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Camp is just around the corner, but the Boston Bruins are not done yet. The latest addition to the group? Veteran forward
Peter Mueller, who will join the club on a professional tryout.
Mueller, who was drafted by the Arizona Coyotes with the eighth overall back in 2006, has not skated in the NHL since the lockout-delayed 2012-13 season, and most recently skated with the Malmo Redhawks (Swedish Hockey League) after spending the previous two seasons in the Swiss League.
In his first year with Malmo, the 28-year-old connected for 13 goals (third-most on the team) and 25 points (second to only Nils Andersson’s team-leading 30 points) in 43 games played. This three-year stint in Europe has been relatively kind to Mueller in his professional career, too, and was headlined by his 24-goal, 46-point (third-most in the league) run with the Kloten Flyers HC (Swiss) in 2013-14.
The Bloomington, Minn., native parlayed that successful 2013-14 Swiss season into an appearance for the United States in the 2014 World Championships in Belarus, where he scored one goal and four points in eight games, and then signed a one-year, two-way deal with the St. Louis Blues. But when Mueller failed to crack the team’s top-nine out of training camp, and without a real burning desire to skate and ride the bus with the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League, Mueller and the Blues decided to terminate the agreement, and Mueller returned for another season with Kloten HC.
Two years later and the 6-foot-2 forward is giving it yet another NHL crack, this time with the Bruins.
The simple question: does Mueller have anything left in the tank to make things interesting for the Black and Gold’s coaching staff? Perhaps. But his work is without question cut out for him. Although the Bruins are not necessarily stacked on the right side -- David Pastrnak and Jimmy Hayes are the two natural NHL right-wings while David Backes and Frank Vatrano can be shifted to the right side and Seth Griffith is expected to make his biggest push yet for an NHL gig -- there’s no shortage of bodies.
At the same time, there isn’t a definitive answer on the right side of things aside from Pastrnak’s (likely) positioning on David Krejci’s wing for the Bruins, especially with the Bruins continuing to peddle out the notion that Backes will skate as the team’s third-line center, so adding another name to the mix makes sense for the club. However, it is worth noting that the B’s will be without Backes, Pastrnak, Patrice Bergeron, and Brad Marchand, so maybe Mueller, who scored eight goals and 17 points in 43 games with Florida in 2012-13, is merely a placeholder for those NHL preseason tilts.
But the Bruins have had back-to-back camps with successful tryout attendees -- goaltender Jonas Gustavsson was signed out of training camp last year while veteran forward Simon Gagne, after a year away from hockey, was inked to a one-year deal the year before -- so maybe Mueller has a shot.
For Mueller, it’s a legitimate opportunity at getting back into the league. For the B’s, it’s a no-risk, potential reward situation with a player that’s scored 67 goals and 160 points in 297 NHL games.
Bruins main training camp opens on Sept. 22.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can also be read in the New England Hockey Journal magazine. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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