The Boston Bruins begin their regular season Oct 3. The team isn’t expected to add any other pieces. It will start the season as it is right now without further new faces in the locker room. However, is there one more important question left?
Will Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo be under the contracts for the opening night in Dallas? If only we had an answer. But let’s look at the Bruins options if that doesn’t happen. What would the Bruins roll with on their blue line for that opening game of the campaign, and for that four-game road trip as well?
Torey Krug, Connor Clifton, Steven Kampfer, and Matt Grzelcyk should be all ready to go. Zdeno Chara couldn’t confirm he will be ready, but he believes so. Krug suffered an injury in the training camp which forced him to miss eight games at the beginning of the season last year, hopefully, that won’t complicate things this time around for Boston.
Take in mind that both Kevan Miller and John Moore are likely not to be healthy to start the campaign with their respective injuries. After all, one of them might be shipped before the season starts to free up the salary cap space. To sum this up, they might not be good to go in Dallas.
The Bruins would have to do a bit of improvisation then. There is the Alex Petrovic experiment for the Bruins. So let’s predict the worst-case scenario defensive lineup for the Bruins in Dallas to face the Stars:
Zdeno Chara (?) – Steven Kampfer
Torey Krug – Connor Clifton
Matt Grzelcyk – Jeremy Lauzon
Urho Vaakanainen – (Alex Petrovic)
Without McAvoy, Carlo, Miller or Moore, this would probably be the best guess of the Bruins opening night defense. Vaakanainen would serve as the seventh defenseman and Petrovic, possibly, as the eighth defenseman. After all, it’s a long four-game road trip to the west. Making a quick call up from Providence wouldn’t be so smooth if it was needed.
However, there is a big believer that the Boston Bruins will have at least one of their restricted free agent defensemen signed to be ready for that game against the Dallas Stars. Nevertheless, last year in Dallas, the Bruins Clifton and Jakub Zboril debuted in the NHL. Ironically, the Stars might witness another piece of huge improvisation from the Bruins during their lone home game versus Boston.
