Matthew Poitras is one of the most exciting young players in the Boston Bruins’ system at the moment. After a fantastic training camp and preseason last season, he made the NHL as a 19-year-old, much sooner than almost anyone had predicted for the 2022 second-round selection.
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While his 2023-24 season was cut short due to shoulder surgery, Poitras has come back bigger, stronger, and ready to take on the NHL. While his season was delayed a few days due to an injury from preseason, he made his 2024-25 season debut on Oct. 12 against the Los Angeles Kings where he had an assist on David Pastrnak’s overtime winning goal.
This season is an important one for both the Bruins and Poitras as the team continues to remain competitive while securing their core group for the future. He has the potential to be a central part of the current/future core of the team with Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, and Elias Lindholm. Poitras has the potential, and seems poised to take a big step forward, but that can’t happen if the team doesn’t do their part to help surround him with compatible linemates.
Bruins Need Poitras to Succeed
The Bruins have had their struggles in recent seasons to draft and develop players in house, with many around the league consistently ranking their prospect pool at the bottom. Now, a lot of the issues come down to drafting, something general manager Don Sweeney has gotten plenty of (deserved) flak for over the years. At the same time, I do think the prospects are better than people gave them credit for, and last season saw a huge step when three prospects (Poitras, Mason Lohrei, and Johnny Beecher) all saw significant playing time in Boston.
Part of the issue has been the front office’s decisions to continuously bring in older, veteran players, oftentimes on cheap contracts. These players take up spots that could be used to give a younger guy a real chance rather than their only shot being a call up for a game or two before being sent back down. It can take guys a few games to really get in sync with the NHL rhythm, and prior to last season, the Bruins weren’t the greatest with having patience for young guys (though plenty of veterans long overstayed their welcomes).
As a consequence of having so few young players making the leap from the American Hockey League (AHL) or college ranks to the NHL, the Bruins have gone out and made a splash in free agencies and at trade deadlines, depleting their draft picks and putting them in a difficult cap space situation as teams often can’t help but overpay during free agency.
This has left the Bruins in a difficult spot when it comes to one position in particular, — center. The team has not drafted and developed a legitimate top end center since Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, who were drafted in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Their long-running success meant that there wasn’t a ton of need to focus on the center position at the draft, but even when the writing started to appear on the wall, Sweeney struggled to draft a center who could legitimately rise t the top of the depth chart one day.
Poitras’ Changing Linemates in 2024-25
When Poitras was drafted, there was excitement and belief in his potential, but as mentioned above, he has exceeded expectations so far and arrived in the NHL much earlier than anticipated. Now, the Bruins must do what they can to help aid his development and give him the tools he needs to take his game to the next level.
At the moment though, they’re not doing the greatest of jobs at that, and that was fully on display during their game against the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 16. Most of his time in the NHL has been spent on the third line with a rotation of wingers, and that game saw him flanked by Riley Tufte and Max Jones. Neither player meshes particularly well with Poitras’ playing style, and it showed in that game. The line saw less than 10 minutes of ice time and was most notable for the two bad penalties Tufte took that led to Colorado goals.
Morgan Geekie has not had the best of starts to the season and was a healthy scratch for that game, but in general, he is a much better-suited player to be on a line with Poitras. Since that game, they’ve returned him to the lineup and they’re slotted to continue to play together, along with a new linemate for Poitras in Pavel Zacha. So far, they’ve appeared in one game together, the Oct. 22 matchup with the Nashville Predators, and that game wasn’t particularly good for any of the forward lines.
Poitras has had some flashes of excellence so far, including his assist on the overtime goal against the Kings. There have been moments to prove the excitement surrounding him is deserved, but it’s hard for a guy to really get something going if his ice time is being cut short by linemates taking bad penalties.
Decisions like the ones made for the Avalanche game are not good for Poitras’ development. Less than 10 minutes of ice time and struggling linemates is not a winning combination for a young player. Many of the best young players in the NHL in the past few seasons were able to spend the majority of the season playing with the same linemates that matched their style well. If the Bruins want Poitras to succeed, they need to figure out the right spot for him to best excel in.
Options For Poitras Going Forward
Outside of the fourth line, the Bruins have had trouble getting any of their lines to fully gel. It’s still very early into the season, so some growing pains are to be expected and head coach Jim Montgomery seems very aware of that, trying out a variety of changes to the lines, particularly the second line. Along with all the penalties the team is taking, it has not been a very good start to the season.
Regarding Poitras, I tend to fall into agreement with the camp that believes he should be given a shot on the wing on the first or second line. He spent time playing with Trent Frederic last season, and I think reuniting them would be a good move. With Charlie Coyle as the center, I think all three could play off each other well and it would be an excellent experience for Poitras to play more minutes and with an experienced guy like Coyle.
He wouldn’t be playing center, but at least he’d be getting a bump in playing time and a chance to learn from consistent and skilled linemates. Keeping him at center on the third line with a constant rotation of linemates most likely wouldn’t be the best way for him to further develop and take a step forward this season.
If he remains on the third line, the Bruins need to get him consistent linemates. So far, the options haven’t really been working out. It may have only been one game, but Jones and Tufte did not work out. Maybe a solution is bringing up Fabian Lysell and playing him and Poitras together, make the third line a real “kid line,’ and have them work together to take the necessary steps forward. They could even pull up Beecher from the fourth line to complete the trio. Though given his success with his current linemates, the only line that really seems to be generating anything right now, they may not want to do that.
Games Ahead
Whatever they do, the Bruins cannot let what happened in the Avalanche game become a recurring trend and they cannot just stick whoever on a line with Poitras. They did that to Krejci for years, and while he still found ways to succeed, think of how much more he could have done, particularly in the later seasons of his career, if the front office had ever really been able to figure out who could play right wing on the second line.
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Given the current state of the Bruins forwards, figuring out the lines is the absolute number-one priority. After the disastrous game in Nashville, there will certainly be lots of mixing and matching for the next stretch of games. For Poitras, the questions that need to be answered are: Will Geekie and Zacha work out as linemates? Is there someone else to play with him on the third line, maybe someone from AHL Providence? Or will the time eventually come to move him to wing and play him in the top six? Whatever they do with him, the Bruins must be thinking long term with him and his development while figuring out the best line combinations.
