BRIGHTON – The good news is that young Bruins skaters Fabian Lysell , Georgii Merkulov and Matt Poitras all took a nice, progressive step forward in Tuesday night’s preseason 4-2 win over the Washington Capitals.
Lysell scored a power play goal and had four shot attempts while looking assertive and fast on the ice, Merkulov was making offensive plays using his impressive offensive skills and Poitras looked just as he did last fall when he surprisingly landed an NHL roster spot out of training camp.
It was a nice response after Lysell and Merkulov were merely okay in the preseason opener against the Rangers at a time when NHL roster spots could be within reach for the talented forward upstarts.
“We’re really happy with [Lysell’s] growth from game one to game two,” said Jim Montgomery of Lysell’s play. “And how determined he was on pucks, how determined he was in trying to get shots on net, making plays offensively and tracking back defensively. Good game for him.”
Certainly, it was a confidence booster for a young player in Lysell who seemed to turn a corner in the AHL last season while posting 15 goals and 50 points in 56 games for the P-Bruins last season. The hesitancy from last weekend with the puck was gone, and instead it was an aggressive, assertive performance where he carried the puck with confidence and at least put himself in this camp’s competition.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Lysell of competing for a roster spot in camp. “I think that’s how you guys see it. Maybe before I felt a little bit more pressure. So I think coming in with a little bit of a different mindset definitely helps — just playing your game out there.”
While it was a nice first step, there is obviously still a ton of time left on both the preseason schedule and amidst training camp for things to develop. And there is a great deal more to be done if guys like Lysell or Merkulov expect to be with the team in a couple of weeks, a fact made abundantly clear by Bruins captain Brad Marchand when discussing their performance after Wednesday’s camp practices.
“Yeah, [the preseason win] was encouraging,” admitted Marchand of the young players doing well in an early preseason game. “But [playing] pretty well needs to be even better. For those guys to make the team, you’ve got to push guys out that are on [contract] term and have big deals and stuff like that. Pretty good is not going to cut it. If you’re happy with that then you’ve got a long way to go. It’s a good step, but they need to continue to grow and be better, not just making plays…but also being clean with the puck and not turning it over, and things like that.
“So they’re showing that they’re skilled players, but there’s a lot more to it than making a couple of plays. To make it at this level consistently, you’ve got to steal somebody’s job. That’s the biggest thing. How can you raise the bar to take a job and push somebody out? That’s what they need to get to. They played well…definitely better than the first game. They need to continue to grow and elevate. I hope they can because we need young guys to continue to grow and push the pace and allow guys to not get comfortable on this team. We need the young bodies to come in and help the team, and that’s what great organizations do when they build internally. They had a good game, but they’ve got a long way to go.”
This is the way of life at the NHL level for a healthy, functional organization where things are earned, rather than given. The Bruins have been that for the better part of the last 15 years by holding tightly to the philosophy that rookie hopefuls must beat out a stacked deck of veteran candidates for an NHL roster spot to be earned.
In order to win that spot on the Boston roster this fall, a young player is going to need to fend off bottom-6 incumbents like Morgan Geekie, Trent Frederic, Max Jones, Justin Brazeau, or an established veteran training camp invite like 34-year-old Tyler Johnson that also performed well setting up Brazeau for a score in the win over the Caps.
That is no easy task, as Poitras proved last season when he needed to perform at an exceedingly high level for the entire preseason on a Bruins team that was desperate to find help at the center position. They are similarly desperate to find a second line right wing to replace the game-breaking ability and offense provided by the outgoing Jake DeBrusk over the last handful of years, but the Black and Gold have many more candidates this time around vying for a plum spot on a playoff team.
In the NHL circle of life, it should be Lysell replacing DeBrusk after he was a first-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft to serve as an eventual replacement for some of the aging forwards Boston holds on a veteran roster. Certainly, the Bruins would love to see another one of their prospects rise to the occasion after youngsters like Poitras, Johnny Beecher and Mason Lohrei did exactly that last season.
But as the B’s captain said on Wednesday in a bit of a reality check after an encouraging step in a preseason game, “there’s a long way to go” if guys like Lysell or Merkulov want to stick around Boston this season.