Shorten NHL Preseason? Bruins’ Jim Montgomery Weighs In On Debate

The Boston Bruins at times were cautious this preseason, holding out star players from games in which the end result didn’t make a difference.

David Pastrnak played in only three of seven preseason games. Charlie McAvoy and Joonas Korpialso, who will start Tuesday night in net when the regular season begins, played the same amount.

There’s growing noise that the league should consider shortening the preseason given the amount of regular NHLers who sit out the contests and the injuries that piled up this year during exhibition play.

The debate reached Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery before Boston’s loss to the Washington Capitals in its preseason finale Saturday night. And Montgomery certainly believes he doesn’t need seven preseason games to get his team ready for the start of the regular season.

“I would think that the number is probably somewhere around four,” Montgomery told reporters prior, per team-provided video.

The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported earlier this week that the NHL and NHLPA have already discussed decreasing the preseason schedule to four games and adding two regular-season games for a total of 84.

Montgomery would probably be on board with that. But in the same breath, Montgomery can see the value in an extended exhibition slate with it giving players on the NHL roster bubble a chance to showcase their talent.

“There’s a lot of elements I guess that go into that that are a little bit above my pay grade. There’s revenue that you have to think about,” Montgomery said. “But there’s also a lot of young players that need the exposure of playing — they might be going back to play junior or whatever the case may be. And it’s also good for us to see the players that might end up in the American League, see them and see them in different roles so that we get to know them so that when they get called up. That’s where the benefit of the exhibition games are.”