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Old habits die hard

October 1, 2014, 10:20 PM ET [78 Comments]
Ty Anderson
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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It’s the first of October, Opening Night is a week away, and the Boston Bruins have cut four more.

By most accounts, this would be yet another ho-hum day of training camp.

But the four heading down to Providence -- Ryan Spooner, Justin Florek, Alexander Khokhlachev, and goaltender Jeremy Smith -- aren’t exactly your usual suspects of late camp cuts (Smith excluded, no doubt). Khokhlachev’s return to the AHL for another year of seasoning (at least to start) comes as a slight surprise given his skill-set. Florek’s another one that could come as a surprise given his postseason play and ability to play a style that could give a definite boost to the Bruins’ fourth line.

But there’s not a bigger surprise than the one that comes with the 22-year-old Spooner, the talk of the preseason for reasons both good and bad, heading back down to the P-Bruins once again.

A second-round pick in the 2010 NHL Draft, Spooner has spent two full seasons with the club’s minor league affiliate, recording 28 goals and 103 points in 108 regular season games along with eight goals and 20 points in 24 postseason contests. That’s an impressive 36 goals and 123 points in 132 total games in the AHL. Now, we’ve been over this about a million times at this point (or at least it seems that way), but I don’t think there’s much to be gained by Spooner spending even more time toiling away as a near point-per-game talent in the minor leagues. In fact, it may hurt his overall development as an NHL-quality player.

At the same time, Spooner’s skill-set as a playmaking center puts him at a major disadvantage on a Boston roster that’s simply loaded down the middle. He’s not bumping David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, or even Carl Soderberg out of their strangleholds as pivots on one of the first three lines. That said, he’s an obvious upgrade over Gregory Campbell (who’s served as the B’s fourth-line center on the beloved ‘Merlot Line’ since coming to Boston via trade in 2010) in terms of skill, speed, and puck poise. But the things that Campbell does that Claude Julien loves -- read as: hit, fight, block shots, cover his guy -- are not Spooner’s strong suit.

That was a point that Julien really emphasized in subtle and not so subtle ways throughout the preseason. Julien spoke of Spooner’s own-zone troubles in the club’s loss to Montreal, and even him a defensive liability. To state the obvious, Julien would clearly like Campbell (who’s been out for most of training camp with a ‘core’ injury), back in the middle on that fourth line.

“You hope [Campbell] will be back soon. We don’t know when. We hope to see him on the ice sooner than later. He’s improving well, also,” Julien said after last night’s preseason loss to the Islanders. “Again, we’re going to have to make some decisions here with the season basically a week away. We’re going to have some decisions to make on who’s going to start here. And depending on the health of our team maybe some will start and won’t be here all year. Those are things you have to do when you’re put in that situation.”

He’s progressing, but the Bruins only have two more tune ups before next week’s home opener against the Philadelphia Flyers. Is that a realistic enough time frame to get No. 11 back into game-shape? For the sake of conversation (and this blog), let’s say it’s not. Who centers that fourth line? Chris Kelly, probably. That then opens up a wing spot on the Bruins’ third line, likely for Matt Fraser, David Pastrnak (maybe), Jordan Caron, or Simon Gagne. Or Bobby Robins.

Wait, what?

The 32-year-old Robins, a player that’s recorded nine goals compared to 687 minutes in penalties in 175 games with the Providence Bruins over the last three years, has outlasted the aforementioned trio of prospects with seemingly bright futures. He’s even competing for a spot on the team!

“I think the fact that he defends his teammates all the time and that he’s a good team player, then you add his work ethic and his commitment to playing hard every shift he’s out there, those are certainly things that gives him an opportunity to be looked at closely and gonna make our decisions tough,” Julien said of Robins’ style. “I think we have to be honest here, there’s some spots open. Some guys are taking advantage of it and really making a case for themselves and some others haven’t. It’s one of those kind of things, at the end of the day you’ve got to sit down and decide who you want to keep based on merit.”

Is this the same team that moved on from Shawn Thornton five months ago? You know, the team that finally became self-aware to the fact that the game is moving away from a style that requires you to have an enforcer in the lineup on a nightly basis and even admitted such as their main reason for letting a ‘team guy’ with a commendable ‘work ethic’ walk via free agency? This is that same team, right?

Robins may be a good team guy, and he’s certainly a hard worker, but he is not a player that should outlast Spooner, Florek, or Khokhlachev when it comes to battling for a roster spot on the 2014-15 Boston Bruins.

You don’t cut ties with Thornton, talk about your need for more speed and skill on your bottom six, and then turn around and replace him with another enforcer. Make no mistake about it, the Bruins’ fourth line was bad in their seven-game series loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Like, historically bad. By the end of it, you couldn’t even trust them to get the puck out of their own zone. Montreal skaters ate them up with speed and skill. If the Bruins were serious about improving on that, they’d add more speed and skill on that line.

Is Spooner a traditional fourth-line talent? Historically, no. But you do what you can with what you have, and I don’t think the Bruins are doing that right now. Now on the flip side, do I think Bruins fans overrate Spooner? Without a doubt. And did he have a great camp? I would argue not. But this is still a player that gives you what you opined about not having after your second-round exit in a Presidents’ Trophy winning year and one that by all means appears to be the most NHL ready of all the prospects in the pipeline. Stashing that away in Providence and hoping for an injury to strike so that you can give him a shot at top-six minutes (his natural role, you'd say) does not make you a better club in the now.

At the end of the day, there’s a good chance that Robins ends up with Spooner and company in Providence, and this entire thing is moot. But if the Bruins were seriously committing themselves to adapting to a faster, shiftier NHL, then a guy like Spooner is not somebody that’s cut before a veteran, journeyman enforcer.

Period.

Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
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