A lot has changed since Brandon Carlo was the young guy on the Bruins’ blue line - The Boston Globe
Carlo, 27, is about to enter his ninth season, with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak as the only other Bruins still on the roster from the start of his 2016-17 rookie season.
www.bostonglobe.com
A lot has changed since Brandon Carlo was the young guy on the Bruins’ blue line - The Boston Globe
Carlo, 27, is about to enter his ninth season, with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak as the only other Bruins still on the roster from the start of his 2016-17 rookie season.
www.bostonglobe.com
The first-rounders have left and gone away.
Jake DeBrusk is in Vancouver, where he opened training camp the other day on a line with No. 1 center Elias Pettersson.
Jakub Zboril is in New Jersey, hoping he can convert his PTO invite into an deal with the Devils that will keep his NHL dream alive.
Zach Senyshyn is back in Germany, prepping to start his second season with the Schwenninger Wild Wings. His total NHL time: 16 games.
Still in Boston, and still thriving as a second-pairing defenseman, is Brandon Carlo, the club’s fourth pick (No. 37) in that 2015 draft. Carlo, 27, is about to enter his ninth season, with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak the only other Bruins still on the roster from the start of his 2016-17 rookie season (with Claude Julien then the bench boss).
Yep, the ever-smiling, 6-foot-5-inch Carlo, today the senior statesman on the Bruins backline and with more playoff experience (72 games) than any defenseman chosen in that 2015 draft other than Tampa Bay’s Erik Cernak (79).
“All kind of crazy,” Carlo said the other day during a quiet moment at the start of training camp. “This is honestly like the first year that I’ve felt older, with some of the guys not being here who’ve been here most of my time. Bergy [Patrice Bergeron], Krech [David Krejci), and now like JD [DeBrusk] gone, just guys here who’d been here a long time with me through the whole process. It’s felt a little different, but also super exciting. I love the energy with the new guys and I am excited to grow in that aspect.”
All of it, Carlo also noted with a chuckle, a far cry from that day in his rookie camp of 2016 when team president Cam Neely sauntered over for a word at the preseason barbecue. Carlo stood there next to fellow rookies Danton Heinen (a 2014 draft pick) and Rob O’Gara (2011 pick).
“Cam comes over to us and goes, ‘Congratulations on breaking through camp,’ ” recalled Carlo, 19 at the time. “So then the three of us pile into a car and we’re like, ‘OK, does breaking through the camp mean we made the team?’ It was like, what’s going on? And from there it was hold on for one game, five games, and now here. It’s been amazing.”
O’Gara, a former Yale blue liner, played only 33 NHL games, most with the Rangers, and now is beginning his fourth season as an assistant coach with the Bulldogs. Heinen, who resurrected his career in Boston last year via a PTO, is with DeBrusk in Vancouver after signing in July as an unrestricted free agent.
In an industry seldom offering straight lines to success, Carlo has been the exception. Consider, he played all of eight games with AHL Providence before stepping into full-time varsity employment. Marchand tuned up with the WannaB’s for 129 games, and Pastrnak for 31.
Now 554 regular-season games into his career, Carlo is what he is, which is a reliable, valued No. 2 right defenseman who perennially has proven he can perform well no matter who plays to his left. Many of those nights had him riding with the downsized likes of Torey Krug or Matt Grzelcyk. Carlo will probably have the bigger, slicker Hampus Lindholm there much of the time again this season.
Overall, with the hiring of 6-6 Nikita Zadorov in July, it will be the biggest and heaviest blue-line corps in Boston since the days when Zdeno Chara, Adam McQuaid, and Dennis Seidenberg were putting down the hammer back there.
“I think it’s going to be great,” said Carlo, contemplating the impact added size and strength bring to the defense. “I think we’re going to be able to disperse ice time well. There’s going to be nights, obviously, when you don’t feel your best — but I think we’re going to be able to pick each other up really well and our group overall will go as well as our defensive group goes — if our D corps is on its game, playing well and moving pucks up, that will translate to our whole game. I feel our forwards will pick up the rest from there.”
Carlo’s ability to facilitate odd-man breakouts from the defensive zone, according to coach Jim Montgomery, rated tops among Black and Gold defensemen last season.
“In the neutral zone,” added Montgomery, entering his third season, “it was probably [Charlie] McAvoy and Lindholm a little bit more, but certain skills among defensemen really lean toward helping us in certain areas.”
At this stage of his career, Carlo will not be expected to transform into an offensive force. He’s good for a handful of goals and upward of 20 points a season. Points are always appreciated, from all quarters, but his game is grounded in reliable defense, in part because routine pairings with Krug and Grzelcyk made it essential for him to be the conservative, sure-handed partner, the guy left home to shut off the lights.
Montgomery, though, forever is looking for individual improvement across the rank and file.
“You’re always trying to have guys attain another level as they grow, throughout their career,” he said. “I always remember reading and watching Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas and they talked about always being able to add a new move every year. So that just makes them harder to check.”
Carlo, added Montgomery, “is one of the reasons why we think we can be better defensively” this season.
“We’re asking the D corps to do more defensively,” he said. “And offensively, we’re asking them to jump more. We felt our D-men [last season] from the defensive zone into the offensive zone were not as active as the year before. Some of that is because we defended more last year and didn’t have as much juice. We’re looking at ways to cut that down so they have more juice.”
No surprise, that’s all good by Carlo. Eight years into the ride, he is ready and willing for whatever gets tossed his way. Married with two young kids, Wren and Crew, he’s confident about his place in the game and the place it has in his life.
“When I get home and I’m busy there, being a dad,” he offered, “these past seasons, it’s felt like the seasons have flown by. It’s been a lot of fun hockey for us, with that season [2022-23] where we broke the NHL record [going 65-12-5] and last year being great as well. It gives me that perspective, not to ride the highs and lows too much, because life’s much bigger than this game. It’s a great reminder, the second I walk through the door at home.”
Not exactly the perspective the 18-year-old version of Carlo had in those days prior to the 2015 draft, as he walked out of his interview with the Bruins, including Neely, general manager Don Sweeney, and Ryan Nadeau (today the club’s director of amateur scouting). Twenty-four teams interviewed him, recalled Carlo, and he didn’t have a good feeling as he left the Boston session.
“One of my worst interviews,” he said. “It was funny, because they asked me a couple of questions and I remember, as I walked out, thinking, ‘I did not answer those well.’ ”
Days later, Carlo watched the first round unfold, the Bruins first picking Zboril (13), then DeBrusk (14), and then Senyshyn (15). Where was this all taking him?
“I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, they’ve picked their three first-rounders, and I don’t know if I’ll get a great opportunity,’ ’’ he said. “Then it ended up being the best thing for me. That’s the way God works, for sure.”
