Courchaine

Well, at the very least Boston Bruins goaltending prospect Adam Courchaine now knows what it’s like to be on an NHL playoff team that’s fresh off winning a playoff series and looking ahead to a week without a game.

The Ottawa 67′s netminder was recalled from Providence (AHL) today to practice with Boston at Ristuccia Arena in Wilmington, Mass., while Vezina Trophy favorite Tim Thomas took the day off. Courchaine had joined the P-Bruins at the conclusion of his season with Ottawa.

“I thought I did pretty well,” said Courchaine after a practice session highlighted by his door-step stop on star center David Krejci. “I worked as hard as I could. I kind of treated it like a game and thought it was all right.”

Courchaine’s season in the OHL ended with a “heart-breaker” in overtime of a seventh game to Niagara. But Courchaine’s spring got a lot better with the promotion to Providence before his brief stint with the Black and Gold. (more…)

Dalton

The Boston Bruins today officially announced the signing of free-agent goaltender Matt Dalton out of Bemidji State University.

Dalton, 22, just finished leading the Beavers to their first-ever berth in the NCAA Frozen Four. In the regular season, he compiled a 19-11-1 record with a conference-best 2.19 goals-against avearge and a .921 save percentage.

Dalton’s signing gives the Bruins depth in goal for their organization. Beyond NHL No. 1 Tim Thomas and Providence No. 1 Tuukka Rask, NHL No.2 Manny Fernandez will be an unrestricted free agent and injured Providence No. 2 Kevin Regan will be a RFA this summer.

Reul

The Providence Bruins’ blueliner corps, a bit shorthanded since the trade of Matt Lashoff, should get a dose of both skill and size with the addition of Dennis Reul this weekend.

The ’07 fifth-round (130th overall) Boston draft pick just finished up his season with Lewiston (QMJHL) and signed an Amateur Tryout Agreement with the P-Bruins, the team announced today.

Reul stands 6-foot-4 and 226 pounds. This season with the Maineiacs, he posted 4-14-18 totals in 60 games. He was also a minus-19 and registered 91 penalty minutes.

Penner

Defenseman Jeff Penner was named as the Providence Bruins’ winner of the American Specialty/AHL Man of the Year award. He and the 28 other individual team winners are all finalists for the 2009 Yanick Dupre Memorial Award, which honors Dupre who “died in 1997 at the age of 24, following a 16-month battle with leukemia. Dupre, an AHL All-Star in 1995, played four seasons with the Hershey Bears, registering 169 points in 207 AHL games. He also skated in 35 NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Penner, a first-year pro out of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, was lauded in the P-Bruins’ press release for his work off the ice as “a fixture in the Rhode Island community at several public appearances. Always quick to volunteer for team-scheduled appearances around Providence, Penner also takes it upon himself to make frequent independent visits to Hasbro Children’s Hospital. He has also partnered with the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rhode Island, where he has become a role model for a young boy, who he visits with weekly.”

Penner

Trades often set off chain reactions.

When the Boston Bruins traded defense prospect Matt Lashoff as part of a two-player package to Tampa Bay, the effect was the addition to the NHL club of a power-play threat up front and a veteran presence in the locker room in the person of future Hall of Famer Mark Recchi.

At the AHL level, the departure of Lashoff opened up playing time for first-year pro Jeff Penner at Providence. All the P-Bruins rookie has done since March 4 is put up 3-2-5 totals and a plus-7 rating while playing top-four minutes for a second-place club.

“It’s been great. Everybody loves the opportunity to get a little more responsibility,” Penner told TheBruinsBlog.net before Providence went 1-1-1 last weekend. “And I relish the responsibility and I’ll take as much ice time as I can get.” (more…)

Colborne

A 5-0 loss to the University of Minnesota-Duluth in the WCHA title game Saturday didn’t stop Denver from earning the top seed in the West Region for the 2009 NCAA tournament.

That means Boston Bruins 2008 first-round draft pick Joe Colborne will cap his rookie season with a taste of the “Big Dance.” Denver will open the regional against Miami, and if the Pioneers win they’ll face Princeton or rematch with UMD.

Mike Chambers of the Denver Post looks at the Pioneers’ chances.

Colborne is the Pioneers’ fourth-leading scorer with 30 points (nine goals) and he’s a plus-8 on the season. He has appeared in all 39 DU games. He’s fifth among WCHA freshmen in points.

College Hockey News has the complete NCAA bracket for your viewing pleasure.

Bradford

Yesterday Boston College forward Brock Bradford, a Boston Bruins eighth-round draft pick in 2005, was named a Second Team Hockey East All-Star.

Tonight at TD Banknorth Garden, Bradford and his Eagles teammates will try to move one step closer to a third straight Hockey East Championship title when they battle archrival Boston University in a semifinal. The winner will face either Northeastern or UMass-Lowell in the championship game tomorrow.

Bradford has thrived under these conditions before, as he captured Hockey East Championship MVP honors for the victorious Eagles in 2007. For the season, Bradford leads Hockey East with 25 goals.

Out West, 2008 first-round pick Joe Colborne and Denver are going to square off with Wisconsin in the WCHA semifinals today. Colborne has posted 9-20-29 offensive totals in 37 games as a freshman.

Bradford

It’s playoff time for NCAA hockey teams, and that means a few Boston Bruins prospects will be playing in some huge games this weekend and for a few weeks into the spring.

Most prominent will be Boston College senior Brock Bradford, an eighth-round pick (217th overall) in 2005. The Eagles’ captain will try to help the defending national champs, who are seeded sixth, take down the third-seeded UNH Wildcats in a best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series in Durham starting Friday night.

Bradford is riding a five-game scoring streak, during which he has posted 4-4-8 totals. For the season, Bradford is currently tied for fourth-place with 43 points and leads the league with 23 goals.

“Brock has had an excellent year. I think he has had 23 goals, and
been a good catalyst for us through the whole course of the year,” BC head coach Jerry York said in a conference call earlier this week. (more…)

Lehtonen

The way the large talented forwards are making their way to the Boston Bruins, you might suspect the organization is growing them on trees.

Blake Wheeler made the big club out of training camp as a rookie. In his second year of pro hockey, Byron Bitz has carved out his niche on the Boston fourth line. Who’s the next large winger that could make his way up the pipeline from Providence (AHL) to the Hub? It just might be Finnish phenom Mikko Lehtonen, who in his first year of North American pro hockey currently stands fifth on the P-Bruins with 38 points and first with 21 goals.

The 6-foot-3, 196-pound Lehtonen obviously began to settle into the North American game in February, as he erupted for eight goals and five assists in 12 games.

“The whole team has been playing pretty good, so you get your chances and you just have to score,” Lehtonen recently told TheBruinsBlog.net. “And I’ve been pretty lucky getting good chances. I’m trying to shoot the puck a lot, so that leads to goals.” (more…)

Marchand in action.

At 5-foot-9, 187 pounds, Providence Bruins forward Brad Marchand has always had to stick up for himself.

In his first pro season after a successful four-season career in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), Marchand has found that the edge he played with before making the leap to the American Hockey League has translated just fine.

“I think that’s one part of my game that I’m really going to have to keep going strong if I want to get an opportunity to play in the NHL,” Marchand told TheBruinsBlog.net over the weekend. “I think that’s probably what I’ll start off doing. That’s a big part of my game. It gets me into the game and gets my emotions going. And that’s what helps me play well. I’ve just been trying to keep it going, but staying within boundaries. I’ve been stepping over them and I’ve got to get back in them.”

Marchand started to toe the line a little better this weekend with just four penalty minutes during the P-Bruins’ three wins. But less extracurricular activity didn’t mean less production, as he posted 1-4-5 offensive totals and a plus-3 rating. A nominee for the AHL player of the week award, Marchand now has 3-7-10 totals in February and 8-18-26 totals since suffering through a three-point (all assists) December. (more…)

Bradford

Congratulations go out to Boston College forward and Boston Bruins prospect Brock Bradford, who Saturday reached the 100-point mark for his 117-game collegiate career.

The senior captain registered an assist early in the Eagles’ game at UMass-Lowell and then scored the tying goal in the 4-4 tie to reach the century mark in points. A seventh-round (217th overall) pick of the Bruins in 2005, Bradford is the 90th Eagles player in program history to record 100 career points.

In 28 games this season, Bradford has registered a team-high 32 points (19 goals, 13 assists).

Marchand

The AHL today announced that Providence Bruins forward Brad Marchand was selected the Reebok Edge/AHL Rookie of the Month for January today.

In 13 games, the first-year pro tallied five goals and 11 assists, as well as a plus-8 rating for the first-place P-Bruins. An ’06 Boston Bruins third-round pick, Marchand finished up the month of January with a three-game point-scoring streak.

On the season, Marchand is fourth on the P-Bruins with 32 points (10 goals, 22 assists). He also has a plus-5 rating.

Arniel

After Sarnia’s 4-2 win over Sault Ste. Marie in OHL action Saturday, Sting head coach Dave MacQueen now has 400 career wins. But that’s not the part of that game the Boston Bruins were interested in.

Prospect Jamie Arniel scored in the contest to run his goal-scoring streak to 10 games — the longest such streak in the OHL this season. The Observer has the complete story on the game.

Arniel’s streak supplanted the nine-gamer John Tavares, who is projected to go No. 1 in the ’09 NHL draft, posted earlier this season as the longest in the OHL this year.

Karsums

Providence Bruins winger Martins Karsums, who experienced a cup of coffee with the big club in Boston for the first time earlier this season, made his mark tonight in a PlanetUSA win over the Canadian AHL All-Stars, 14-11, in the 2009 AHL All-Star Game at DCU Center in Worcester, Mass.

Karsums notched two goals and three assists for PlanetUSA, who was led by Philadelphia’s Jared Ross’ AHL record six assists (and one goal). Karsums also posted a plus-4 rating.

Providence defenseman Johnny Boychuk had a tough night playing for the Canadians, with no points and a minus-5 rating.

Karsums

You can add one more Providence representative to the festivities at the 2009 AHL All-Star Game in Worcester, as winger Martins Karsums was selected today to the PlanetUSA AHL All-Star roster as a reserve for the Jan. 26 game.

Karsums joins Providence teammates Martin St. Pierre and Johnny Boychuk, who were both selected as Canadian All-Star reserves Tuesday, as P-Bruins tabbed for inclusion on the rosters. This season with the P-Bruins, Karsums has posted 15-28-38 totals and a plus-4 rating in 37 games. He made his NHL debut when he played his first and only game with Boston Dec. 13 against Atlanta. Karsums is one of 19 first-time All-Stars.

One name conspicuous by its absence is that of Providence goaltender Tuukka Rask, who is 16-12-0 with a 2.45 goals-against average and .918 save percentage this season. Perhaps Rask will make it as an injury replacement between now and the game later this month.