Boston Bruins Announce First Training Camp Cuts

The Boston Bruins kicked off training camp outlining that the first cuts would come a week into the proceedings after the first few exhibition games, and that’s exactly how it played out as the first round of cuts happened on Wednesday morning. It was pretty much all players earmarked for the AHL or juniors as 2022 second round pick Matthew Poitras was sent back to the OHL and a number of players, including Georgii Merkulov, were sent down to Providence Bruins training camp as it got going this week as well.

In all the Boston Bruins pared 14 players from their training camp group as head coach Jim Montgomery and his staff prepare for a Saturday preseason game that should feature a good chunk of their regular season lineup. The new-look second line of Taylor Hall, David Krejci and David Pastrnak should get their first look on Saturday afternoon against the Flyers, and Pavel Zacha, Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk should get their first look as well.

“I hope they don’t have the cobwebs out there going,” said Montgomery. “The plan is to play the Bergeron line too, so hopefully they can have some success with those guys getting out there and get into a rhythm. Because they’re only going to play in two or three of the [exhibition] games at most.”

Here are the training camp cuts announced on Wednesday: Joey Abate, Samuel Asselin, Francois Brassard, Justin Brazeau, Brandon Bussi, Josiah Didier, J.D. Greenway, Curtis Hall, Georgii Merkulov, Luke Toporowski, Eduards Tralmaks (who suffered a lower body injury), Alex-Olivier Voyer, and Jacob Wilson will report to Providence Bruins Training Camp, and Matthew Poitras will return to the Guelph Storm in the OHL.

Most had fine, unremarkable camps with Georgii Merkulov notably missing out on a loose puck chance in front during Tuesday night’s 3-2 OT win over the New York Rangers, a sign that the youngster could use more development time in Providence.