Bruins’ Mason Lohrei, Matt Poitras and the limited options of next-wave support
By
Fluto Shinzawa
65
Mar. 11, 2025 8:00 am EDT
BRIGHTON, Mass. — On Thursday, following the Boston Bruins’ 3-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, Mason Lohrei boarded the team bus next to the Lenovo Center loading dock. He walked toward his preferred seat.
Something was off.
Lohrei sat down next to the backpack of his usual seatmate. Its owner was outside on the phone.
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Moments later, Justin Brazeau got on the bus, grabbed his backpack and whispered in Lohrei’s ear.
“I’m outta here,” Brazeau told Lohrei.
“Let me give you a hug at least,” Lohrei responded.
By then, the jig was up. Their embrace signaled to everyone else that Brazeau was
on the move.
So even though Brazeau had yet to be told the Minnesota Wild were his next team, his ex-teammates lined up to wish him well. They had a charter flight to catch to Tampa, Fla. Brazeau would be exiting the bus and staying behind in Raleigh, N.C., for a next-day flight to Vancouver.
Lohrei had no idea even more wreckage was coming less than 24 hours later.
Lohrei and the Bruins completed their 1 p.m. Friday practice at TGH Ice Plex. He and several teammates planned to get lunch instead of returning on the bus to the team hotel. As they waited in the parking lot for their Uber, they got word of Charlie Coyle
being traded to the Colorado Avalanche.
They were still discussing Coyle’s trade at lunch when 3 p.m. came. No other moves had been announced.
“We’re like, ‘All right. That could be it,'” Lohrei recalled.
Ten minutes later, Lohrei learned he was wrong. Brandon Carlo and Brad Marchand were also gone.
Brad Marchand celebrates a goal with now ex-teammate Mason Lohrei. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
“It’s never a position you want to be in, watching some of your best friends get shipped away,” Lohrei said. “Guys that are not just really good players. But five guys I was really close with. Big pieces and big leaders. It’s not fun. It’s something I never want to go through again.”
A day after the
era-ending trades, Lohrei played 23:54 in the Bruins’ 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was the highest workload of the game’s 36 skaters.
General manager Don Sweeney has identified the 24-year-old as a keeper. Perhaps Lohrei could grow into the franchise’s next version of Torey Krug: a first-unit power-play quarterback and credible five-on-five defender. Lohrei, in fact, could be feeding man-advantage pucks to David Pastrnak and sharing even-strength shifts with Charlie McAvoy. In that way, Lohrei projects to be part of a secondary tier under Pastrnak, McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman.
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“When you take away everything else and just think about it that way, it’s really exciting for me,” Lohrei said of being part of the next generation. “I want to be a big part of this team. And I want to be a big part of this team for a really long time. Just keep elevating in all aspects of my game on and off the ice, being a good pro, being a good leader.”
In one way, lopping off Marchand, Carlo and Coyle was the easy part for Sweeney. The heavy lifting comes next. Sweeney has to repopulate future rosters with enough reinforcements to maximize the
Pastrnak/McAvoy/Swayman window and guarantee the lost cause that is 2024-25 ends up being meaningful in the future. Otherwise, the season ticket holders being slugged with a 4 percent price increase in 2025-26 will not be happy about digging deeper into their pockets.
“We’re never going to lose hope,” Pastrnak said. “We’re going to fight until the end. But also we are building for something past this season.”
For now, the trouble with Sweeney’s plan is
how limited he is for 2025-26. Unless the GM swaps them at the draft this June, acquired assets like the two 2025 second-rounders (Coyle, Trent Frederic) and the 2026 first-round pick (Carlo) will not ripen into NHL players for some time — if at all.
The Bruins were hopeful that Matt Poitras would join Lohrei as part of the support tier. That is not guaranteed.
On deadline day, the Bruins assigned Poitras along with Patrick Brown, Vinni Lettieri, Ian Mitchell and Riley Tufte to Providence to make them eligible for the AHL playoffs. Brown, Lettieri and Mitchell were promptly recalled to play against the Lightning. Poitras was not. A nine-game scoreless streak and a tendency to open himself up for dangerous thumps are just two of the reasons Poitras has been designated an AHLer, perhaps for the rest of 2024-25.
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It is the latest confidence-knocker for a 21-year-old who takes such things seriously. The Bruins, in retrospect, should have left Poitras in Providence all year. Now Poitras has to pick up the pieces from being pushed into situations for which he was not ready. That is his employer’s fault, not his.
“There’s just not a lot of room out there,” interim coach Joe Sacco said. “Ice gets tighter. Space becomes less available. It’s just something he’ll continue to work on in his game, trying to find and create some space for himself out there. He did some good things. But he’s a guy that needs to be playing. He’s not going to be here and not play. He’s going to be playing.”
Lohrei will play a big part in the franchise’s rebuild. Whether Poitras will do the same is unknown.
Case in point: The Bruins once believed Jack Studnicka, a second-round pick like Poitras, would be one of their long-term centers of the future. The 26-year-old Studnicka has spent all of 2024-25 in the AHL.
That is not what the Bruins need. They are desperate for NHL players.
(Top photo of Justin Brazeau: Bob Frid / Imagn Images)
Can the Bruins rebuild in time around David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman?
By
Fluto Shinzawa
134
Mar. 10, 2025
TAMPA, Fla. — Will Zellers is having a very good season for the Green Bay Gamblers. The left-shot forward leads the USHL with 38 goals in 42 games. In 2025-26, Zellers,
acquired in the Charlie Coyle trade from the Colorado Avalanche, will be a freshman at North Dakota, a perpetual NCAA contender.
None of this guarantees the 18-year-old Zellers will become a Boston Bruin to form the support staff for David Pastrnak (28), Charlie McAvoy (27) and Jeremy Swayman (26).
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“See him as more of an AHL scorer,” wrote one NHL director of amateur scouting, granted anonymity to discuss a prospect whose rights do not belong to his club. “Will produce in college, but will it translate to pro?”
This is the issue with acquisitions such as Zellers, the 2025 second-round pick from the Trent Frederic trade and the
2026 first-round pick from the Brandon Carlo deal. Their NHL timelines may be mismatched when it comes to the franchise’s contention expectations around its three best players.
As Pastrnak noted after Saturday’s 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, the right wing is one of the Bruins’ oldest players. While there are still plenty of points remaining in Pastrnak’s stick, time is ticking when it comes to maximizing No. 88’s window of stardom.
Don Sweeney’s
swift and deep carvings at the deadline, in other words, represent only the first stage of the turnaround. The general manager’s next step, be it in free agency or with additional trades before the 2025 NHL Draft, is to reinforce the roster while Pastrnak is still pouring in pucks, McAvoy is thumping bodies and pushing the pace and Swayman is taking goals off the scoreboard.
GO DEEPER
‘Needed to turn the page’: Bruins begin new era with roster-smashing deadline day
For now, Casey Mittelstadt, the primary return in the Coyle transaction, is the player most ready to give his stars a hand. The 26-year-old centered the No. 2 line against the Lightning between fellow Minnesotans Cole Koepke and Vinni Lettieri. The left-shot center was also on the No. 1 power-play unit, primarily working his strong side.
Mittelstadt initiated the Bruins’ first goal by intercepting a Nick Perbix clearing attempt. When Perbix approached to close, Mittelstadt pulled the puck around the defenseman and floated a backhander onto Koepke’s stick. It was a creative, high-speed maneuver by Mittelstadt, whose career high in helpers is 44 with the Buffalo Sabres in 2022-23.
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“Ability to hold onto pucks,” interim coach Joe Sacco said when asked how Mittelstadt caught his attention. “Poise with the puck, especially coming over the blue line a couple times, cutting across in the offensive zone. Just hanging onto pucks, the ability to have some confidence to make some plays in those areas.”
Mittelstadt, the No. 8 pick in 2017, is signed through 2027 at $5.75 million annually. He is a different center than Coyle, the latter an older, heavier and more reliable three-zone presence.
The Bruins acquired Casey Mittelstadt from the Avalanche in the Charlie Coyle trade. (Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
“A lot of speed today I saw,” Pastrnak said. “Casey’s line had a great game.”
By being the No. 2 center behind Pavel Zacha, Mittelstadt pushed Elias Lindholm to the third line and Matt Poitras out of the lineup against the Lightning.
Lindholm, on the books until 2031 at $7.75 million annually, is on track to be Sweeney’s most miscast signing. The 30-year-old is best suited to be a checking-line center, not the No. 1 pivot the GM signed him to be.
As for Poitras, Sacco did not know the plan for the 20-year-old. Poitras was assigned to Providence on deadline day to be eligible for the AHL playoffs. So were Lettieri, Patrick Brown, Ian Mitchell and Riley Tufte. Lettieri, Brown and Mitchell were then recalled to play against the Lightning. Poitras and Tufte were not. Poitras, once projected to be a top-two center, was riding a nine-game scoreless streak.
Of the other acquisitions, Marat Khusnutdinov, 22, projects to have the highest offensive ceiling. Khusnutdinov was the No. 3 left wing Saturday next to Lindholm and Jakub Lauko. The left-shot forward is quick, shifty and creative with the puck. It’s possible he could become a third-liner. Khusnutdinov’s entry-level contract expires at year’s end.
Lauko, 24, is a depth wing. Henri Jokiharju, who requested a trade from the Buffalo Sabres, will be unrestricted. Time will tell whether the Bruins extend the right-shot defenseman.
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So until Sweeney acquires more help, Zacha, Morgan Geekie and Mason Lohrei will make up the secondary tier. Geekie and Lohrei will be restricted. Geekie will have arbitration rights, which will give him muscle during negotiations.
Geekie will earn a raise over his current $2 million average annual value. This will leave the Bruins with enough cash to be aggressive in free agency.
It cost them last summer when they erred on Lindholm. But perhaps Mitch Marner
will be available this time. It’s the kind of impact player Sweeney needs to keep
the pain of what he initiated at the deadline from stretching into multiple dark years.
(Top photo of David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)
