Going into the 2023-24 season, the Boston Bruins are facing a problem. The problem that the Bruins face this year, is not that they do not have David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron (although that is a problem), the problem is that they have too many players on their roster that list their primary position as a center.
In short, they have overcompensated for the losses, and will have a positional battle from the start to take over those two spots. As of August 17, 2023, Boston has seven players (out of a possible four) that list are listed as centers on the team’s roster.
The sure-fire centers who will most likely not be switching positions, are Charlie Coyle, and Morgan Geekie. Coyle has not played anywhere else, and has tenure on the team, and Geekie was signed exclusively to play center.
Returning forward Pavel Zacha may slide to his primary position to fill up the spots, but, frankly I don’t see Zacha as a center on this team especially after the numbers he put up last year.
During the regular season, Zacha played in all 82 regular season games, and tallied 21 goals, and 36 assists (57 points), and played in all seven playoff games, tallying six assists. Look for the Boston to use him as a in a left or right wing spot in order to free up some of the center spots, and keep him where he is.
It’s possible that head coach Jim Montgomery will play the shuffling hats game with the Bruins, figuring out who each game’s center is by picking from a hat (figuratively speaking, of course), and/or going based off of recent performance.
Training camp, and the preseason, can also tell you a lot as well. What Boston needs to look at in that time is which forward are willing to either shift up where they play whether that is moving from center to wing, be scratched from the lineup from time-to-time, or even moved up and down the lineup with no consistent spot unless they’ve earned it, something Montomgery made a point of doing last season.
Geekie, and Coyle, are poised to head up the top two lines going into the season being the top two offensively-minded players on the team.
Sure, Zacha had better offensive numbers last season both when he played on the second line as the left-wing, and in a bigger role as the Bruins’ top line center when Bergeron was out, but don’t expect him to move to a larger role right away. It’s possible he moves eventually, but not right away.
Another player who is also battling to stay at the center spot, however, is Trent Frederic. Frederic, who recently won his arbitration case, will likely be on a line that packs some physicality on it.
That may be on the third line as a right winger, where he can flank a goal-scorer like Jesper Boqvist, with Milan Lucic on the other side, or maybe he will anchor the fourth line with his ability to win faceoffs much a la Gregory Campbell back in the day.
As of today, the Bruins have seven possible centers for four possible spots. Could be some hard decisions for management to make.