BRIGHTON – It was easy to spot the wide smile on the face of Matt Poitras this week at Boston Bruins development camp as he was back in his element on the ice after months rehabbing from shoulder surgery that cut short his hockey season back in February.
The 20-year-old went through the first three days of dev camp workouts without restrictions before the B’s pulled him from Thursday’s full contact scrimmage session finale for precautionary reasons. Poitras looked solid in camp among his younger college hockey and prospect peers even if he wasn’t quite the dominant force one might expect him to be as the only player with real NHL experience in the prospect group.
Some of that was most definitely rust from a five-month hockey layoff, and some of it might be that Poitras isn’t quite the same brash, confident playmaker that he was a year ago when he was on the way to surprising everybody and winning an NHL roster spot. Poitras was dominant at that Bruins development camp a summer ago whereas this one was more about being healthy and continuing to get ready for next year.
“He’s doing good. It was a great week for him. I know he enjoyed it getting back with the guys and probably being around some guys closer to his age,” said Bruins Player Development Coordinator Adam McQuaid. “Nothing concerning there.”
More importantly, Poitras said he’s packed on 8-9 pounds headed into this summer as he looks to build up his strength and stamina after getting knocked around a bit as a 19-year-old in the best hockey league in the world. It's a key detail for a player who didn't look completely physically ready for the challenge of the daily NHL rigors once the adrenaline wore off after his initial surprise push to win a roster spot.
“[Shoulder surgery rehab] was a good time to just get in the gym and put some weight on. I put some weight on and feel thicker,” said Poitras. “I need to put on a bit of size. I came into camp last year definitely undersized. There are some bigger guys that maybe I couldn’t hold my own [physically] against as much.
“I’m trying this year to be a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger and to choose my spots a bit more because, sometimes I would take some big hits that were unnecessary. Maybe that’s why I didn’t really get the chance of finishing [the] season [because of injury].”
The 5-foot-11, 180-pounder is going to need that physical strength and body mass for puck battles and to simply absorb the physical pounding at the NHL level, and if he hopes to remain healthy with a possible third-line center gig on the line next season.
Matt Poitras goes down the tunnel after this collision.
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) January 10, 2024
Was grabbing his shoulder: pic.twitter.com/QvCPK2zT2n
He’ll need it to keep building on the five goals and 15 points in 33 games last season and bypass the wall that Poitras seemed to hit in terms of both confidence and production in the second half of last season. That's in addition to the continued improvement that the 20-year-old is going to need to make in his skating game that's probably the biggest area where he'll need to improve to continue on a trajectory as an impact player at the National Hockey League level.
"He just seemed to get better and fit in with each successive game and opportunity he got." @adampellerin, @AndyBrickley and @BJaffe on Matt Poitras' early success last season and how he can continue to improve post-injury. pic.twitter.com/0ulTjXW70T
— NESN (@NESN) July 2, 2024
“I want to be able to win those one-on-one battles because I’m a guy who likes to have the puck now in the zone. That’s where it stems from,” said Poitras. “I pride myself on not being scared to go in the corners with bigger guys. Part of my game is that I can play and win those battles. It’s part of my game where I want to have the puck on my stick and if I want to do that, then I got to be able to get inside hands and win wall battles.”
It's important to note that, despite a second half that wasn’t quite as encouraging as the first half, the Bruins have continued to consistently mention Poitras’ name when they discuss the center position in Boston at the NHL level next season, whether it was before, during or after bringing in frontline pivot Elias Lindholm on a substantial seven-year contract.
“You start to realize [with Elias Lindholm coming into the fold], like there's a little bit of ‘Okay that's a little bit what we had what we missed [at the center position]. And that's not taking anything away from those guys I mentioned because to me, you know, [Morgan Geekie], [Trent Frederic] play the [center] position, [Matt Poitras]’s obviously learning the position. [Mark] Kastelic comes in, [Johnny Beecher] has been there,” said Don Sweeney. “I think we have a lot more flexibility and versatility for [Jim Montgomery] to sort of play around with his lines in that regard.
“Knowing if we have injuries guys can go in and slot in, much harder to take a winger and put him in the middle of the ice. It's much easier to take a center and push him to the wing from a production standpoint.”
Sweeney’s game plan is plainly obvious by the number of centers that the Bruins collect within their NHL forward depth while liberally deploying them on the wing as needed. Poitras is still a significant part of the plan as they stockpile forwards that play center amongst the NHL forward group including Charlie Coyle, Pavel Zacha, Geekie, Frederic, Kastelic and Beecher along with Poitras entering his second pro hockey season.
This is what the Bruins' opening night forward lineup could look like based on projections at this point with the NHL regular season admittedly still three months away:
Zacha-Lindholm-Pastrnak
Marchand-Coyle-Geekie
Brazeau-Poitras-Frederic
Jones-Kastelic-Beecher
Clearly, it’s a good opportunity to ease Poitras into the lineup on the third line while coming back from an up-and-down rookie season, but there’s also plenty of insurance policies at the center spot if Poitras needs more development time at the AHL level. But that’s a story for a different day as there will be ample time to evaluate Poitras after a summer of preparation for the golden opportunity waiting for him in training camp.
The good news is that the Bruins liked what they saw of a healthy Poitras at development camp at the start of an important six-month stretch for the playmaking center where he’ll get every chance to show he can build off the promise of an impressive rookie season where he opened a lot of eyes.
