Jim Montgomery Addresses State Of Bruins As Centennial Season Nears

The Boston Bruins have three more dress rehearsals before the puck drops on their centennial season and less than 10 days to finalize the roster.

Head coach Jim Montgomery told reporters following the Bruins practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Sunday, that the players skating in the final preseason game against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday will most likely be the ones donning the Spoked-B come opening night.

“Essentially that will be our team,” Montgomery said, per team-provided video. “Not exactly, because we’re gonna have some guys play back-to-back games … but we’re also looking at power play units. Having one power play unit play in each game so they each get minutes in the next two games. Then we go to the two power play units playing in the same game in Madison Square Garden.”

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In Sunday’s practice, the Bruins rolled out a more veteran group in the first session unlike at the beginning of camp where the groups were split 50-50 with vets and prospects.

Here are the first session lines and pairings.

Forwards
Brad Marchand – Charlie Coyle -Jake DeBrusk
James van Riemsdyk – Pavel Zacha – David Pastrnak
A.J. Greer – Morgan Geekie – Trent Frederic
Milan Lucic – Patrick Brown – Jesper Boqvist

Defensemen
Matt Grzelcyk – Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm – Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort – Kevin Shattenkirk
Jakub Zboril – Ian Mitchell

Goalies
Linus Ullmark
Jeremy Swayman

Here are the second session lines and pairings.

Forwards
Danton Heinen – Matt Poitras – Oskar Steen
Anthony Richard – Georgii Merkulov – Marc McLaughlin
Trevor Kuntar – Johnny Beecher – Jayson Megna/Fabian Lysell
Brett Harrison – John Farinacci – Justin Brazeau

Defensemen
Mason Lohrei – Parker Wotherspoon
Dan Renouf – Reilly Walsh
Michael Callahan – Alec Regula
Frederic Brunet

Goalies
Brandon Bussi
Kyle Keyser
Michael DiPietro

The reason for the lopsided groups wasn’t necessarily an indication of who is and who isn’t going to make the Bruins roster but to give the coaching staff more insight into each individual.

“For us, there’s two things. You want to see how the first group responds and even more importantly, the second group – who keeps pushing?” Montgomery said. “Are they reading it like you (the media) and do they think that their plate is already set, that maybe they’ll be going to Providence? We want to see who digs in there. Some players did dig in, some looked like they were thinking about other things than competing.”

Montogmery also told reporters why the Bruins decided to release veteran winger Alex Chiasson from his professional tryout.

“I don’t know if he came up short. I think it’s more a lot of guys are having really good camps, you know?” Montgomery said. “And it’s just coming down to numbers and we felt that this would give him the best opportunity maybe to catch on somewhere else.”

The Bruins are heading to Philadelphia for a rematch against the Flyers on Monday night. Puck drop from Wells Fargo Center is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET. You can catch the game on NESN.

After the game against the Flyers, the Bruins will host the Washington Capitals at TD Garden on Tuesday night before the final preseason game against the Rangers on Thursday.