Mason Lohrei’s emergence in playoffs is a game-changer for Bruins
"The sky's the limit for him. And he's got an extremely high ceiling. His potential is off the charts."
SUNRISE, Fla. — Eleven years ago, the Bruins toppled a stacked Rangers team in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs thanks to an offensive surge from a gifted rookie defenseman.
Torey Krug went on to become a key cog for a Bruins team that reeled off two runs to the Stanley Cup Final over his nine years with Boston.
Mason Lohrei has only logged six games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs at this stage of his promising NHL career. But it sure feels like the 23-year-old blueliner is following a similar script as Krug when it comes to a breakthrough performance in the second round.
The puck-moving defenseman submitted his best performance of the playoffs to date in Monday’s Game 1`victory over the Panthers, sniping a puck over Sergei Bobrovsky in the second period before adding an assist on fellow rookie Justin Brazeau’s tally at 7:13 in the third.
Lohrei, who also added four shot attempts, two blocks, and four hits over his 16:05 of ice time on Monday, is the fourth rookie defenseman in Bruins history to score a game-winning playoff goal, joining Mike Milbury (1977), Bruce Shoebottom (1988) and Connor Clifton (2019).
Monday might have stood as Lohrei’s breakout game this postseason, but his results at Amerant Bank Arena have been far from an outlier — with the blueliner’s puck poise, confidence and playmaking capabilities adding an extra spark to Boston’s D corps.
“I just think the way he’s handled the Stanley Cup playoffs, the emotion of it, the intensity of it. I think it has propelled him,” Jim Montgomery said of Lohrei’s game on Tuesday. He’s an extremely competitive player.
“That may not show in the physicality, the way he plays. But it shows in his poise with the puck. There’s different ways to be intense. He wants the puck, and that’s an intensity that you have to have — players that want the puck in big moments.”
Lohrei has long held court as one of the prized prospects in Boston’s pipeline. His 6-foot-5 frame makes it easy to project him as a top-four stalwart in due time, especially once he puts on a bit more muscle.
But Lohrei — who switched from forward to defense at 16 years old — also has the tools to activate off the blue line and put opposing defenses on their heels when he has the puck on his stick.
Just minutes after ringing a puck off the post via a sharp wrist shot from the red line, Lohrei beat Bobrovsky clean with a blistering shot that sailed over the veteran goalie’s right shoulder.
“(Parker Wotherspoon) made a great play at the blue line and got the puck down to me,” Lohrei said of his goal. “I had some space, got my head up, (David) Pastrnak was at the back door. I think that kinda made the goalie go down a little, so I took that space up top.”
It’s not the type of high-end tally you see most defensemen score, especially in the playoffs. Then again, Lohrei isn’t exactly cut from the same cloth as most defensemen.
“The sky’s the limit for him,” Charlie McAvoy said of Lohrei on Tuesday. “And he’s got an extremely high ceiling. His potential is off the charts. … He’s worked really hard. And he deserves to be here. And kind of like how I said, he looks like he’s flourishing now.”
The Bruins will welcome Lohrei’s O-zone contributions, especially after the team’s offense was stuck in the mud for extended stretches against Toronto in the first round. But for Lohrei to remain in the lineup, he’ll also need to limit miscues down the other end of the ice.
That’s a task easier said than done, especially against a suffocating Panthers forecheck that made life miserable for Boston’s puck carriers during last April’s fateful first-round series.
But on Monday, Lohrei was up to the task — evading Florida’s bruising pressure in Boston’s own zone with a few slippery moves and crisp first passes out of danger. His simple feed out of the D-zone led to Brazeau’s breakaway tally , with Boston taking advantage of the Panthers’ aggressive forecheck around the Bruins’ net.
Jeremy Swayman’s brilliance in net has not only spurred Boston’s current Cup run, but offered validation that the Bruins have their franchise fixture in net moving forward.
The Bruins might have a similar certainty playing out on their back end in Lohrei, an already promising talent who hasn’t come close to reaching his ceiling.
“I hope that every day I’m becoming the player that I want to be,” Lohrei said. “So just doing little things to try and build my game and get better and help this team.”
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