The Boston Bruins had plenty of options to steal a spot in the top-six forward group in training camp. However, one by one, Matthew Poitras, Matej Blumel, Alex Steeves, Fabian Lysell, and Georgii Merkulov were given their walking papers to head down to the Providence Bruins to start the season. Marco Sturm handed Viktor Arvidsson the keys to the top six, and to the surprise of not many people, he was quickly demoted to the third line after five games.
The Bruins were in the middle of a Western Conference road trip when the demotion happened, which left Sturm with not many options to promote into the top six. In a move that only confirmed what all Bruins fans feared about this team, Mikey Eyssimont was the forward that the head coach chose to get the honors.
It seemed like Sturm tried every top-six combination possible on Saturday night against the Colorado Avalanche. He mixed and matched David Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha, Morgan Geekie, Casey Mittelstadt, and Eyssimont, but none of the trios managed to do anything that resembled competent offense.
There was a 15-minute stretch where the Bruins had no shots, Johnny Beecher scored the team's only goal, and they finished with just 14 shots total. The Avalanche nearly tripled the Bruins' shots on goal.
If the Bruins want to land Gavin McKenna in the draft and frustrate Pastrnak to no end on the way there, they should feel free to keep Eyssimont in the top six. However, once the team returns to Boston, the best move would be to recall one of the red-hot forwards from Providence and hope to give the team a bit of a spark.
Maybe that doesn't work either, but it'd at least give Sturm a chance to see what he really has with his young scoring forwards, instead of forcing fans to watch whatever that was on Saturday night against the Avalanche. In a season where we are all searching for reasons to believe in the black and gold, Saturday night's loss accomplished the complete opposite.