahead of the NHL trade deadline in February.

No, we’re not talking about the move to a new club. Rather, Ritchie didn’t expect he’d be spending the late spring at his family’s horse farm — situated up in Ontario.

“I cleaned a few stalls and the horses, they're race horses — harness racing — so cleaning stalls and I guess throwing a few hay bales,” Ritchie said Wednesday of his regular chores. “But it's more just to help out my dad and my parents. I guess there's some physical activity with that, but most of the working out has been your standard stuff."

Like many others NHLers still seeking more clarity on the future of the 2019-20 campaign, Ritchie is doing what he can to in order to keep his conditioning up, bracing for what could be a resumption of play that carries over into the middle of fall.

Of course, shaking off the rust stands as just one of the hurdles potentially facing Ritchie in the coming months, given that the newcomer only logged seven games with his new team before the B's season hit pause following a win over the Flyers back on March 10.

The physical power forward managed to avoid one logistical headache, renting a condo in Boston and shipping out his car and other possessions to the East Coast before COVID-19 gripped the country and grinded things down to a halt. But the lack of day-to-day interactions with new regular teammates obviously put deadline acquisitions like Ritchie a step behind many others during this ongoing pause.

"It's been tough where we haven't seen the team or obviously practiced or anything," Ritchie said. "I was there for such a little time, I think I didn't get to know everybody. ... So that kind of sucked that the pause happened, but we've been having talks once a week on Zoom here and just been talking and just kind of feels like you're kind of back in a locker room for an hour or so. So that's all we can do right now and it's been pretty good."

But beyond the expected challenges involved with settling into a new locker room, Ritchie faces an even more daunting uphill battle in terms of



carving out a defined role on Bruce Cassidy's roster — a necessary task, but one with a much shorter window to work through if hockey does indeed return in the coming months. 

Ritchie, more than willing to throw his 6-foot-2, 230-pound frame around on the ice, gives Boston a different dynamic from many other forwards in Cassidy's arsenal. A big body with a propensity for generating shots around Grade-A areas of the ice, Ritchie’s individual expected goals per 60 minutes rate with Anaheim measured out to 0.87 — 28th overall among NHL forwards (min. 500 minutes played) at the time of the deal — and surprisingly tied with David Pastrnak.

But finding the proper fit in an often-shuffled Bruins lineup is easier said than done — a process that both Ritchie and Cassidy can attest to. In his seven games with Boston, Ritchie primarily saw time with a pair of puck-dominant centers in David Krejci and Charlie Coyle. 

While both pivots have traditionally fared well when paired up with a physical presence on the wing, the results were lacking during Ritchie's first few games with his new club.

Ritchie + Krejci: 65:16 of 5v5 ice time together, Boston out-attempted 67-61 (47.66 CF%), minus-5 shot differential, outscored 3-1, 60.98 Off. Zone Faceoff Percentage

Ritchie + Coyle: 15:55 of 5v5 ice time together, Boston out-attempted 16-10 (38.46 CF%), minus-7 shot differential, outscored 2-0, 66.67 Off. Zone Faceoff Percentage

Granted, these numbers can be skewered some, especially with Coyle, thanks to a lack of regular reps. Still, given the abundance of favorable ice granted to these lines, it's not ideal, especially in a crucial middle-six role.

"I had an opportunity to play with both those guys for a couple games each," Ritchie said of Krejci and Coyle. "Obviously different players, but both smart centermen that like to have the puck and make plays. It's not too hard of an adjustment playing with them. It's only been, you know, some small-sample sizes, but I think there's been some good things and obviously some more chemistry to develop as we start playing here, hopefully."

Of course, having an extended stretch of games to foster chemistry and settle into new surroundings would benefit both Ritchie and another newcomer in Ondrej Kase, but such scenario might not be afforded to the Bruins during a potential return — especially if the NHL opts to jump right into the postseason with a 24-team tournament or another unorthodox format. 

“It depends on how many regular-season games we get to play,” Cassidy said last month of finding a window to experiment with his linemates. “We have the luxury and I use that term loosely because we’re in a solid position to tinker a little bit more than maybe another team that’s right on the bubble, but I don’t imagine we’re gonna have a lot of games to play if we don’t get right in the playoffs. So I think we’re going to have to pin it down right away, get back to going over who we feel is the best with who and again, I think our team strong no matter how we end up moving the wingers around.

“We got some new bodies, we use Richie and Kase as examples — we were trying to see where they best fit. At the end of the day, I do believe come playoff time that our guys will all be committed. All playing the same way — team first. So no matter what lines are out, I still think that we’ll be okay in that regard.”

Of course, things could click once training camps and scrimmages get underway in the next couple of months, or perhaps Ritchie settles into a groove on another line, especially if a player like Sean Kuraly is bumping up from his usual duties on the checking line or other shuffles.

Still, it all makes for a less-than-ideal situation for both Ritchie and Kase: a pair of players viewed by their new club as key cogs for a potential Cup run — but with little time afforded to carve out said roles.

"We've been talking — I actually talked to him yesterday a little," Ritchie said of Kase. "I talked to him a few times since this has started and we went our separate ways," Ritchie said. "But even back to when we did come over around the same time, we talked a lot those last couple weeks, about the differences and kind of got each other through it. And I think it was really nice having someone who came from the same team — that you're kind of going through the same process with a new team and a first-place team and all that kind of stuff. So it's really helped that way, and that we've learned a lot even in those couple weeks, and we're still learning, even though we're not there."