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If you care to include last year’s post-deadline five-game cameo with the club, forward
Brett Connolly has now played in nine games for the Boston Bruins. And in nine games with the club, the former sixth-overall pick has three assists, a minus-5, 17 hits, 10 minutes in penalties, and 15 shots on net. Perhaps most noticeably, though, is the zero that No. 14 has posted in the goal column.
“I see a top-six forward and then if you look at all his goals he’s a shooter. He’s a net front guy. He’ll go and get goals at the top of the blue,” then-GM
Peter Chiarelli said of Connolly upon his overnight acquisition from the Lightning last March. “He makes plays but he’s a shoot-first guy. I really like his release and he’s young and he’s growing. He’s going to be a top six player.”
The Bruins, at the time a goal-starved club without much skill on their right side in terms of natural right wingers, acquired Connolly for a number of reasons. The first, of course, was his shot. They were enamored with his shot and release off his stick, which seemed Horton-esque. And the second reason was that they viewed him as a top-six forward coming into his own and bogged down to third-line duty on a Tampa Bay Lightning club that simply didn’t have the space to put him on their first or second line.
But in his first full-year with the Bruins, Connolly started the year on the third line as the right-winger opposite Jimmy Hayes and center Ryan Spooner. (That line was a disaster.) Connolly’s since moved up a line by way of a Brad Marchand concussion that’s shelved No. 63 and shifted Loui Eriksson on over to the left wing and thus opened up his spot on the right side of the second line with Patrice Bergeron.
Where Connolly goes moving forward though remains a complete mystery.
“His game,” B’s coach
Claude Julien said on Monday when asked what he wants Connolly to bring to the Bergeron line. “I’d like for him to produce when he gets those opportunities.”
On the first Boston goal of last night’s 6-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche, Connolly recorded a secondary assist, too, but that came with David Krejci as his center, not Bergeron. ‘Cause of course. Connolly’s assist was a mere footnote compared to the night of Jimmy Hayes, who in his second game switched back to his natural right wing position, scored a goal and finished with four points.
So, again, where does this put Connolly when Marchand is ready to rejoin the Bergeron line?
Connolly, for as good of a physical game as he can bring on the forecheck and along the walls, is not a fourth-liner. And a single assist isn’t going to come close to bumping
David Pastrnak from Krejci’s right side, especially as No. 88 looks locked in as the Bruins’ top-line right-winger this season right now, too. Hayes looks at home on the right wing (after a non-show of a two-game stretch on the left wing) on a third line with Spooner and
Chris Kelly. That means that Connolly
could stay on the Bergeron line and maybe bump Eriksson down to the third line in Kelly’s spot -- a move that would seemingly dump Kelly back down to the fourth line -- but with Eriksson producing and Kelly skating in a pivotal role for that third line, that seems like a tough sell. At least to me.
It’s worth noting, too, that before Kelly’s insertion to Spooner’s left, I felt that Eriksson would be the savior to a third line that started the season as a complete black hole possession-wise. But with a top-six role finally to his name, it’d be downright wrong of the Bruins to bump Eriksson out of a spot he’s earned simply because of Connolly’s (untapped) potential and the struggles of two other guys.
Through nine games, here's what I can tell you about Connolly: He
does have a shot that can be an asset to the Bruins, though I've found that his ability to get it off quick enough has been an issue. He's been incredibly snakebitten through his B's tenure, too. And I still don't think that the Bruins have found the ideal center to feed him the puck, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that his best play has come with Krejci to his left. In essence, who knows?
“I’m going to play hard every night and my game is to, chip in offensively and create offense,” Connolly said on Monday when asked what fans can expect out of him. “It’s one of things where first game, [I] have a good chance and you know second game wasn’t very good and tonight I had a bunch of chances again. If you have a couple of those go in it’s a different story and maybe the game changes.
“[I’m] just looking to create offense and play hard and you know play hard for my teammates.”
Meanwhile, everybody in Boston -- from coaches, to teammates, to management -- are still trying to figure out the best way to learn exactly what they have in the Campbell River, B.C. born winger.
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 be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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