Boston Bruins rookie camp is less than a month away as the NHL world finishes up their summer vacations and get ready for the task at hand with training camps looming around the league in September. That makes it a perfect time of year to answer a number of burning Bruins questions that the franchise faces headed into camp, and the storylines we expect to play out prior to Boston’s opening night against the New York Rangers on Sept. 29 at TD Garden.
Here are the top five questions facing the Black and Gold as we turn toward training camp sooner rather than later:
1. How much impact will 19-year-old James Hagens make at the NHL level next season?
The teenager doesn’t turn 20 years old until November and will be well into his first full NHL campaign before he leaves his teen years behind, and that’s probably an important perspective to keep with a player that will enter with a ton of expectations. Hagens played for five different teams at five different levels last season, with Boston College, the IIHF World Juniors, the Providence Bruins, the Boston Bruins, and the IIHF World Championships all on his resume, making for a busy season of development. He finished with one goal and five points in eight pro games between the AHL and NHL level, and he was fairly quiet during his stint for Team USA at the World Championships, so the biggest task for him this season is going to be making a major impact offensively while very likely starting out on the wing. The big question is what line is he going to end up on and who is he going to play with, as it’s a foregone conclusion at this point that he’s locked up an NHL roster spot ahead of first training camp. Will he be good enough off the drop to secure a top 6 spot and replace the offensive production that Viktor Arvidsson took with him to Detroit? Certainly, he’ll be doing it in a different way than Arvidsson, but the bet here is that JJ Peterka and Hagens are going to provide an offensive bump to a group that’s looking to score more goals and create more offense next season.
2. Who will Charlie McAvoy’s defense partner be this season?
This will be one of the key factors for the Bruins season, and the most frustrating part is that we won’t really have an answer over the season’s first few weeks since McAvoy will be missing that time frame serving out a six-game suspension for his stick-swinging incident with Zach Benson at the end of the Buffalo playoff series. The obvious choice is Jonathan Aspirot after the two worked well together for long stretches of last season, but Aspirot did understandably show some cracks in his game down the stretch when the game pressure got amped up, and when the opponent level rose significantly during the postseason. Still, there should also be consideration set aside for