BOSTON – Brandon Carlo and Robbie O’Gara were the only two players sitting in the Bruins dressing room on Saturday night postgame when the room was opened to the assorted media members and with good reason.
Both young D-men deserved some credit after putting together strong performances in the now-concluded preseason, and both players finished that off with poised, well-balanced games in the Bruins 1-0 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers at TD Garden.
“[Rob] O’Gara and [Brandon] Carlo there, looked great even though they’re young. I don’t even know how old they are, but they look like veteran D’s and that’s a great sign,” said Tuukka Rask, who gets a good look at the D-men in front of him over the course of 60-plus minutes. “That’s something you need in the league. You need to have that poise and need to get that puck to your own team and they were doing that really good, so great sign.”
O’Gara was solid in limited action as a bottom-pairing defenseman before getting ticketed to Providence for more work on his game, but Carlo was once again impressive in a featured role on the back end for the Bruins.
The 19-year-old was paired with Zdeno Chara for the first time in the preseason in a top pair, shutdown-type role, and finished second on the Bruins with 22:38 of ice time while doing a good job protecting the house in front of Tuukka Rask.
“I think maybe his first couple of shifts he seemed a little nervous. Was it the opposition or was it playing with Z [Zdeno Chara]? It could be a combination of both, but I thought he really settled his game down and really got better and better as the game went on,” said Claude Julien. “You know even late in that third period where he makes that chip play off the boards, real calm to March [Brad Marchand], you know it takes poise for a young player to do something like that. I thought he did a good job of it.”
Clearly, there were some nerves very early in the game: one of his first shifts, Carlo threw a buddy pass to Patrice Bergeron at his own blue line that could have gotten No. 37 blown up if he extended for the outlet pass and then threw a puck away on the same shift perhaps dwelling for a few seconds on his initial mistake.
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Still, after that Carlo once again settled down into a strong, fierce combatant in the defensive zone and a smooth, puck-moving type that seems to have a knack for getting his shots through traffic, as he did at the tail end of the first period. He looked like he belonged in a top pair with Chara, and they didn’t allow a ton of room for Flyers attackers to operate in the final dress rehearsal before the regular season.
“[I was] a bit nervous, obviously [Chara] has done really well with this team and he’s obviously a big leader. I wouldn’t say he’s an intimidating guy after you get to know him a little bit, he’s very nice to me and treated me well on the bench,” said Carlo. “He’s given me quite a bit of feedback just like John-Michael [Liles] did and I really enjoyed playing with him. It’s pretty cool to look across the face off dot and see those guys that you watched on TV when you’re not in this league. It’s just a really exciting opportunity for me to go out there and compete against them and see what I can do against them and I thought I did pretty well.”
So, what would Carlo tell Bruins management if he got the chance to make his pitch for why he’s NHL ready?
“There are things that I think I did better throughout this camp than last year. Puck-moving was one of those things, I felt like I got better at that. Overall just being around these guys, leadership and the experience within this room has really helped me,” said Carlo. “I feel like it’s been very instrumental for my growing experience throughout this camp, so that’s been great.
“It’s up to the front office. I feel like I came in and showed a lot of good things. I made a couple mistakes but I’m a young guy. Overall I’ll be happy just to be within the Bruins system either way, but obviously I’m hoping for the best, and feel like I gave myself the opportunity.”
The 2015 second-round pick has shown everything he could possibly need to show to prove that he’s an NHL ready player, and Carlo was undoubtedly one of the best six D-men in training camp this preseason.
So, by rights Carlo should crack the B’s squad when final rosters are announced at the end of the day on Tuesday, but that might not be the way it goes down for a Bruins team that has seven NHL defensemen on one-way deals and veteran Christian Ehrhoff in camp on a tryout agreement.
The Bruins aren’t going to be that interested in losing Joe Morrow in waivers or forcing a trade of veteran Adam McQuaid before they get a longer look at Carlo over the course of a few months in pro hockey.
Given all of those factors, there’s still a decent chance that the 6-foot-5 Carlo could start the year in Providence despite a full preseason performance that says the 19-year-old kid is fully ready to go.
It wouldn’t exactly be fair to Carlo, but it also comes with a guarantee that even if he starts the season in the AHL, his play over the past month has dictated that it’s not going to be long at all before he’s a fixture on the back end in Boston.
Carlo is a mammoth-sized part of a B's future that's looked very bright during this preseason and that's something to build on.