Welcome to the last day of July, folks!
August is just around the corner, meaning we’ve got one more month of summer and about six weeks before things start heating up again for the Bruins.
(I’d argue that early September can still be considered summer in the New England area, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
Let’s catch up on some minor B’s-related happenings from the week.
Whitfield introduced as P-Bruins coach
In a relatively unsurprising move, the Bruins decided to stay in-house with their next AHL coach, promoting Trent Whitfield to the head coaching role in Providence.
Whitfield, who played for the B’s at the NHL level, has been an assistant in Providence since 2016, so it’s fair to say he’s familiar with the organization.
When he was introduced on Wednesday, Whitfield had good things to say about AHL standout defenseman Frederic Brunet, who he thinks is an NHL player.
He also had some positive comments on the now departed (to other teams, that is) Georgii Merkulov and Fabian Lysell, while also mentioning that Lysell needed to do more on defense, so…yeah.
In any case, Whitfield will need to do a bit more to develop young players and push them to the next level than his predecessor was able to do.
Can he do it? Time will tell.
B’s to play Sabres prospects in Buffalo
In a scaled-back version of what had been a yearly tradition, the Bruins announced earlier this week that they’ll play two games against the Sabres prospects in Buffalo in mid-September.
The B’s have participated in this tournament (now called the 2026 Prospects Showcase) for more than a decade, but in the past, they’d play different organizations (usually the Penguins, Devils, and Sabres).
This year, they’re only playing Buffalo, and only playing two games: 5 PM on September 13 and 12 PM on September 14.
This prospect-on-prospect tournament usually gives some of the B’s lesser-known prospects a chance to shine against similar competition, so it’ll be interesting to see who makes the roster (which will be released at a later date).
It’s not clear why the format or number of teams involved has changed, though it could have something to do with the more condensed scheduled and earlier (end of September) regular season start date…who knows.
Other than that, we enjoy what’s left of the summer weather and continue to argue over whether the Bruins are better than they were last year.
What else is on tap for today?
