With the NHL roster deadline at 5 p.m. on Monday now come and gone, we have our full look at the players that Bruce Cassidy and his staff will roll with to open the 2021-22 NHL season.
Here is Boston’s initial roster:
Forwards: Patrice Bergeron, Anton Blidh, Charlie Coyle, Jake DeBrusk, Nick Foligno, Trent Frederic, Taylor Hall, Erik Haula, Karson Kuhlman, Curtis Lazar*, Brad Marchand, Tomas Nosek, David Pastrnak and Craig Smith.
Defenseman: Brandon Carlo, Connor Clifton, Derek Forbort, Matt Grzelcyk, Charlie McAvoy, John Moore, Mike Reilly and Jakub Zboril
Goaltenders: Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman
*Injured Reserve
With the pieces now in place for Saturday’s season opener against the Dallas Stars, here are a few quick thoughts on the roster that the B’s constructed and pared down over the last few weeks.
No major surprises
After Boston’s embrace of a youth movement proved to be its undoing during the 2021 season, it was to be expected that Don Sweeney and Co. were going to switch gears in an effort to restock this roster in what could be one of the final Cup runs with this current core in place.
Rather than place their hopes in youngsters like Jakub Zboril, Urho Vaakanainen, Anders Bjork and others taking major steps forward and shoring up vacancies up and down the depth chart – Boston instead doled out close to $45 million in total salary to bring aboard established NHLers via free agency in Linus Ullmark, Derek Forbort, Nick Foligno, Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek.
And even though training camp and preseason action is often the time in which lineup experimentation and speculation regarding roster battles reaches its apex — the truth of the matter is that this was never going to be a camp filled with twists and turns for the Bruins.
Of course, given the amount of turnover on the roster and the stakes involved with filling spots vacated by both Tuukka Rask and David Krejci, there was plenty of intrigue as to what kind of roster Boston really had here. But the usual discourse that comes with camp as far as rookies pushing for spots or some dark-horse candidates supplanting NHL regulars on the roster was hushed long before the B’s submitted their final roster on Monday.
The plan wasn’t for Brady Lyle to push Connor Clifton for a third-pairing spot on the right side. And as impressive as Jack Studnicka was all preseason, his chances of winning a coveted spot on that second line were negated as soon as Charlie Coyle touched the ice on Wednesday in Boston’s preseason finale.
"I mean, we were gonna let them work through it anyway,” Cassidy said of Coyle settling in on a second line with Taylor Hall and Craig Smith, adding: "I don't think you should throw something out the window in one game but yes, you want guys to sort of get going quickly, get up to speed with each other's nuances and those little things and I still think that it'll take some time. … It's not a whole new line like the Haula line. But it was good to see them play off one another. They've got some work to do. That's one game and they'll get that opportunity.”
Sure, the Bruins decision to waive Chris Wagner and John Moore turned a few heads this weekend, but in hindsight, Boston sure telegraphed such a move — with Wagner rarely earning reps with fourth-line regulars in Nosek and Trent Frederic all preseason.
Many teams spend all camp and preseason looking for answers when it comes to filling out their roster. But based on Boston’s spending spree in August, they believed they found said answers in free agency — leading to n ramp-up to the season with plenty of intrigue, but very little in terms of tangible surprises.
No need to overreact to Studnicka’s demotion
Did Jack Studnicka do everything that was asked of him this preseason? Pretty much.
Is his subsequent assignment to Providence an indictment on his own individual play? Certainly not.
Echoing the sentiments shared above, Studnicka not making the cut on the NHL roster might be disappointing to some Bruins fans, but the move has pretty much been mapped out for the past week by Cassidy.
Ultimately, the only true factors to weigh when it comes to how Studnicka found himself in this spot are waivers and personnel — both things that were completely out of the 22-year-old forward’s control.
As Cassidy stressed multiple times, if Studnicka was somehow going to land a spot with the Bruins out of camp, it wasn’t going to be relegated to the wing — especially in a fourth-line, checking role.
Boston wants to keep Studnicka down the middle, and even though Cassidy regularly praised the youngster’s adherence to the finer details of his game, the B's wants to utilize that high-end skill in a top-nine role — whenever said opportunity becomes available.
That opportunity did not come to fruition this preseason — not with Coyle back healthy and holding his own last Wednesday, and not with Haula playing with pace on a third line next to Foligno and Jake DeBrusk.
Add in the fact that Boston could assign Studnicka to Providence without the threat of waivers, and the decision to hand him top-six reps down in Providence for the time being sure seemed like a no-brainer for the B’s.
It has to be a frustrating conclusion for Studnicka after a very, very strong couple of weeks — but Studnicka stans should find some solace in the fact that the young pivot will be the first man up when Cassidy inevitably makes some tweaks in the top nine.
An opportunity will be there for Studnicka — just not at this juncture of the season.
Kuhlman will be first man up on fourth line
With Curtis Lazar’s status still undetermined beyond just a week-to-week designation, it appears as though Karson Kuhlman will get the first looks at 4RW next to Nosek and Frederic.
For Cassidy, Kuhlman’s pace and forechecking ability could make him an effective complement to a north-south pivot like Nosek — but with plenty of other checking-line candidates knocking at the door in Providence (Jakub Lauko, Oskar Steen, etc.), Kuhlman isn't going to have a lot of time to make a good impression with regular minutes.
“How does he impact the game the best — usually with his foot speed and we're asking him to be a little greasier in that regard,” Cassidy said of Kuhlman. "Maybe going to the net with more of a purpose when you have a chance to create some anxiety around the net. Playing a little bigger in terms of finishing checks. He'll arrive on time and have a good stick and foot speed and he takes good angles and I think it's tough sometimes for a smaller guy to impact, but there are defensemen out there — the Grizzes of the world — that are on other teams that he can be physical against.
“So those are the areas we try to encourage him and sometimes it'll drop off. He'll lose some of that edge. All of a sudden, it's 'Where was Kuhly tonight? We needed a little more in the second period when we were flat,' ... "So that's the ask of Kuhly. Hopefully he can contribute a little more offensively. I think Nosek is a little more of a give-and-go player than maybe Kuraly, so maybe there's some chemistry that could develop there over time."
One last shoe to drop?
The NHL roster might be set, but there’s still one final question that needs to be addressed over the next few days.
Who’s going to get the start in net for Saturday’s season opener — and how does Boston plan on splitting up reps between Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark?
As we noted last week, Swayman has been the better netminder between the two during preseason action — and is more than deserving of getting the nod on Saturday.
But so far, Cassidy has kept his cards close to his chest when it comes to Saturday’s starter — and just how Boston plans to divvy up the starts with its new-look goalie corps.
"Probably less clarity on that than there's ever been, because of the newness of Linus. And quite frankly, the newness of Jeremy as well,” Cassidy said of setting up the framework for reps between Ullmark and Swayman. “He's played 10 games. So you're talking about a lot of unknowns in terms of who can handle it on a regular basis.
We know Linus has in Buffalo, we believe Jeremy can here — but again, it hasn't happened. So I honestly think it's a month-to-month (process) and then breaking it down week-to-week. I don't think for Swayman there's any where we go 'Oh geez, he's really played well in this building or that building,' because he's only probably played in a handful of them. Linus? Maybe. He might be a guy with terrific numbers against the New York Rangers where we look up and say 'Okay, well he's got to get those' or Toronto in our division, whatever, a team in Tampa we play a little more."
Stay tuned.