Vesey Would be Major Coup for Boston Bruins, Could Play with Heinen and Other Top Prospects

As the Bruins try to stem a free fall that may land them out of the playoffs for the second straight year, they have a bright side potentially emerging on the near horizon in the form of A-list college prospects Danton Heinen and Jimmy Vesey.

While the Bruins drafted Heinen in the 4^th round of the 2014 draft and are waiting to see whether he opts to stay at the University of Denver at the conclusion of the NCAA Frozen Four tournament or go pro, Vesey is another story.

Originally drafted in the third round in 2012 by Nashville, Vesey finished his college hockey career this week at Harvard but opted to forgo signing with the Predators so he can become an unrestricted free agent on August 15. The Boston Herald has reported that his team of choice will then be the Bruins.

“According to an extremely well-placed source within the Boston-area college hockey community, the forward will opt for free agency and sign with the B’s,” the Herald reported today. “The 6-foot-3, 205-pound North Reading native is widely regarded as a can’t-miss, NHL-ready prospect. The last two seasons, especially, the speedy left-shot center/left winger emerged as an NCAA star and posted 56 goals, 48 assists (104 points) and a plus-33 in 70 games for the Crimson.”

Vesey, 22, is a Hobey Baker finalist and one of the top NHL prospects in the country, so this would be an absolute coup for the Bruins. Faced with the likely loss of decent and reliable, if not electric, two-way winger Loui Ericksson to free agency in the offseason and still wincing from the dulling painful after-effects of the blunderous mistake to trade budding superstar Tyler Seguin a few short seasons ago, securing Vesey would bring some excitement to the bleachers of TD Garden again.

In addition to having Boston area roots, Vesey has other connections to the Bruins. Bruins GM Don Sweeney is also a Harvard alum and Vesey grew up with B’s offensive defenseman prospect Matt Grzelcyk, a 3^rd round Bruins pick in 2012 who just finished a stellar career at BU where he served as captain the last two seasons, was selected as a Hockey East first team all-star twice and racked up 26 goals and 95 points in 125 games.

“His good friend Matt Grzelcyk is expected to ink a deal with Boston shortly. The Bruins are at 49 contracts after signing college prospects Rob O'Gara and Sean Kuraly on Tuesday, leaving them with one open slot,” according to Sports Illustrated. “With a chance to feather the nest as comfortably as possible for Vesey, they may just go ahead and get something done with Grzelcyk.”

Envisioning Vesey and Heinen in the Bruins' fold, along with current young speedy, skilled and creative Bruins like Ryan Spooner and David Pastrnak and others on the way such as Zach Senyshyn, would change the future complexion of the team into a potentially dynamic offensive force. Vesey and Heinen were ranked 2nd and 5th respectively on CBS Sports’ list of top 10 players to watch going into the Frozen Four tournament last week. CBS Sports called Vesey one of the nation’s best goal scorers, and said Heinen’s “speed and offensive skill allows him to control games when he’s on the ice, making many wonder if he’s ready to make the jump to the pros.”

On the way to 20 goals and 48 points in 40 games this season, including six points over the last two games to get Denver into the Frozen Four for the first time in 11 years, Heinen is actually topping his surprise brilliant campaign last season when he put up 45 points in 40 games -- which was second among rookies to Jack Eichel. Heinen, 20, has great puck skills that allow him to slow the game down and act like a point guard on the ice. The only question is whether the British Columbia center and the Bruins determine if there is a spot for him at the pro level next season, or if he’s better off returning to Denver for his junior year and continuing to work toward a degree while gaining more experience on the ice with the Pioneers.

There is also still no guarantee that Vesey signs with Boston, either, since once he hits the open market he’s free to sign with any team. Given his skillset and lofty accomplishments to date he will have plenty of top NHL suitors after him.

But for now, it’s okay to dream of a potential game-breaking sniper in Boston again. It felt like the last one left well before he had a chance to really get things going.

[News Update: Vesey went on to win the Hobey Baker award in April, and the Bruins signed Grzelcyk on April 1st to a two-year deal starting next year. In the meantime he'll finish out the season with the Providence Bruins, which should be a powerhouse on D now with prospects O'Gara, Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo in the fold for their stretch run. Later in April the B's also signed Heinen to a three-year entry level deal beginning next year and he'll also play in Providence to finish out this season after Denver lost in the Frozen Four.]

Boston Bruins Austin Czarnik Gets His Chance as Injuries Hit Slumping B's

Lacking any real finishers outside of Brad Marchand and facing a sudden swath of injuries, the B’s are turning more and more to their emerging youth to help them get out of a mess in which they’ve lost six of seven and can’t seem to find the back of the net.

While they’ve gone against some solid goaltenders, they are short on the type of game-changing plays they will need to make to reach the postseason -- which they are precariously only a point away from missing for the second straight season with just five games to go.

They finally called up the much heralded speedy and shifty playmaking center Austin Czarnik, 23, who in his first pro season with Providence ranks in the top 10 in the AHL in assists (37) and is tied for 13^th in scoring (52 points). The former college CCHA Player of the Year and Hobey Baker Finalist, Czarnik, 5’9”, 161 lbs, was an undrafted NCAA star captain at Miami University of Ohio where he piled up 169 points in 159 games before the B’s signed him as a highly coveted free agent at the conclusion of his senior year last March.

“It’s exciting,” Czarnik told the Bruins Website after his first NHL practice today. “It’s one of my dreams come true. I’m just going to take it day by day, work hard and do my best.”

Czarnik was recalled to the B’s for the first time Wednesday along with forward Seth Griffith, 23, 5’9”, 191 lbs, (67 points in 51 Providence games this year, and 11 points over 32 career Boston games), to cover for swift center Ryan Spooner, winger Brett Connolly (both out with lower body injuries) and center David Krejci. The three forwards and defenseman Dennis Seidenberg all missed practice today and are considered day to day, while blueliner John-Michael Liles returned to the ice after missing a week to injury.

“I’m not going to go into details about injuries, but definitely there’s guys that were here today from Providence because we had four guys missing today and we’ll see where we go from there,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said in the Boston Globe.

Julien did offer to the Bruins Web site that Spooner is improving.

Meanwhile, the new additions will try to give the B’s a much needed spark down the stretch. The Bruins have been struggling mightily on the powerplay for some time, and while they continue to put in valiant efforts just aren’t getting the offensive finish they need or the consistency on defense that has characterized the team in the past.

In practice Czarnik centered Lee Stempniak and Frank Vatrano, with whom he’s had great chemistry previously in Providence and last summer’s Bruins development camp. A natural set-up man, the quick and highly competitive Czarnik works well with Vatrano as his gunner. Griffith also practiced at center on a line with David Pastrnak and Matt Beleskey, who has been one of the Bruins’ few bright spots of late.

Beleskey scored a goal in the B’s lone win over the last seven games Saturday against the Leafs, and has been consistently battling to get pucks out of corners, delivering screens in front of the net and big hits when the team needs it. While he has a modest 14 goals and 35 points over 75 games, he ranks 8^th in the league with 243 hits and brings the kind of nonstop workhorse approach, energy and fearlessness the B’s need to win if they are going to scrape themselves off the canvass and get back in this thing before their shot at the playoffs is over.


[Story Update: Czarnik's stay with the big club was short-lived as Spooner and Krejci returned to practice the next day and he was sent back to Providence. Griffith, who also plays right wing, stayed with the team for a couple of games until they recalled defenseman Colin Miller. Meanwhile, with 56 points in 62 games Czarnik moved into the top 10 in AHL scoring and made the All Rookie team alongside Vatrano.]

New NHL Coach's Offside Challenge Facing Scrutiny

With seemingly multiple good goals being challenged and taken away on a nightly basis in the NHL, it’s hard to find a lot of value in the new coach’s offside challenge.

The large majority of challenges are so close, a skate an inch off the ice or across the blue line, that the negatives – slowing the game down, taking the flow away and lowering scoring in a league trying to increase goals – seem to override the occasional positive of reversing egregious mistakes. Unnecessary challenges to too close to call plays are also taking the game out of the hands of referees and players on the ice, and putting it into those of coaches – something akin to late timeouts called in football after field goals have already been made.

The Bruins had two goals and nearly a third taken away by challenges in recent games, including a March 5 goal on a beautiful shot by Torey Krug that was overturned after replays initially looked inconclusive but later showed Loui Ericksson’s skate hovering slightly off the ice. It cost the B’s a win. “We’re not all, I guess, 100% on board with some of that stuff, but you’ve got to live with it,” Boston coach Claude Julien told CSNNE. “We always compare it to other calls that we’ve had. I guess we don’t always see consistency.”

The offside challenge is being thrown too frequently on plays that would normally just be goals. Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock seemed to question its merits after Toronto had a goal taken away in a recent offside challenge but won the game anyway, and two goals he challenged earlier were reversed. “An offside that you miss by a fraction of an inch that caused a goal, a goal that had nothing really to do with being offside, does it matter?” he told The Star. “I don’t know if it matters. Should those two goals that we called back really count? I thought they were good plays. I thought they should count. That’s just me.”

"An offside that you miss by a fraction of an inch that caused a goal, a goal that had nothing really to do with being offside, does it matter? I thought they were good plays. I thought they should count."  

 - Toronto Coach Mike Babcock

In a game last night between the Capitals and Blues, Washingon coach Barry Trotz threw an offside challenge at what looked like a beautiful goal off a rush from St. Louis rookie defenseman Colton Parayko. Video replays showed it was too close to reverse and the view obstructed, so the Blues kept the goal and went on to win 4-0. “I thought the second goal, you know, changed the whole deal,” Trotz said on The Washington Post.

The NHL Board of Governors approved the rule change last June, allowing coaches to challenge goals they think may have been offside as well as those where the goalie may have been interfered with. A team must have their timeout available in order to employ a challenge, and will lose it if the call on the ice stands.

"The reason we instituted it was so that we could get the egregious calls particularly right, ones that everybody alive sees and says, 'This is the wrong call, it's a screw-up,'" said Mike Murphy, NHL vice-president of hockey operations on NHL.com in October. "You want to use video replay to get egregious plays, not close calls where it's 50-50. (Coaches) can live with some of the close plays that happen in our sport. It's what make our sport so great. It travels so fast."

But that’s not what has been happening. Some coaches seem to take advantage to challenge even borderline calls over minutiae that could go either way while also leveraging the time it takes to review the play to give players a rest.

“There’s a few (challenges) you throw out there you’re not betting your life on,” Carolina coach Bill Peters told The Star. “If it gets the call right, I think it’s good. “There are a lot of times too you don’t know which way it’s going to go. On the offside, we’re getting down to: ‘Is his foot in the air? Is the toe of his skate touching?’”

According to Yahoo Sports, through January 22, the offside  challenge had been used 55 times with 22 overturned.

Borderline challenges can impact not only the outcome of games, but momentum as the hard work and skill that results in goals is put on pause. Criticisms arise from fans when coaches begin to act like a 7^th player and take that flow and excitement away by increasingly challenging calls that are too close to call. And do we really want a game that devolves into a modern version of the sci-fi epic Rollerball where backstage video reviewers control every step of the game rather than players?

The goalie interference challenges also appear to be having a less than optimal effect. “I feel like guys are almost taking advantage of crashing the net more,” Leafs goalie Jonathan Bernier added on The Star. “Or the defense is pushing the guy into the goalie. It’s good and bad. I think it slows down the game quite a bit, but it saves a few goals, too.”

The coach’s challenge was reviewed by the NHL in mid-March and will be tweaked in the playoffs to include ice-level cameras on the blueline to enhance the video review process. “The coach’s challenge hasn’t exactly been a hit in its first season of use,” according to NESN. “During the regular season, the majority of the cameras referees have access to are positioned far above the ice, often making bang-bang offside calls incredibly difficult to judge.”

But the tweak may not go far enough in fixing the rule and allowing for the natural flow and speed of the game, unless all coaches live up to the spirit it was intended and only challenge obvious big missed calls rather than 50-50 ones. The rule further runs counter to other recent NHL changes favoring offense and entertainment value, such as elimination of two-line offsides, reduced goalie pads, increased offensive zone area, and establishment of obstruction penalties, shootouts and 3-on-3 overtimes.