BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Casey Mittelstadt became a coffee person this summer.<\/p>\n
Despite the early mornings, late nights and grueling travel of the NHL schedule, the Boston Bruins forward never turned to caffeinated beverages.<\/p>\n
Fatherhood, though, forced him to finally change.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never thought you could do so many things when you\u2019re tired,\u201d Mittelstadt said with a chuckle. \u201cA lot of coffee. I drink a lot of coffee now. I never really was a coffee drinker. I just like an iced coffee. A lot of coffee now.”<\/p>\n
Mittelstadt and his fianc\u00e9e, Tatum, welcomed their son, Macklin, in April right before the playoffs began. The first-born is now five months old and got quality time with his dad before the 2026-27 season gets going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think especially just the timing of when we had him, to be able to spend the summer with him and have him know who I am before I start leaving for extended periods of time has been fun,\u201d Mittelstadt said. \u201cIt will definitely be a little bit of an adventure this year, but we\u2019re looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The now family-of-three went back to Minnesota (Mittelstadt is from Eden Prairie) for the majority of the offseason. The days consisted of workouts, skating sessions, changing diapers and, occasionally, a round of golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a blast. It was fun to be home; obviously, we had some family around to help us out. And to get to be around the baby \u2013 it was special for them as well,\u201d Mittelstadt said. \u201cWe really enjoyed it, but we\u2019re happy to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
NHL roots run deep in Minnesota, so Mittelstadt had a strong group of competition to train with, including Justin Faulk, Nick Leddy, Brock Boeser, Brock Nelson, Ryan McDonagh and Joey and Mikey Anderson. Mittelstadt\u2019s main focus ahead of his second full campaign with the B\u2019s was his speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think personally for me, I felt like maybe I was a little slow last year. So I think getting stronger and getting faster. Trying to work on some skating stuff. For me, I think I am pretty good with the puck and handling it, but sometimes I lose my feet. That was my biggest focus,\u201d Mittelstadt said. \u201cA lot of jumping and obviously a lot of stuff on the ice as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old finished last year with 42 points (15 goals, 27 assists) through 71 regular-season matchups, and added two assists in the first round of the playoffs. Mittelstadt returned to Boston at the end of August to get settled before training camp opens on Sept. 16.\u200b<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun, first and foremost, just to come and see the guys. It\u2019s kind of weird; it feels like it\u2019s been so long you haven\u2019t seen them, and then you walk back into Warrior, and it feels like you were here yesterday,\u201d Mittelstadt said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good group back already, too, which I think helps. Just trying to stick with it, keep working out, keep skating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Casey Mittelstadt became a coffee person this summer. Despite the early mornings, late nights and grueling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-885142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}