Training Camp Stock Up/Stock Down: Preseason Game 5

BOSTON – The Boston Bruins fell to the Washington Capitals 5-4 in overtime in a back-and-forth preseason contest where they were outshot 40-20.

The Bruins have lost four preseason games in a row, but the results matter much less than the individual performances at this stage, and that’s what this series is focusing on.

Just one more game remains before management selects the opening night roster, and after Tuesday night’s game, here’s whose stock within the organization went up, and a couple whose stock went down.

A recurring figure in this series, the hype around the 19-year-old center has grown exponentially, and after scoring the tying goal thanks to some nifty stick work, it has reached its peak.

“I think I’ve played pretty well, and I’ve done everything I can,” Poitras said. “So [I] just think I made [the roster decision] pretty difficult on them.”

At this point, it would be a bigger shock if Poitras does not suit up for the Bruins next week against Chicago than if he does. His overall game wasn’t exceptional, but the Marchand-Poitras-Frederic line struggled as a whole, getting outshot 9-1 and out-chanced 6-1 with a 5-on-5 Corsi For Percentage at an abysmal 17.65 (3-14).

Still, the effort from Poitras at both ends never wavered, nor did his proficiency on the face-off dot (10/17, 58.8%). And coming up in a big moment to score the tying goal like that isn’t small potatoes, even in the preseason.

“Overall, he competed,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “What you like is that he lost some battles, but he comes back and wins battles. That was a big goal that he scored to tie it up, and he continues to show a lot of poise with the puck.”

The Bruins can give him nine NHL games and still send him back down to the OHL without burning a year off his entry-level contract, and Montgomery even acknowledged that the rule allows for an “extended training camp,” on Tuesday morning.

Poitras has likely earned his spot for Oct. 11, so the next step would be proving he can stay.

Given his experience level and the way Boston has used him on the power play, Shattenkirk’s job is probably safe. That said, he didn’t play well in his first preseason game, and he didn’t follow up with a strong performance on Tuesday.

It was a rough night defensively across the board, but Shattenkirk had the worst 5-on-5 CF% of any Bruins defenseman (24%). Aside from two hits and a blocked shot, he didn’t produce on either end.

He turned the puck over behind the net to Washington center Evgeny Kuznetsov near the end of the first period, which is just one play, but still an example of the potential liability he could be for a team that has already struggled to outshoot teams this preseason.

It would still be surprising if he doesn’t start on the third pair on opening night, but after Mason Lohrei and Ian Mitchell’s impressive runs this training camp, his leash – and Derek Forbort’s for that matter – could be short.

Another young forward who has consistently elevated his stock this preseason, Beecher’s performance to open the third period exemplified what he can bring as a fourth-line center.

He won the opening face-off, had an offensive zone takeaway just 14 seconds in, then knifed his way through Washington’s zone just a couple minutes later to put a shot on goal. Bringing that physicality with the ability to spark offensive creation is exactly what Montgomery said he’s looking for from the bottom six.

“I think we played a pretty solid game as a line,” Beecher said. “We’re able to kind of force a couple of nice turnovers, and me and ‘Lauks’ [Jakub Lauko], we play with a lot of speed. So we talked before we got on the ice to just utilize that as much as we could, and I think we did a nice job with it.”

With four hits, four takeaways and a winning face-off percentage (53.8%) on the evening, Beecher put his value on full display, and his line with Milan Lucic and Lauko appears to have a strong chance of being the fourth line on opening night.

“It’s a skating game now, so you need guys to be able to play at a high level and a high speed throughout your lineup,” Lucic said. “They [Beecher and Lauko] need to show that on a shift-to-shift basis.”

This isn’t to say his stock was very high to begin with, as the 33-year-old center was never a real front-runner for a bottom six spot, but Tuesday all but confirmed Megna won’t be making the final roster.

Part of that is because of what others around him have done rather than what Megna himself has done, but the other side of that coin is that Megna just didn’t do much on Tuesday. He had no shots, no individual Corsi For, no takeaways and no rush attempts or rebound attempts. He did have three hits, and he went exactly 50% from the face-off dot (5/10), but overall, he was a non-factor.

Mason Lohrei could have this spot, as he’s more likely to make the roster than Kuntar, but I wanted to give the 22-year-old forward some shine. There isn’t a spot for him on Boston’s roster at this point, but the fact that he hasn’t been cut yet and he still played as hard as he did means something.

He tied Lucic for the team-lead in shots on goal (4), and he was the only Boston player who saw the Bruins outshoot the Capitals at 5-on-5 when he was on the ice (4-3).

Statistics aside, you could see how hard he was playing, and while that might not be enough to earn his place on the NHL roster, he should see a significant role with AHL Providence.

“We were hoping it was going to be some tough decisions,” Montgomery said. “And this is what we have in front of us.”