It was only a matter of time before centers John Farinacci and Dans Locmelis and right-shot defenseman Billy Sweezey would be assigned to the Providence Bruins, but I wasn’t sure about Dalton Bancroft.
The right winger out of Cornell popped home a pair of goals in his only preseason appearance, the Boston Bruins’ win at Philadelphia on Saturday. Bancroft was not in the lineup for Monday’s choppy, shootout loss to the Flyers at TD Garden.
While Bancroft’s demotion seems unfair, the fact is he has very limited experience as a pro hockey player since joining the P-Bruins after his 2024-25 campaign at Cornell had expired.
Bancroft turns 25 this winter, but if the Bruins think there is something there – they obviously do, having signed him – they believe it to be in the player’s best interests to hone his skills with more day-to-day opportunity. Incremental steps can theoretically be shortened should Bancroft excel in the minors.
Tell you what, the P-Bruins will be a compelling ticket this season.
Above is the Boston Bruins’ post on X identifying 12 forwards, seven defensemen and three goaltenders from which they will pull tonight’s lineup in Washington (where the Bruins will also start the 2025-26 season on Wednesday, Oct. 8).
Bruins lines for tonight based on the first of two practice sessions, as posted on X by new team staff reporter Belle Fraser:
Merkulov-Khusnutdinov-Lysell
Blümel-Poitras-Steeves
Tufte-Beecher-Kastelic
Harrison-Brown-Duran
Lohrei-Jokiharju
Aspirot-Harris
Callahan-Soderstrom
Korpisalo
DiPietro
It appears based on Belle’s list of the lines from morning skate that Frederic Brunet and Simon Zajicek are scheduled to be the healthy scratches.
Locmelis, the Latvian forward whose play impressed Sidney Crosby in the 2025 World Championships, is a UMass product whose stock was already on the rise last season. At 6 feet, 172 pounds, he has looked smallish in his preseason opportunities with the Boston Bruins, who – similarly to Bancroft and (last season) Matt Poitras – want him to gain the pro-hockey reps and build up his game. Hours before the team announcement, Boston Herald reporter Steve Conroy posted on X that Locmelis practiced this morning in the second session on a line with Pavel Zacha and Viktor Arvidsson.
For some perspective, harken back to David Krejci and Kris Versteeg in 2006-07, a couple of future NHLers whose careers had yet to find traction. The two had fast chemistry playing together in Providence before Versteeg was moved for a player then-new-GM Peter Chiarelli felt could offer a needy NHL roster immediate help. While Versteeg won the Stanley Cup in 2010 with the Chicago Blackhawks, he tended to bounce around the NHL while Krejci played his entire NHL career with the Bruins, twice leading the league in playoff scoring (2011, 2013). Both needed AHL time.
Krejci, in fact, did get a recall that 2006-07 season, got caught looking down at the puck at the edge of his own goal crease and got knocked out by Buffalo rookie Adam Mair. Who knew in the moment that we were looking at the first NHL action of a center who was going to lead the entire Stanley Cup playoffs in scoring twice over the next six years? But I will tell you that former pro goalie (WHA), assistant coach and pro scout (NHL) Cap Raeder called me one morning that season after Krejci and Versteeg had played the night before for the P-Bruins to tell me both are future NHLers and that “Krejci can play right now.”
These guys in pro hockey, they know what they’re doing, they know what they’re watching, and they don’t need us to tell them how to manage players they identified in the first place.
So onto tonight in D.C., where it’s apparently last call for several “wanna-B’s” including familiar faces Fabian Lysell and Georgii Merkulov, the latter who played an excellent game in Philadelphia in his one shot. Tonight’s is a biggy for Merk. I’m not sure at this point that Lysell or Matej Blumel for that matter can offer a performance tonight in Washington that would tip the scales in their favor.
Like Bancroft, Alex Steeves is deserving of a longer look. Bancroft isn’t getting it because management wants him as busy as possible, and Providence is the place to be for the first-year pro. Steeves, on the other hand, is a very solid utility winger whose reliability along the walls, smarts around the rink and durable physical stature (6 feet, 199 pounds) might make him a next-gen Noel Acciari of sorts for the Bruins, albeit on the left wing. Steeves has been prolific at the AHL level (36-26-62 in 59GP for the Toronto Marlies last season). Should coach Marco Sturm prefer Pavel Zacha at center, then Steeves’ presence in camp becomes more valuable.
Given his four years of experience in pro hockey (Steeves turns 26 on Dec. 10), the Bruins apparently have a player here who will not cost them games and whose potential to contribute offensively is worth exploring.
Steeves and fellow 25-year-old Matej Blumel came to this camp as crossroads players whose AHL prowess has lacked opportunity amidst strong NHL rosters, Steeves in Toronto and Blumel in Dallas.
“It’s a big time for a lot of people including myself, and for me just trying to put my best foot forward every day. It’s hard, you have your body of work, and then – you know, at this time of year it gets squeezed into a couple of weeks, and you’ve got to put as much good tape out there as possible, and that’s all I’m trying to do,” said Steeves after Monday night’s game against Philadelphia at TD Garden. “If I’m being honest, I feel like I’ve had a lot of good moments, but I don’t think things have gone as good for me as they could have, just some things, puck bounces here and there … but there’s no excuses on my end.
“I’m appreciative that you can still see that there are little parts of my game that I try to be really responsible and work really hard and physical, and I think when the goals start coming and that kind of stuff, I think I have a lot to add around here. For me, it’s try to keep shooting, try to keep getting those chances, and once you see one fall I think things will really fall into place.”
Steeves is a very crafty player in contact areas who has shown in the AHL that he can score in different ways and has a formidable shot with space.
“I’ve shown that a lot in practice; I don’t think I’ve shown enough in the games to this point,” he said.
One thing about preseason hockey that Bruins management will consider. Preseason games are choppy and lack the flow and systemic structure that emerges in the regular season. That can help some players and hurt others, whose opportunities thrive on mismatches and chaotic play. Steeves seems to be the kind of player who can help the Bruins in the grind of regular-season hockey where player upsides are not the focal point but reliability is. He hasn’t gotten the kind of opportunities that Blumel has, but Steeves may be the crossroads player whose presence in this camp may only look redundant by his relative lack of pizzazz.
Whatever else a team depending on unrelenting work ethic, physicality and compete level built around defense and goaltending needs, it needs reliable forwards with some offensive upside. Steeves checks those boxes, and just as Sturm looks to unlock the offensive potential of his team, it may be that the regular-season rhythm will unlock Steeves’ ability to become a microcosm to that overall effort.
If Steeves doesn’t survive the next cut, then Rink Rap recalls the late, great Pat Burns admonishing the media a quarter century ago that personnel decisions toward the end of training camp, while important and sometimes life-changing for players, are not necessarily final.
Did I mention that the P-Bruins will be a helluva take this fall?
A final note on contracts. NHL teams are more flexible these days on player movement despite one-way vs. two-way contracts, but the preference is clear and the following information is useful in trying to formulate one’s own expectations as to how the chips will fall as the Bruins whittle down their roster.
Along with the NHL roster, the following players in Bruins camp are on one-way contracts and will need to clear waivers if assigned to Providence: Blumel, Steeves, Jeffrey Viel, and Michael DiPietro. The following players on two-way contracts also need to clear waivers to join the P-Bruins: Merkulov, Patrick Brown, Riley Tufte, Michael Callahan, Jonathan Aspirot, Sweezey (currently on waivers via today’s assignment), and Victor Soderstrom.
Rink Rap with Mick Colageo 