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With a two-year playoff absence to their name, the Boston Bruins are admittedly done rewarding past accomplishments, and have fully embraced the idea of a ‘healthy’ but combative competition. In fact, it’s a been a near month-long tryout for many, if not all, in a black and gold sweater.
Such is especially true on the club’s back-end, as the entirely-too-long summer came and went without a true top-four presence brought into the mix via trade or free agency. That battle was on display in the club’s preseason finale, a 1-0 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers in a rare Sat. afternoon game in Boston, too. And defensive prospects
Brandon Carlo and
Robbie O’Gara, along with veteran journeyman defenseman
Christian Ehrhoff, a late addition to camp on a professional tryout after a solid showing for Team Europe at the World Cup of Hockey last month, headlined that competition like they have for much of Boston’s main camp.
Carlo was slotted on Boston’s top-pairing next to
Zdeno Chara and matched up against the Claude Giroux line throughout the night. O’Gara played a complementary, simplified role on the third-pairing. And the 34-year-old Ehrhoff skated as a steadying offensive presence on the club’s second pairing next to
Kevan Miller and as the puck-mover on the second power-play unit.
It’s easy to find justification for any one of the three to make the NHL club out of the gate, too.
The 19-year-old Carlo is far from experienced, yes, but at 6-foot-5 and with a strong skating game, it’s easy to see how the former second-round pick from 2015 could fit into Boston’s plans. The Bruins, with
Bruce Cassidy now with the team as an assistant coach, have spent a great deal of this training camp emphasizing the potential impact of their defensemen challenging opponents at their own blue line instead of simply caving into the defensive zone. That, along with an impressive ability to eliminate space and hang with quick-moving forwards, is a noticeable plus in Carlo’s game.
O’Gara, seasoned with four years of college hockey at Yale University and a five-game cameo with the Providence Bruins last year, plays a generally mistake-free game complete with physicality and some of the quick-thinking d-zone moves the Bruins have envisioned for their defenders this year.
“They were good,” Julien said of Carlo and O’Gara following Saturday’s win. “I think early on, the first couple of shifts they looked a little nervous, this was as big a game as they have been involved in with the full roster on both sides but I thought they got better and better as the game went on. They made some good decisions at moving the puck under pressure and everything else.”
Then there’s Ehrhoff, who finished the preseason with one goal and an assist in three preseason tilts while trying to learn the B’s system on the fly after a crazy two-years plus run that’s seen him skate for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks, Team Europe, and now Boston.
“It’s definitely not that easy, especially being last-minute in the camp,” Ehrhoff admitted of jumping into Boston’s mix. “You know there is probably 50 guys at the beginning you shake hands with and you got to try to remember the names and then obviously it’s a system you got to learn and adjust to and fit in right away. It’s definitely not easy, but I tried my best and that’s all I can ask from myself.”
Still, a signed Ehrhoff would likely jump into games as Boston’s second-best offensive defenseman, and as a much-needed complementary presence to help complete Krug’s jump into a top-four role.
But the biggest obstacle facing a Carlo, Ehrhoff, or O’Gara?
The Bruins already have seven defensemen signed to NHL contracts.
Chara,
Torey Krug,
John-Michael Liles,
Adam McQuaid,
Colin Miller,
Kevan Miller, and
Joe Morrow are all on the B’s roster with one-way contracts. In order for the Bruins to clear one of those seven off the roster and create space for one of the aspiring Big B’s d-men, they’ll have to hit the waiver wire -- which risks the Bruins losing a player for nothing -- or move them via trade. They also have the option of placing a player on the long-term injured reserve, but they’re all healthy, with the exception of McQuaid, who missed the last days of camp with an undisclosed (but seemingly minor) ailment, so that would seem unlikely.
It’s worth noting that the club did carry eight defensemen on a somewhat regular basis last year with varying results (the limited ice-time appeared to hurt developing d-men like Colin Miller and Morrow more than it helped), so there’s likely one spot to be had between for one third of the vying trio.
But it should not come as a shock if the Black and Gold decide to simply exercise options on players that, well, have options. It’d be easy, if not probable, for the Bruins to elect to begin the professional career of either Carlo or O’Gara -- or maybe even both -- in a pressure-free, development-heavy spot in the AHL while giving it one more go with the group from a year ago, at least to begin their season.
“It’s never a bad thing,” Julien said of a player like Carlo or O’Gara beginning the year in the minors with the P-Bruins versus an immediate spot in the NHL. “I think the big thing is the player has got to accept it and take it the right way and go there and work his way back up. I think there’s a lot of guys here that I think will play in the NHL one day that may not start here but I really feel they’re NHLers, they just need to go down there and polish their games. That’s what they got to do, the guys that aren’t going to start here, the rest of the players that we have here I think all have great potential. It’s just that we can only keep 23. Some guys have to go there and polish their games and make sure they give themselves a chance and sometime if it’s not here it’s somewhere else.
“There’s a lot of NHL potential players that are still here, they got to look at it that way.”
In other news, Philadelphia defenseman
Radko Gudas was offered an in-person hearing for his hit on Bruins center
Austin Czarnik in Saturday’s preseason game at TD Garden. Gudas, a repeat offender suspended for three games in Dec. 2015, declined the hearing and will instead have a hearing over the phone. Typically speaking, in-person hearings -- or at the very least, the request for an in-person hearing with a player -- tend to come with a suspension of at least five games.
The Bruins did not practice on Sunday and the team has yet to release an update on Czarnik.
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.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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