The Bruins wanted to make sure they added more certainty to their third and fourth lines this summer, so they went out and signed veterans Nick Foligno, Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek.
It’s possible internal options would have been able to step up and fill those roles, but they didn’t want to take any chances. As a result, young forwards who may be NHL-ready or close to it begin training camp facing an uphill battle to make the roster, with established NHLers all through the lineup and seemingly no open spots there for the taking.
Brad Marchand is no stranger to that kind of uphill battle. After being drafted in 2006, he spent two more seasons in major junior, then a full season with AHL Providence in 2008-09. He got a couple call-ups in 2009-10, but still found himself behind veteran bottom-six forwards like Daniel Paille, Steve Begin and Shawn Thornton when everyone was healthy.
It wasn’t until training camp in 2010 that Marchand finally forced his way ahead of a veteran -- Paille, to be exact -- and earned a regular spot in the lineup.
On Thursday, Marchand was asked about how frustrating it can be to be a young guy who feels like he’s ready but is staring at a lineup full of established NHL players. His answer was brutally honest and touched on a harsh reality most players don’t want to publicly acknowledge.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Marchand said. “It’s frustrating for young guys coming into a camp like this, where you feel like you’re ready, you feel like you want to be in the NHL. Everybody wants to be here. No one wants to go back to junior, college, minors. You want to make that jump. You come in and you can see, I don’t know, 13, 14 guys on [one-way NHL contracts] up front and seven, eight D on one-ways at the back, two or three goalies.
“You’re looking at what you can do, but that’s when you have to kind of pick a guy and try to push him out. That’s what you do. You find a guy you think you can push out and you try to lean on him and try to take his spot. The worst thing that’s gonna come out of that is you have a great camp and you’re the next guy who gets called up. That’s what you kind of fight for as well.
“If you want to be realistic about it, probably 97 percent of guys start in the minors. You’re kind of hoping for an injury at some point. Unfortunately you don’t want to say that, but that’s how you get in this league. You go down to the minors, you play well, and you hope for guys to get hurt and you get your call-up. That’s how it is.
“You want to make a good statement and you want people to notice you and you want to leave your mark so that when it comes time for someone to get called up, you’re that guy. Or if someone’s having a bad year and you’re having a good season, they call you up and put you in his spot. Those are things you play for. Sometimes there’s only two or three spots open, and you have to earn one of those now. That’s kind of what they play for.”
Most players would never publicly acknowledge trying to “push out” a more senior player or “hoping” for an injury. Regardless, it is in fact true that many young players don’t get a call-up until there’s an injury.
It’s also true that young players often have an eye on which players on the team they think they’re better than. Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said on Thursday that he knows that from experience.
“I’m sure there’s guys who think like that. I know there is, because I’ve had players say to me, ‘I think I’m better than this player on your roster,’” Cassidy said.
As Cassidy went on to point out, though, it’s usually not as simple as whether one player is more talented than the other.
“That may be so in terms of your individual package, but are you a better fit for the team? That’s the conversation you have with a lot of young guys,” Cassidy said. “They feel they’re better. Well, can you go down and do that role? Block shots, kill penalties, play against the other team’s top line, start in your end a lot, and change your game to be able to do that? Those are the questions that as a coach you have to ask. Do you want to do that?
“And the other thing, some guys you’d rather them take the time and be ready to be a top-end lineup guy. Those are tough conversations. It’s not a sell job either. It’s just reality. Those are ones that are tough for a young guy, 20, 21 years old. It’s not easy to change the way you play when you’ve been a top guy, the guy. It’s a mental thing as well. That’s why you see some guys slip through the cracks eventually. Other guys are willing to change and they survive and they play a long time. Some give up. … Some guys are able to play through it and become a skill guy again. Marchy’s a good example. He wasn’t in his first year that he cracked [Claude Julien's] lineup.”
The Bruins weren’t going to just give third- or fourth-line jobs to young prospects. That doesn’t mean those players can’t earn them if they out-perform the veterans penciled in above them, though. Marchand serves as evidence that it can happen, and he also perhaps serves as an example of the kind of ruthless mindset it takes to get there.
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