BRIGHTON, Mass – The Bruins had waited and gave a long look before making their first substantial cuts in training camp, but they have done that after Saturday’s mistake-filled preseason loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
The timing clearly had more to do with the opening of Providence Bruins on Monday morning than a lifeless performance in the preseason, but it feels like for some players that their underperformance on Saturday led to them being cut from NHL camp. Youngsters Anton Blidh, Colby Cave, Jesse Gabrielle, Justin Hickman, Zane McIntyre, Zach Senyshyn and Jakub Zboril have all been sent to P-Bruins camp for its start on Monday morning, and they’ll be joined by fellow camp participants Chris Breen, Connor Clifton, Taylor Doherty, Colton Hargrove and Chris Porter that were in Boston’s camp on minor league contracts. McIntyre gave up four goals in the loss to the Red Wings before getting pulled in favor of Malcolm Subban for the third period, and talented young first-round talents Senyshyn and Zboril both showed in camp that they still need some development time in the AHL.
Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy went through the performances of a number of young B’s prospects in camp following Sunday’s practice, and slightly ahead of Sunday night’s announcement of substantial training camp cuts.
“We were hoping that we’d see the [young guys] separate themselves in camp, and we’re seeing some of them doing that,” said Cassidy, with young B’s prospects like Anders Bjork, Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen fitting into that category. “Let’s use [Saturday night’s] game as an example. [DeBrusk] is a young guy in that position and he had two or three good chances in tight and just part of that is finishing now. [Heinen] has had some pretty good games where he’s made some plays and scored. Bjork has been dynamic at times.
“[Ryan Fitzgerald] has played well. [Gabrielle] has had his moments even though he lost his discipline a little bit the other night. JFK has been a tough one to evaluate being injured, so hopefully he’s ready to go later this week. We’re getting good mileage out of those guys, but we’re going to be playing against stronger lineups so the task gets a little more challenging. On the back end [Grzelcyk] has played in three games and he’s done some good things with puck-moving. He’s just trying to close quicker and do the things we’re asking him to do. [Robbie] O’Gara has been more consistent in his all-around game than maybe Zboril or [Jeremy] Lauzon where it’s all new to them. But we didn’t really expect those guys to come in on the back end and dominate. It’s about playing well, being consistent and getting better.”
Young B’s players like Grzelcyk, O’Gara and Lauzon are still hanging around in camp along with JFK as well, so their NHL audition continues as some of their peers get busy on their development in Providence starting this week.