PROVIDENCE – The Bruins brass viewed this AHL playoff run for their Providence farm team as an excellent way to gauge their current crop of up-and-coming prospects.
They showed some mettle and character by coming back from an early deficit to advance in the best-of-three first-round series against the Springfield Thunderbirds, but it’s been a different story against a quality Charlotte Checkers club in the second round. The P-Bruins dropped a 5-1 Game 1 on Friday night that they were never really in at all, and couldn’t do nearly enough to salvage their home ice opportunities with a 2-0 loss in Game 2 on Sunday night at Amica Mutual Pavilion.
The obvious, usual suspects have shown up for the P-Bruins as Oliver Wahlstrom scored the only goal in Game 1, and guys like Vinni Lettieri, Patrick Brown, Jeffrey Viel and Tyler Pitlick showed up for Game 2. Even some youngsters stood out to this hockey observer, like Matt Poitras with a team-high four shots on net while playing a rugged playoff-style game and Frederic Brunet playing some dynamic hockey from the back end.
But there have been other young P-Bruins players who simply aren’t passing this hockey litmus test in the postseason. This is something that Providence Bruins head coach Ryan Mougenel easily and quickly called out after Sunday’s game with the P-Bruins down 0-2 in the best-of-five series and headed to the favored Charlotte team’s barn for the rest of his playoff series.
“Our group has been really resilient this year and I haven’t complained about how we’ve had to compete. I didn’t like some of our compete tonight and it’s a little disappointing, but I know it’s something where this group can turn it around,” said Mougenel. “It’s a group that has great veteran leaders and some young guys that are full of life and we’ve got to keep playing our game where we’ve had success. I feel like we’ve gotten away from that.”
The bright side is that 20-year-old Poitras has shown some very good signs throughout this playoff run, and showed he can step it up like he did with a two-goal performance in the decisive Game 3 of Providence's first-round series.
🚨 Matthew Poitras with his second of the game!@AHLBruins | @NHLBruins#AHL #CalderCup #AHLBruins #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/yRnVXaycmT
— FloHockey (@FloHockey) April 27, 2025
So where is Mougenel looking at in the compete department?
Well, one player has to be 22-year-old Fabian Lysell, who had zero shots on net in Sunday night’s loss and has just one assist in five AHL playoff games thus far. It was jarring to watch Vinni Lettieri acting as the PP puck carries on the delayed zone entry while skating speed and reckless abandon entering the zone, and then see Lysell not skating with the same fearlessness and then unsuccessfully trying to draw a couple of tripping calls at points during the game.
Those kinds of things stick out in an AHL playoff setting.
Dans Locmelis made a big first impression at the AHL level with 12 points in his first six AHL games after signing out of UMass but had just one point in four AHL playoff games and didn’t look quite ready for the upped compete level and physicality.
Locmelis opted to go play for Latvia in the World Championships and won’t be a part of the rest of the AHL playoffs, but there are other youngsters like Riley Duran, Trevor Kuntar, John Farinacci, Ty Gallagher and Fraser Minten that can make an impact on these games. The message from Bruins management is that these setting are where the P-Bruins youngsters build their reputations, and it hasn’t been enough in the first couple of games against a Checkers team that features familiar NHL names like Kappo Kahkonen, Rasmus Asplund and Jesse Puljujarvi among others.
“I had a great talk with [Bruins assistant coach] Chris Kelly today and he’s a guy that’s won a lot…he’s won a Stanley Cup. He was at the game the other night and there were things he saw that we addressed that were bleeding into our game,” said Mougenel. “But the thing he said to me is that ‘in the regular season you earn a paycheck, and the playoffs are about your reputation.’ That was the message to the guys today: We want to see you play in meaningful games and we want to see you play like a man. You’re going to get hooked and you’re going to get bumped, and you’ve got to fight through it.
“Some guys fought through it and some guys didn’t it. That’s about being a pro and just being a man and playing like a man.”
That’s some pretty real talk from a promising, young coach in Mougenel that should absolutely get some consideration in the upcoming job search for the new head coach in Boston.
The bad news is that some young P-Bruins skaters haven’t passed the test through a couple of games in this AHL playoff series. The good news is that they will get at least one more crack as the series moves to Charlotte this week with Providence facing another elimination game after staring down that barrel in the first round.
ONE TIMERS
*Some serious déjà vu watching the St. Louis blow a 3-1 lead in Game 7 against the Winnipeg Jets while surrendering a pair of 6-on-5 goals with Connor Hellebuyck pulled from the game for the extra skater.
This was a serious problem all season for the St. Louis Blues and was a major issue for the Boston Bruins under Jim Montgomery’s three years in Boston as well. It’s also something Monty didn’t want to talk about much after the stunning Game 7 loss where he once again was on the short side of it during a big moment in the playoffs.
“I’ve had a few of them. I’ve had Game 7 overtime losses,” said Montgomery. “Anytime your season it’s painful. [The 6-on-5 situations] are an area of our team that hasn’t been good all year and it’s an area I have to get better at so my team is better in those pulled goalie situations.
“I don’t want to continue to talk about the 6-on-5s. We’ll analyze it and we’ll get better, okay? But right now, the season is over. We can analyze it at the end of the year.”
Head Coach Jim Montgomery speaks to the media after Game 7. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/QfTKuvoyHE
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) May 5, 2025
Nobody is saying that Montgomery isn’t a solid hockey coach and he’s a good person that’s to be commended for obstacles he’s overcome in his career. But there were on-ice reasons related to playoff performance that led Boston to believe Montgomery might not be the right coach for the Black and Gold, the Game 7 collapse for St. Louis was another piece of evidence that they were bang on in letting the coach go.