Opening night of the 2026–27 NHL season has arrived for the Boston Bruins, and the club’s 23‑man roster is officially locked in — with one notable caveat. Charlie McAvoy remains on the books despite serving a six‑game suspension, so he still counts toward the roster limit. Matthew Poitras, meanwhile, begins the year on season‑opening injured reserve, which removes him from that 23‑man tally until cleared to play, at which point a decision needs to be made.
Barring a trade, a decision is looming. Maybe two.
The Bruins — like most NHL clubs — generally prefer to carry seven defensemen and fourteen forwards. But on opening night, the numbers look a little different. With McAvoy included, Boston is sitting at eight defensemen, and once Poitras is cleared to return, they’ll be at fourteen forwards.
The ideal scenario is that McAvoy and Poitras return simultaneously. At that point, the Bruins can simply place a defenseman on waivers and, if he goes unclaimed, assign him to Providence — a clean, straightforward roster move that restores their preferred balance.
The Bruins’ long‑standing obsession with depth always complicates these early‑season roster puzzles, and Poitras returning before McAvoy would create exactly that kind of squeeze. An early activation for Poitras would almost certainly force Boston to trim from the forward group — and the most logical casualty in that scenario is Mikey Eyssimont.
With McAvoy still suspended, the Bruins can’t realistically run with just six defensemen, so Eyssimont would be the one pushed to waivers to make room for Poitras.
When McAvoy returns, the roster math tightens again. To get back to their preferred alignment of seven defensemen and fourteen forwards, the Bruins would need to waive a defenseman and then recall a forward to restore the balance. In other words, they’re looking at two separate waiver moves at two different points in time — one when Poitras comes back, and another when McAvoy’s suspension ends.
But there is a way around it.
If you listen to Marco Sturm and Don Sweeney, it certainly sounds like they’re intent on giving Poitras a real opportunity to show what he can do.
When talking about Poitras earlier in the week during the Bruins press conference one line stood out to me: “We’ll go through the return to play process first and foremost.”
That process would include a conditioning stint in Providence. Under the rules, Poitras has to agree to the assignment — and there’s no real reason to think he wouldn’t. The stint can last a maximum of three games or six days, which means timing becomes crucial if the Bruins want his return to line up cleanly with McAvoy’s.
This can certainly be filed under “complicating things”, but I can certainly see the Bruins taking this route.
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