Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Some nights it all looks just right, nights like March 26 when the Providence Bruins visited league-leading Hershey and assembled a 4-1 masterpiece of a win.
The Bruins went ahead 1-0 in the first period, held on through a Hershey pushback, and then pulled away with three second-period goals. When Hershey threatened with three power-play chances in the third period, the P-Bruins’ penalty kill held strong and shut down any chance of a comeback. Brandon Bussi took care of 26 of 27 shots in net.
“They played extremely competitively,” head coach Ryan Mougenel said of his players that night at Giant Center. “They did everything we wanted to do and no complaints.”
Other nights, well, not so much. After following the win in Hershey with a 7-4 victory at Utica, Providence was thumped by Syracuse, 4-0. This past Friday at Lehigh Valley, Mougenel’s club had a 2-0 advantage by the 17-minute mark, only to see the Phantoms rally to tie it and then take the game in overtime. And a night later back home against Rochester, the Bruins lost hold of a third-period lead before falling in OT again.
So it goes in the AHL, even for a team with every reason to think that it can contend for the Calder Cup this June. The Bruins have had to deal with plenty of moving parts this season. Forward Jesper Boqvist has stuck with the parent Boston Bruins and won’t be back this season. Power forward Justin Brazeau has found his niche in Boston as well. Another forward, John Beecher, has largely spent the season in the NHL. Defenseman Jakub Zboril (Cleveland) and forward Luke Toporowski (Iowa) moved on around the trade deadline last month. Top prospect Fabian Lysell has been out of action since March 23.
But those personnel losses create new roles, even if there is upheaval.
“It’s just opportunity for other guys,” Mougenel said. “And I think the one thing we’ve done here as a staff is really put guys in situations where they might not have always gotten the ice. That’s one thing that we believe in here. Everybody plays a role and when one guy goes down, somebody else has to step up, and hopefully they’re prepared for that.”
And the Calder Cup Playoffs, they’re a topic that must be confronted as well. The sting still remains from last spring, when the division-winning Bruins ran into one of their most classic rivals, the Hartford Wolf Pack. Providence had finished 17 points ahead of Hartford in the standings, but it hardly mattered once the clubs’ Atlantic Division semifinal series had concluded, a three-games-to-one win for the Wolf Pack that included two shutout victories.
Readying themselves for the 2024 postseason is job-one in Providence right now. Up next on the schedule is a three-in-three weekend against desperate opponents: a two-game set at Amica Mutual Pavilion this Friday and Saturday against Utica, followed by a Sunday visit to Springfield.
Hershey has already nailed down the Atlantic Division title, so second place is the playoff-bound Bruins’ target now. They have a pair of streaking clubs in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Charlotte just four points behind them for that second-place slot, and with it a bye into the division semis. Fall out of second place and you have to play a best-of-three first-round series, making the route through the Calder Cup Playoffs a bit longer.
If the P-Bruins do clinch second place, they will have to navigate through some time off until they begin their postseason schedule. That’s something that the Providence coaching staff had to do last season. Creativity to fill in some of that down time may be necessary again.
But that performance in Hershey two weeks ago showed a viable blueprint for what Providence can do – and will need to do – when the postseason does begin.
“It’s one thing we talked about with Hershey,” Mougenel shared. “Other than the skill, they’re extremely competitive, and they never take a shift off. That’s the difference between them and, say, us early on in the year. [The Bears] really have a consistent work ethic.
“I thought the lineup [against Hershey] really identified as a team that can go in the playoffs and make some noise.”
