The Bruins’ plan for Mason Lohrei at the start of the season most likely did not call for the second-year defenseman to see 18:30 of icetime a night.
But when the team lost workhorse left defenseman Hampus Lindholm to a knee injury on November 12, that became the B’s and Lohrei’s reality.
There have been the predictable highs and lows – sometimes coming in the same game. In the B’s 7–2 loss, the offensive-minded Lohrei made a nice maneuver around Buffalo forward Zach Benson at the left point before blasting a half-slapper past goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to give the B’s. Later as the game was getting away from the B’s, both Lohrei and Parker Wotherspoon allowed JJ Peterka to split them and score the back-breaking goal. Lohrei leads all Bruin defensemen in scoring (3-20-23), but he’’s also low-man on the totem with a minus-11 going into Thursday’s tough matchup against the Winnipeg Jets.
But the B’s surely hope that these accelerated minutes will pay dividends for the 24-year-old D-man who only started playing the position when he was a sophomore at Culver Academy.
Lohrei has embraced the gift of added icetime.
“Obviously, you don’t want to see anybody be out, especially not your top guys. But being able to have a little more opportunity has been awesome,” said Lohrei after Thursday’s morning skate. “I just want to show what I can do and show that I can play minutes like that. You get into the game more when you’’re playing more minutes and you’re going out there more consistently. I guess I compare it to being a quarterback and you’re only going out there every other drive on offense. It’s a little tougher to get into the game that way. It’s just the way it is, depending on the night and the matchup. But it’s been great being able to play those minutes and play a bigger role I guess. Hopefully, I can keep that going, even with our top guys coming back.”
What should help the Wisconsin-born Lohrei is that he doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed by the moment, even when things aren’t going particularly well. He has the ability to shake off mistakes.
“When you play as many games as we do, there’s going to be ups and downs. I think minimizing the downs is the biggest thing. That’s something I’m trying to learn and I think I’m getting better as we go here,” said Lohrei.
“It’s definitely more mental than physical, for sure. It’s just about every night going out there and having a mindset to make a difference and not slip. It’s definitely harder mentally but I feel that’s something I’ve always been pretty good at, just going out there and playing with confidence to make a difference on every shift.”
Lohrei was expected to get a prime role in the B’s game against the Jets. He was paired with No. 1 defenseman Charlie McAvoy in the morning skate.
“They’ve had some success in the past,” said coach Joe Sacco. “They played well together last year in the Toronto series. They played against one of their top two lines most of the time. They just seem to feed off each other well. I just think when we get some O-zone starts, we can use both those guys in those situations and it will help us generate a little more offense from offensive zone faceoffs.”
With the return of McAvoy, though, Lohrei ceded his spot on the top power-play unit, moving to the second unit. During McAvoy’s absence, the B’s went 3-for-15 on the power play. The puck movement has looked better with Lohrei, though did not quite agree.
“I’m not sure it looked good, really good. It’s been OK,” said Sacco on the recent power-play work. “We like Charlie on his entries. He gets the puck in for us. That’s been an area where we’ve struggled with on our power play. Once we get it set up. We seemed to have a little more success. We’re hoping Charlie can drive some of the entries for us and help us get in a little cleaner so that we can set up and create some more time.”…
Sacco tweaked the lines up front as well, putting Elias Lindholm back with Brad Marchand and Charlie Coyle while dropping Matt Poitras down to play on the third line with Trent Frederic and Justin Brazeau. The move was mostly matchup-related with Winnipeg’s explosive top line.
“I think (Poitras) understands that certain nights there are going to be matchups that are going to shift the lines around, not just Matty. It could be other players. It could be D pairs. It could be anybody else. It’s just a quick conversation with him, making sure he understands and we go from there,” said Sacco….
McAvoy was named an alternate captain for Team USA for the Four Nations tournament. Toronto’s Auston Matthews is the captain and Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk is another alternate. Hockey creates strange bedfellows…
With McAvoy coming off IR, Max Jones was reassigned to Providence…
After missing one game with illness, Brandon Carlo was back in the lineup.