Position battle centers on Spooner
With a little more than a week to go until opening night on Oct. 5, the Bruins lineup is slowly coming into focus.
Rookie right winger Anders Bjork, both a good fit with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand and strong on the puck in his own right, is a smart bet to start the season on the top line. Fellow rookie Jake DeBrusk might not be as firm as the left winger for the David Krejci-David Pastrnak unit, but another good showing in one of the last two preseason games might get him the job.
Riley Nash and Noel Acciari appear to be a solid fourth-line combination that is just waiting for a left winger to trickle down to them.
But the third line remains a conundrum, with David Backes the only clear piece, most likely at right winger. The battle for the centerman spot appears to be a three-man race, with the larger, more physical Sean Kuraly pitted against the smaller, speedier Austin Czarnik and the beefed-up Ryan Spooner.
Kuraly was on the ice for both Chicago goals in Monday’s 4-2 Bruins preseason win while Spooner had a good night against the Blackhawks. Czarnik, meanwhile, has had an excellent camp.
When Spooner was left out of the lineup for games in the playoff series against the Ottawa Senators last April, it seemed like his time had run out, even if the B’s signed him to a one-year deal for $2.825 million, maintaining the rights to an asset. But Spooner has had a decent camp and, in Monday’s win, he used his added 10 pounds of muscle to knock Tanner Kero off the puck at the defensive blue line to start the transition that led to Pastnak’s goal. Spooner also made a nice lob pass that sprung Pastrnak for a breakaway.
The check on Kero wasn’t thunderous, but it got the job done.
“Yeah, he was a crusher on that one. Buried a guy,” said coach Bruce Cassidy, tongue firmly in cheek. “I don’t know if physicality is the word. What I want to see is compete. We’ve talked about that. I don’t expect Ryan Spooner to lead our team in hits, but he has to win his share of pucks. How do you do that? (Be) hard on your stick — sometimes it’s body position, sometimes it is knocking a guy off the puck. It was good to see.
“Then in the third period, specifically, we put him out there for a (defensive)-zone faceoff and he won one, maybe both. Those are just situations he has to be harder in. The rest of his game will take care of itself.”
Spooner’s Bruins career has been a tease so far. He has been excellent on the power play, helping the B’s climb from the bottom of the league into the top 10 on the man advantage. It is a trait that could be the deciding factor in the third-line center competition.
But he’s been a so-so, evenstrength centerman — often getting hemmed in the defensive zone. He’s subpar on the faceoff and hasn’t used his speed enough to take pucks to the net.
Spooner said he’s worked on his draws, renting ice several times for some work in the offseason. His first game in the dot, however, was disastrous as he won just 1-of-10, though the league’s new violation enforcement had something to do with that. On Monday, with fewer violations called, he was still below .500 (6-for-14), but it was an improvement.
If Cassidy feels he needs Spooner’s power-play abilities in the lineup, but is not quite comfortable with him handling all the center’s responsibilities, he could move him to a wing. In the past, Spooner has not been effective in that role, but with the added muscle one would think he’s now better equipped for the board work.
But Spooner thinks of himself as a center and, so far in camp, that’s where he’s played.
“I’m down to play wing,” Spooner said. “I played there last year for 20 games or so. But I just want to prove I can play center here, and I can do the things they want me to do, that I can play the physical game. It’s just something that I’ve never done before, so it’s a change.
“Again, I made some mistakes out there, but I’m just trying to improve on the game they want me to play. If I do that, then I think they’re going to keep me in the middle of the ice. And if my faceoffs are good, too . . . . I think for me it’s taking it game-by-game. I just want to show that they can trust me.”
If he can do that, then Spooner will make the decision to hang on to him a good one.
The B’s assigned forward Ryan Fitzgerald and defenseman Jeremy Lauzon to Providence. They also signed forward Jack Studnicka to a three-year, entry-level contract.