In their first appearance of the preseason in the Boston Bruins' 4-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, Alex Chiasson and Danton Heinen each had a different first impression.
Playing for your job. What does that really mean? Of course, the players at Boston Bruins training camp are all competing for spots on the NHL roster, but the ones who fall short will still have jobs in the AHL, or in some cases, the ECHL or Juniors.
Danton Heinen and Alex Chiasson, on the other hand, have no such guarantee.
Playing under Professional Tryout Agreements (PTO), Heinen and Chiasson will have to earn spots with the Bruins or otherwise be sent back out to the free market.
They could theoretically earn a spot in AHL Providence instead, much like Anton Stralman did last season after starting out on a PTO, but there’s no guarantees, and that’s not what either of this year’s PTO candidates are looking for anyway.
“It sucks,” Chiasson said about the PTO experience on Sept. 8. “You don’t really know where you’re gonna end up.”
“It’s a privilege to play in the NHL. We can’t take this for granted.”
Both Heinen and Chiasson got their first in-game opportunity in Tuesday’s 4-1 preseason loss to the Buffalo Sabres. The fact that the Bruins lost matters as much as their win against the New York Rangers on Sunday – not at all. The individual play of each guy is what’s important.
There’s six preseason games for a reason: It’s impossible to judge a player off of one game. That said, six is still a small sample size, and none of these players will be playing in all six games anyway, so every shift becomes a crucial opportunity to stand out, especially for players on a PTO.
In the case of Chiasson, his game against the Sabres went well. As for Heinen, not so much.
Chiasson posted a 60.00 5v5 Corsi For Percentage (12-8), and led the Bruins with a 67.23 Expected Goals For Percentage, according to Natural Stat Trick. With 2:04 of power play time, Chiasson also excelled.
Teams should be producing more chances than their opponent on the power play, so it should come as no shock that the Bruins led Buffalo 6-1 in shots in those two-plus minutes with Chiasson on the man advantage. Still, that many shots in a short time span is impressive, especially when three of those shots resulted in high-danger scoring chances.
“Regardless of the PTO or not, I think the goal in mind is to get better and to push myself to find my legs and try to get back on my game as quick as possible,” Chiasson told reporters after the game.
In comparison, Heinen got 1:21 on the man advantage, and the Bruins produced just one shot in that span. Heinen himself put three shots on goal over the whole game, but they all came after the 12:54 mark of the third period, when the game was out of hand.
I touched on more of Heinen’s marks in the Training Camp Stock Up/Stock Down piece for Preseason Game 2, but to recap, the Bruins surrendered four scoring chances while only creating one with Heinen on the ice. Heinen was also one of three Bruins to finish with a minus-2 rating.
It wasn’t a disastrous outing, and Heinen will have another opportunity (or two) for redemption, but after getting out-produced by a competing PTO, the temperature is turned up even higher.
“Just trying to get your timing, try to make plays, try to play your game,” Heinen told reporters in Buffalo. “There’s a lot of areas to clean up but first one’s under the belt. Just try to build.”