Boston Bruins: 7 Likeliest Call-ups From Providence In The 2011-12 Season

Perhaps the 2011-12 Boston Bruins are coming off an accomplishment that will be even tougher to repeat than winning the Stanley Cup after all.

Before the more-decorated portion of their 2010-11 campaign began, the Bruins set a new low for the past two decades by summoning only five players from their AHL farm base in Providence. The only Bruins to see regular-season action in both the Rhode Island and Massachusetts capitals were Steven Kampfer, Jordan Caron, Matt Bartkowski, Zach Hamill and Jamie Arniel.

File that under “anomaly.” In each of the other 18 years since the Providence Bruins came into existence, Boston has either promoted or demoted no fewer than nine players.

With their current state of affairs, coming off a championship and with the vast bulk of their NHL roster coming back, the Bruins will likely utilize somewhere between five and nine prospects in the coming season.

In a slightly adventurous prognostication, here is an alphabetical roll of seven players one can expect to see alternate between the Spoked-P and Spoked-B at least once over the next six months:

Matt Bartkowski

The second-year professional is already up a little earlier than slated, filling in the seventh spot on the Boston blue line in the wake of Kampfer’s late preseason injury.

Bartkowski’s accomplishments as a rookie defied his numbers a touch. He garnered action in six NHL games and was named the team’s top defenseman in Providence despite placing dead-last with a minus-17 rating.

Perhaps that accolade and that sour statistic makes Bartkowski a microcosm for his NHL organization. That is, he is coming off an ornate season even while exposing a few flaws to fix (e.g. his five giveaways in four 2011 preseason games) as he vies for more hardware.

Jordan Caron

Like Bartkowski, Caron is approaching his second season on the heels of a split NHL-AHL campaign. And like Bartkowski, Caron’s door to TD Garden opened earlier and easier than planned when fellow spare-part winger Chris Clark sustained a broken nose in Boston’s preseason finale.

Depending on Clark’s long-term status and how much Caron is worked into the active game-night roster, the younger party could face a repeat of last season when he was sent down merely to get more extramural action under his belt.

Colby Cohen

Last year, the Boston University alumnus saw action in three games with the Colorado Avalanche and spent the better part of October and November with the Lake Erie Monsters before the Bruins imported his rights in exchange for Matt Hunwick. Afterwards, he continued to heal an injury for a month and then suited up for Providence in the remaining 46 games of the season.

In college, Cohen proved capable of being a productive, point-based puckslinger. In his first full professional campaign, he mustered but two goals on 98 shots.

But with an injury-free season, he should easily improve his connectivity rate and earn at least one stint in The Show.

Josh Hennessy

The Brockton, Mass., native is back from a season in Switzerland, which was preceded by a protracted stay in the Ottawa Senators system. Between the 2005-06 and 2009-10 seasons, Hennessy consumed slivers of ice time in 20 NHL games while playing a pivotal role for AHL Binghamton’s strike force.

Hennessy reached a career-high in his last North American campaign with 30 goals and 68 points. And his recent 9-10-19 scoring log with HC Lugano is not likely indicative of a downturn, seeing as former teammates Chris Bourque and Colby Genoway’s numbers had a similar experience when they transitioned from the AHL to Europe.

Coming back to his home continent and joining his home organization should be enough of a spark plug for Hennessy to return to his prolific AHL-er/occasional NHL-er form.

Anton Khudobin

Tuukka Rask and Tim Thomas have carried the load entirely on their own for each of the last two seasons. Dany Sabourin and Nolan Schaefer each occasionally dressed as a Boston backup, but neither of them were credited with a millisecond of playing time.

The longer that trend continues, the sooner it is going to hit a small chip in the ice.

When that happens, Khudobin will be the guy to call. And unlike Sabourin and Schaefer, he promises to bring the stability that the Providence crease has been pining for since Rask was permanently promoted.

Likewise, head coach Claude Julien ought to be comfortable giving Khudobin a couple of regular-season NHL twirls, whether that is in an emergency at midseason or at season’s end when the go-to goalies are resting for the playoffs.

Lane MacDermid

Fittingly, when he scored Boston’s only goal in the preseason opener Sept. 21, MacDermid was on a line with Shawn Thornton. The way he has evolved in his first two years with the P-Bruins, MacDermid could become the Bruins’ resident AHL answer to Thornton by protecting his teammates, charging up substantial penalty minutes and chipping in a fair share of goals and assists.

In turn, the Hartford native could be this year’s surprise guest at the Garden when enough of Boston’s regulars are resting or recovering.

Max Sauve

Along with MacDermid, Sauve was cut by Boston only in the wake of the team’s preseason finale this past Saturday.

On the one hand, this means missing out on an NHL debut in the immediate future. But by the same token, Sauve’s training camp performance has elevated him to the top echelon of Bruins prospects.

Entering his second full season in the system, Sauve’s first focus should be on adopting more consistency in Providence. He tied Kirk MacDonald for third on last year’s team with 38 points and placed second with 21 goals en route to the distinction of the P-Bruins top rookie.

Granted, 38 points is not so impressive and Sauve had his share of cold streaks last season. But he also missed 19 games with an injury, so a year of consistent health and consistent output should amount to a more celestial 2011-12 AHL campaign with intermittent NHL appearances.