Bruins banking on upside with their deadline haul of gamers, picks
Bruins
The Bruins are hoping that gamers like Casey Mittelstadt, Fraser Minten, and Marat Khusnutdinov can turn into lineup regulars.
The Boston Bruins’ dressing room at Warrior Ice Enviornment goes to look very completely different subsequent week.
Within the span of only a few days, Don Sweeney and Boston’s high brass dismantled important parts of their roster, finally dealing away:
- Brad Marchand
- Brandon Carlo
- Charlie Coyle
- Trent Frederic
- Justin Brazeau
- Max Jones
- Marc McLaughlin
In return, the Bruins secured a number of draft picks and some new additions to the lineup:
- Casey Mittelstadt
- Fraser Minten
- Marat Khusnutdinov
- Henri Jokiharju
- Jakub Lauko
- Max Wanner
- Will Zellers
- Daniil Misyul
- 2025 second-round choose (Blues)
- 2025 second-round choose (Colorado)
- 2025 fourth-round choose (Philadelphia)
- 2026 first-round choose
- 2027 conditional second-round choose (Florida)
The Bruins’ new haul of picks stands as one of the best ways for Boston to speed up its retool — be it by means of replenishing their prospect pipeline or utilizing a few of that capital to amass confirmed NHL expertise this summer season.
However talking after the mud had settled on Friday night, Sweeney acknowledged that Boston’s new gamers ought to have the ability to shortly affect this augmented grouping.
“The gamers that we’ve recognized — Casey coming in straight away addresses among the skillset wants that you simply take a look at with our energy play that we have to enhance upon. And middle ice is an space that we’re attempting to begin to drive play. And he has a ability set for that.
“Fraser Minton, from a draft standpoint, and the way a lot we valued his talents, has quite a lot of the Charlie Coyle qualities as a participant — and the management qualities that we recognized on the draft and subsequently afterward. Once more, I hope he grows into [Coyle] — due to the excessive regard that I’ve for Charlie.”
With the trio of Mittelstadt, Minten, and Khusnutdinov, the Bruins are banking on the advantages of each a change of surroundings and the pure upside nonetheless current in a grouping of gamers with a mean age of twenty-two years outdated.
Mittelstadt isn’t reduce from the identical fabric as a big-boded Coyle. However the 26-year-old ahead provides up among the ability and playmaking abilities that have been sorely missing on a Bruins roster that’s simply 5-23-5 when scoring fewer than three targets this season.
The eighth-overall choose within the 2017 NHL Draft, Mittelstadt has struggled to search out his sport this season with Colorado — scoring 11 targets and 34 factors over 63 video games.
However within the earlier two years, he posted 59 and 57 factors between the Sabres and Avalanche, with the Bruins set to prescribe extra O-zone begins and power-play reps for Mittelstadt transferring ahead.
“It’s what the scouts and stuff do each evening, once they’re at video games. They’re attempting to establish the gamers, perhaps being utilized in a special position. Can he play a little bit completely different position in our surroundings with extra alternative? And Casey is perhaps, hopefully, the subsequent instance of that,” Sweeney stated.
“Wasn’t taking part in on their major energy play, which he was in Buffalo and doing an excellent job. … We made a commerce the place it’s Mittelstadt and Coyle. They’re completely different gamers. We now have an space that we wish to handle.”
Minten is perhaps the youngest of Boston’s subsequent crop of gamers at simply 20 years outdated. However the Maple Leafs’ high prospect has already logged 19 video games on the NHL degree — scoring a pair of targets and posting 4 factors.
Minten’s early arrival to the NHL ranks was a byproduct of his excessive motor, with the ahead projecting as a gentle middle-six common in due time.
“He has matchup capabilities, he’s obtained bodily energy, he skates effectively, shoots the puck effectively, management roles that he’s had in his earlier staff,” Sweeney stated of Minten. “Been speaking to the individuals which were across the Marlies and the Leafs now, he’s a assured child in that regard, comfy together with his personal pores and skin to exit and play to the extent and into his skillset, albeit desires to proceed to enhance. So we’re enthusiastic about what his upside is.”
Even a participant whose numbers haven’t popped within the NHL in Khusnutdinov (11 factors in 73 video games) shall be in search of a contemporary begin in Boston — together with his skating capability and manufacturing abroad (75 factors in 162 video games within the KHL) providing hope that he has extra to offer with a staff like Boston.
The Bruins nonetheless have loads of work to do in terms of rebuilding their roster and surrounding franchise fixtures like David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy with impactful, high-end expertise.
Extra rising pains are to be anticipated for Boston — be it for the rest of this season or within the years forward. However the Bruins consider that this subsequent wave of expertise has rather a lot to right away provide a Bruins staff in want of extra playmaking poise and velocity.
“Stylistically — Mittelstadt, is a departure to a point,” Sweeney famous. “, fascinated about buying and selling Charlie Coyle and the identities that he brings to the desk and what Mittelstadt would possibly … they’re completely different gamers, and we’ve been void a little bit little bit of that.”
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