Beleskey, Hayes Shouldn't Shy Away From Wanting To Skate With Bruins' Best Centers
BOSTON (CBS) - Let's hope for the Bruins' sake newly acquired forwards Matt Beleskey and Jimmy Hayes turn out to be bolder around the net and in the corners this season than they were when asked Tuesday to make a statement about what line they want to play on.
The two wings, who combined for 41 goals last season with their former teams, are expected to revive a Bruins offense that ranked 22nd in goals scored last season and was the main culprit in the team missing the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.
Everyone knows that when healthy the Bruins have one of the best one-two center punches in the NHL with David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron. It's also a well-known fact that Bergeron's left wing is already satisfactorily filled by Brad Marchand. Other than that, with the trades of Milan Lucic and Reilly Smith the Bruins have three openings in their top six.
Beleskey, who came from an Anaheim Ducks team that boasted its own formidable dynamic duo up the middle with Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler, wouldn't bite when given the opportunity to make an early pitch to Claude Julien about the lines during his first in-person meeting with the Boston media Tuesday at TD Garden.
"That's up to the coach really. I'm going to play my same game, be a power forward, get in on the forecheck and go to the net hard. That's what I'm going to do. And if he sees me play wherever, it doesn't really matter. I'm just going to do what he needs to me to do and he'll put me where he thinks I'll get along."
Hayes, the hometown guy who knows he's going to hear from plenty and friends and family all summer about which line he should be on, also dodged the center question the way Bruins fans hope he'll avoid defensemen on his way to the net to score the goals Lucic wasn't able to produce much in two of the past three seasons.
"They've got a ton of talent up the middle and I think playing with anybody is going to be a great opportunity for me," Hayes said.
Listen guys, this isn't the United Nations. It's a hockey team in Boston. The time for diplomacy and cordiality has passed. This isn't Anaheim or Sunrise, Fla. Both players referenced the "Big, Bad Bruins" in their comments. Well, the time to start asserting their bigness and badness is now. Don't shrink from an easy question about playing with Krejci or Bergeron. At least show off a little bit of ego and declare yourself a top-line forward whose initial desire is to play with Krejci and make that line the force it was in the days of Nathan Horton and then Jarome Iginla.
Beleskey definitely knows the benefits of playing with a top-two forward. Beleskey scored 22 goals playing mostly alongside Kesler after scoring 35 goals in his prior five seasons. He's a left wing; Lucic was a left wing. It's pretty obvious where Beleskey should fit in at the outset of his Bruins' career.
Hayes is a 6-foot-6 right wing who would seem a perfect fit on Krejci's other side the way Horton and Iginla fit that spot. But fitting in Hayes is a little more complicated than that. Hayes, who played almost evenly with Vincent Trochek and Nick Bjugstad last season with the Florida Panthers, might give a line with Beleskey and Krejci a little too much bulk. Krejci doesn't necessarily need that much bulk on his first line, and with Beleskey around, that line might need a defensive conscience. Loui Eriksson might be the better fit, if he can find some chemistry with Krejci. David Pastrnak briefly showed he could be a Krejci partner.
Eriksson and Pastrnak might also be better suited than Hayes to skate next to the Marchand-Bergeron duo. Pastrnak in particular would be an intriguing option to skate the lane once occupied by a similarly speedy and skilled Tyler Seguin.
So although Hayes should have the audacity to announce himself as here to be a top-six right wing for the Bruins, there still might not be room. Brett Connolly is also going to get his chance to thrive. And this all might work out well for the Bruins, and in particular Ryan Spooner. We already saw how the speedy Spooner could get a hulky winger to shift into a higher gear and tear up the wing when Spooner played with Lucic down the stretch last season. Spooner could have a similar effect on Hayes and make the Bruins a legitimate three-line threat – the type of team they always want to be even though it doesn't always turn from words to production.
Expect there to be several line permutations in training camp. But when the dust settles, the Bruins' best bet might turn out to be this:
Beleskey – Krejci – Connolly
Marchand – Bergeron – Pastrnak
Eriksson – Spooner – Hayes
Kemppainen - Kelly – Rinaldo
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
