Unlike the NHL, the AHL often schedules its clubs to play Friday and Saturday nights, topped off by a Sunday matinee. The Providence Bruins this season will play four of those torturous tripleheaders, beginning with an Oct. 9-10-11 set when they will have the alleged luxury of playing all three on home ice.
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When a road trip gets jammed into the grueling three-in-three equation, again … who comes to play for that matinee?
“When you find two or three guys that are different, or guys that play with a big motor,” mused Bonvie, “or guys who are willing to play fearless, or with meanness between the whistles, and functional toughness.”
Such degrees of sheer desire, continued Bonvie, can be what separates Player X from those who possess “light skill” and those who “just want to play and participate.”
“And when you find someone different, in terms of their identity, it’s intriguing,” said Bonvie, who began his scouting career some 20 years ago with the Maple Leafs, only weeks after his playing days ended.
In terms of overall roster talent, it indeed takes a village to shape a Stanley Cup contender. Weekend standouts in the minor pros don’t drive the bus to title town. In a recent interview explaining the merits of signing Cale Makar to that record-setting $20.4-million-per-year deal in Colorado, Avalanche GM Joe Sakic noted, “You can’t win without superstars.”
Makar, the slick defenseman, is all of that, as is powerhouse center Nathan MacKinnon. With those two, along with ex-Hurricanes forward Martin Necas, Colorado is living a Rocky Mountain high of elite talent. They are built to factor as a legit Cup contender into the next decade.
“Yeah, you need depth, and you need your team playing really well at the right time,” said Sakic. “Unless you have guys like Cale and Nate on your team, it makes it a lot harder.”
That essential depth factor, along with a large dollop of luck in terms of roster health/injuries, is vital in constructing contenders.
The Bruins will open their varsity training camp Wednesday with roster depth boosted significantly, largely as a result of the seismic change that came in March 2025 that led, directly or indirectly, to the additions of Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov, and JJ Peterka.
Minten was acquired in the swap that sent Brandon Carlo to Toronto. Khusnutdinov arrived from Minnesota as part of the package for Justin Brazeau. The Bruins gave up two first-round picks for Peterka, one of those picks originally owned by Florida and part of the Brad Marchand swap.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bonvie, he frequently referred to the importance of identifying “distressed” or “underused” assets at the pro level — be it in the NHL or minor pro leagues such as the AHL or ECHL. Seeking and acquiring that kind of talent is at the core of how he viewed his role as a scout upon joining the Bruins in 2015, and the 11-year evolution that led to his recent promotion.
“Gotta tell you, I pinch myself everyday for it,” said Bonvie.
While Bonvie did not directly discuss Minten, Khusnutdinov, or Peterka, all three to varying degrees fit those aforementioned “distressed” or “underused” categories.
Fraser Minten (left) and Marat Khusnutdinov (center) were two young players the Bruins scouts helped find, leading to their solid first full seasons in Boston. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
The Maple Leafs had yet to find permanent space for the skilled Minten anywhere in their forward mix. The Wild found Khusnutdinov an intriguing though inconsistent talent, and used him as an everyday contributor only in stretches over two seasons.
Peterka was ballyhooed as a key get when the Mammoth acquired him from Buffalo in the 2025 offseason, and signed him to a five-year, $38.5 million extension. We’ll see in the months/years to come if the hype was overblown, or whether Peterka’s fit was simply not right in Utah.
The Bruins hope they’ve identified an upside in Peterka that, say, Seattle overlooked in Morgan Geekie — now the Black and Gold’s No. 1 left winger — when the Kraken let him go as a free agent in the summer of 2023.
Pavel Zacha, a first-round draft pick, had yet to find his stride after six seasons in New Jersey when the Bruins nabbed him for Erik Haula in July 2022. A year ago, Viktor Arvidsson was brought in via trade after a season in Edmonton where he fell into a black hole in the Oilers offense.
No one, least of all Bonvie, would say he was the sole driving force in those acquisitions. He adamantly refers to the front office’s “collaborative” effort when sizing up trade prospects.
“I really feel, at the end of the day, you have to have the right guys that have conviction, that really want to push for certain players,” he said, referring to the scouting mission at large. “You don’t kind of sit on the fence. You say, ‘Hey, this is a player that would be really good for us’, and then say why he’d be good for us. We want guys who really want to go and find players.”
While there has been plenty of due criticism regarding the club’s drafting record during general manager Don Sweeney’s decade-plus tenure, and a number of disappointing (and pricey) free agent hires, trading for pro talent has been an abundant strength.
Exhibit A: the March 2023 trade deadline adds of Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnet Hathaway, and Dmitry Orlov. Those playoffs turned into the mother of all Cup buzzkills, and all three departed as free agents in July, but all were prudent, effective acquisitions.
Bonvie, never drafted, signed out of juniors as a free agent with Edmonton, and went on to play only 92 NHL games across 15 pro seasons. He scored all his NHL points (1-2–3) in his 24 games with the 2001-02 Bruins — where he first met Sweeney, a couple years away from ending his 15 seasons on the Bruins blue line.
More than a decade later, following six years scouting for the Blackhawks, Bonvie came back to Boston as a scout when Sweeney became GM in 2015.
A lingering priority for the Bruins, along with a substantial percentage of NHL teams, is to add battle to their roster — players who fight for pucks along the boards, and pay the price to get into prime scoring areas. Courage and determination are skills. The assistant GM with 4,493 AHL penalty minutes needs no reminding of that.
New Bruins assistant general manager Dennis Bonvie likes finding those rare players who play a heavy game, with a dash of mean on the ice, to get into the hard-fought, goal-scoring areas. Boston Bruins
“Not everybody’s got that personality for some reason,” said Bonvie. “You can only go and explain it to them so many times. I go to them and say, ‘What you can potentially do, you know, it’s not really out there, I can’t find it.’ If you want to do this, if you want to play a certain way — and I am not saying fight, that’s got nothing to do with it — but play heavy, play mean, you can make yourself a lot of money.
“But it seems some have that junkyard dog attitude where you really want it or you don’t. Maybe you can grow it a little bit. But sometimes it’s just not in them. I don’t understand and probably never will.”
PTO PARLAY
Very few tryout looks on books
Professional tryout offers only rarely offer players a viable path to an NHL contract, and this year’s abbreviated training camps and exhibition schedules have narrowed even those chances. Former Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk went the PTO route a year ago in Chicago and secured a one-year deal.
As of Friday afternoon, “Gryz” still was without a contract for the coming season, and there was no sign of anyone offering a PTO.
In fact, as of Friday evening, it appeared only a handful of players, including ex-Round 1 draft picks Alex Nylander and Tyson Jost, would report this week on PTOs:
▪ Cal Petersen, goalie, 31, Washington: The former Notre Dame backstop spent last season with AHL Iowa. He likely would be Hershey-bound if he signs with the Capitals, who could use insurance behind Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren.
▪ Nylander, forward, 28, Calgary: The Flames remain wanting for scorers up front, and won’t have top center Jonathan Huberdeau (recovering from surgery) in the lineup off the hop. Picked No. 8 by the Sabres in the 2016 draft, Nylander’s results have never met the pedigree. He has appeared in only 42 NHL games over the past three seasons with Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Toronto.
▪ Chris Driedger, goalie, 32, Vancouver: Played last season with the KHL’s Traktor Chelyabinsk (where Scott Gordon is now coach). The Canucks should be set in net with Kevin Lankinen and former BC star Thatcher Demko. But Demko underwent hip surgery in January, cutting short his season, and the Canucks are unsure how soon he’ll be roster ready.
▪ Nick Blankenburg, defenseman, 28, Toronto: Undersized, ex- of UMichigan (from the Johnny Beecher days), played for both Colorado and Nashville last season. Small, but mobile, an insurance play by new GM John Chayka, looking for options if Chris Tanev still needs time to recover from March surgery to fix a core injury.
▪ Jost, center, 28, Nashville: Drafted No. 10 by the Avalanche in 2016, he’s had fairly regular NHL work (564 games) the last 10 years. He was set to play last season in the Carolina system until Nashville filched him off waivers in October — a prelude to the Hurricanes nabbing goalie Brandon Bussi via a waiver claim five days later. New Nashville GM Chris MacFarland will give him a look amid trying to right the Predators after back-to-back DNQ seasons.
Chris Kreider, who had 22 goals and 50 points in 75 games for the Ducks last year, is now a free agent and would be a good pickup for a contender. Kyusung Gong/AP Photo/Kyusung Gong
ETC.
Kreider makes maison in Montreal
As the weekend dawned, ex-Boston College standout Chris Kreider remained an unrestricted free agent — his first time on the open market after 14 NHL seasons, all but the last (Ducks) with the Rangers.
By nightfall Saturday, he was the newest member of the Canadiens, giving the Habs a booster shot to their power play and Cup chances.
Kreider, 35, and the Ducks mutually agreed to terminate his contract earlier in the week, costing the big winger $4 million in guaranteed salary. It also freed up $6.5 million in cap space, money Anaheim vitally need in order to cut an extension with high-scoring winger Cutter Gauthier, another former Eagle.
Kreider signed a one-year deal with the Canadiens that guarantees him $2.15 million; he can earn an added $3 million in incentives — available to NHLers age 35 or older. On July 1, the Ducks paid him a $1 million signing bonus, per conditions of the contract he carried with him from his Broadway days.
Per Kreider’s agent, Matt Keator, the proud son of Boxford preferred to sign in the Eastern Conference.
“He wants to win the Cup,” added Keator late Friday afternoon, “that’s his first priority.”
Kreider, 6 feet 3 inches and 232 pounds, over the last five seasons scored 171 goals (average: 34), tied for 22nd among NHL scorers. He potted 66 of those on the power play, ranking No. 7 in the league.
Kreider being able to sign a one-year deal at a low cap hit was a key component in getting a deal done quickly. He will be able to join the Canadiens midweek for the start of training camp, provided visa and work documentation can be executed promptly.
Per puckpedia.com, Montreal still has some $7.6 million remaining in available cap space. Any bonus money that Kreider adds this season will be tolled into next year’s cap figures.
Former Bruins forward Ryan Spooner has added a new stop to his extensive European itinerary, signing to play this season in Zdeno Chara’s hometown of Trencin, Slovakia, with Dukla Trencin. It’s his eighth season playing overseas, most of those years in the KHL. He’ll be under the watch of Trencin bench boss Todd Woodcroft, the former University of Vermont coach who was shooed off the Burlington campus in 2023 after a school investigation found that he sent inappropriate texts to a student … Woodcroft’s brother, Jay, the ex-Oilers coach, is about to enter his second year as an assistant on Joel Quenneville’s Anaheim staff … Bonvie’s lone NHL goal (with Gord Murphy on the assist) came Feb. 26, 2002, at Nassau Coliseum against the Islanders’ Chris Osgood. Final score: Bruins 3, Islanders 3 … Rounding out the top five, most career penalty minutes in the AHL: 2. Rob Murray, 2,940; 3. Peter Vandermeer, 2,772; 4. Francis Lessard, 2,682; and 5. Shawn Thornton, 2,478. Thornton twice had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as a player, including with the Bruins in 2011. He was a member of the Panthers front office (chief revenue officer) when they won back-to-back titles in 2024 and ’25, but his name was not among those engraved. He left the Panthers in the summer of ’25 and soon joined the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks as chief partnership officer … The runaway favorite to be selected No. 1 in next June’s NHL entry draft is right-shot defenseman Landon DuPont (no relation), who has reported to Michigan’s freshman class in Ann Arbor. The new Moose is projected to be a franchise player, his game reminding some of Makar, a fellow Calgarian. TSN’s Craig Button, the one-time Flames GM, says DuPont has “electric feet” and a “lightning-fast mind.” … Bruins coach Marco Sturm now begins to sort out how Peterka will line up on the power play, be it on the left or right side. The lefthanded Peterka historically has lined up at right wing. “But we’ve talked, and he’ll play either side, he doesn’t care,” said Sturm. “And the power play, we’ll see. I do know he hits it a ton when coming downhill.” Which could be a hint that Sturm will look for options to get his fellow German moving into the play from the blue line rather than post up in a static spot on the left or right halfwall … The Red Wings have yet to name a new GM, two months after moving Steve Yzerman off the job. Two of the candidates widely reported include former Comm. Avers Brett Peterson (Boston College, now assistant GM with Panthers) and Jeff Kealty (Boston University, assistant GM with the Sharks) … Former Northeastern coach Greg Cronin, proud son of Arlington, this week will begin his tour of duty as one of Jim Montgomery’s new assistant hires with the Blues. Cronin via text to your faithful puck chronicler: “Excited to work for one of the Original 12.”
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.