Poitras, Beecher in select company

Matthew Poitras and Johnny Beecher made their NHL debuts in the Bruins’ opening-night win over the Blackhawks. Across the other 31 teams in the league, only 21 other players who had zero NHL game experience — regular season and/or playoffs — remained on varsity rosters at the Monday 5 p.m. deadline.

We’ll undoubtedly see other newbies get their first licks around the league this season, but the figure of 23 pure freshmen underscores once more the difficulty to make it to the show. It’s roughly the equivalent of one roster, or 3.12 percent of the working help.

Keep in mind: a handful or more of the 23 were destined to be shipped out before their clubs played Game 1 of the season.

The Ducks opened their schedule Saturday night with a visit to Vegas. Even with returnees Trevor Zegras and

Jamie Drysdale finally under contract, Anaheim had the most youngsters (three) with zero NHL time on their roster.

The trio included prized first-round pick Leo Carlsson (potential franchise center), defenseman Pavel Mintyukov (pick No. 10 in the ’22 draft), and

Tristan Luneau, a 19-year-old who led blue liners in scoring (65 games/83 points) in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League last season.

Carlsson suffered a slight injury late in training camp and had to sit out the opener.

Elsewhere, seven clubs matched the Bruins with two players with 00:00 NHL ice time as of Monday’s deadline. The list, per capfriendly.com stats, included Chicago, Columbus, Florida, PIttsburgh, Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Washington.

Another Sutter taking flight

One of the newbies still with the Capitals on Monday was Riley Sutter. Yep, there’s that name again. Riley, a 23-year-old right wing, made the cut after four years at AHL Hershey — but was out of the varsity roster mix for Friday night’s opener vs. the Penguins.

For those still studying advanced Sutternomics, Riley is the son of Ron Sutter — one of the six Sutter brothers from Viking, Alberta, to play in the NHL. Brent (1,111 games), Ron (1,093), Rich (874), Brian (779), Duane (731), and Darryl (406) combined for 4,994 regular-season games and 2,934 points.

Riley is one of six Sutter progeny to be drafted by NHL clubs. Only Brandon, who is Brent’s son, has enjoyed a NHL career of any length. Picked No. 11 by the Hurricanes in ’07, the 6-foot3-inch center played 770 games, wrapping up with a six-season tour in Vancouver.

Viking school buses, Brian once told your faithful puck chronicler during a summer visit there, came equipped with a healthy supply of snow shovels. When buses got stuck, kids piled out, grabbed shovels, and began digging out. Unless, as Brian noted, the bus was headed to school and not home.

“We’d be on one side of the bus,” said Brian, referring to his family contingent. “The kids on the other side would be shoveling out, and on our side we’d be throwing snow under the bus.”

Loose pucks

The Luneau-Mintyukov additions in Anaheim will make it harder for exBruin Urho Vaakanainen to grab substantial minutes on that Ducks’ back line. They also have Jackson LaCombe, who played two games last season after coming aboard from the University of Minnesota . . . The Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard, who connected for his first career goal at TD Garden on Wednesday night, squeezed off 18 shot attempts in his first two games and landed 11 on net. Similar to the Joan Rivers strategy of “Enter Talking,” Bedard clearly is of the mind to “enter firing.” The NHL pivot with most shots on net last season: Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon: 366 on net, 5.15 per game. David Pastrnak led the shots parade with a career-best 407 (a 4.96 average) . . . Provided Poitras becomes a regular in the Bruins lineup, he won’t be the lone Poitras in the greater Hub of Hockey region next season. Younger sister Abigayle, a left shot on defense for the Durham West Junior Lightning, is slated to enter Merrimack College as a freshman. Older brother Adam, by the way, plays lacrosse as a grad student at Loyola (Md.) University and hopes to become a doctor. The Poitras family home is in Whitby, Ontario, where exBruins GM Harry Sinden played three years of junior hockey with the Dunlops in the late ’50s . . . If you happen to be in Schwenningen, Germany, in the near future, swing by Helios Arena and see ex-Bruins first-round pick Zach Senyshyn race around for the Wild Wings. Senyshyn, selected along with Jakub Zboril and Jake DeBrusk by the Bruins in the first round of the 2015 draft, spent last season in the AHL (Utica and Chicago). In eight games in Germany, he posted a 2-3–5 line. Senyshyn packed up for Europe after playing only 16 NHL games (1-2-3) . . . Brock Boeser, chosen 23rd in that ’15 draft, slammed home four goals in Vancouver’s season-opening 8-1 drubbing of the Oilers . . . Scituate’s Conor Garland, once a Junior Bruin, remains on the Canucks roster and will collect nearly $15 million over the next three seasons. A 27-year-old right winger with some scoring touch, Garland recently received permission (per report by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman) for his agent to contact other clubs about engaging in trade talks. Only five clubs have the cap space to handle his $4.95 million cap hit if Vancouver essentially wanted to give him away. One of 10 clubs with zero cap space, the Canucks presumably most want to wring dollar relief out of any deal, but also could use help on the back line . . . Former Boston College Eagle Alex Newhook, who exited the Heights in the spring of ’21 after two seasons, potted a pair for the Canadiens in their opening-night shootout loss in Toronto. The Avalanche moved Newhook to Montreal during the June draft, a deal that didn’t garner much attention amid all the focus on Bedard. In return, Colorado received a back line prospect (Gianni Fairbrother), a Round 1 pick (Mikhail Gulyayev, D, playing in Omsk), and a Round 2 pick (Ethan Gauthier, RW, a pick shoveled to Tampa Bay) . . . Note to NHL: Maybe ask all 32 member clubs to hang a gay pride banner permanently in their respective arenas? It would be a constant, visible reminder that hockey actually is for everyone, the opposite message you’re sending when denying players the right to wrap stick blades with gay pride tape. It shouldn’t be this hard to do the right thing . . . The Bruins on Thursday open up a four-game trip with a stop in San Jose, where a high price deterred your faithful puck chronicler from staying at his favorite hotel close to the arena during one recent Bruins trip there. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Bad Bunny’s in town,” sympathized the front desk clerk, when I inquired if they had something cheaper than $500 a night. Bad Bunny? “Yep, Bad Bunny’s big.” The high price to be paid when you go chasing rabbits.