PROVIDENCE – The days when nearly every AHL team carried a heavyweight or three on the roster are pretty much over.

In Providence, the departure of Tyler Randell, a top five pugilist in the league for several seasons, leaves the team without a go-to hard guy.

Coach Jay Leach, who logged 64 bouts during his playing career, believes his team won’t lack for toughness.

“I don’t think we have an issue with that. We’ve got guys that are gamers. Tommy (Cross), Breener (Chris Breen), they all can handle themselves if something gets out of hand. And we’ve got Sena (Acolatse) as an option, Hick (Justin Hickman), Adam (Payerl), Taylor Doherty. We’re fine,’’ said Leach.

“Identifying one guy, I always found that to be a little unfair. It’s a lot to put on a guy. And I don’t know how much it does for your team. If everyone just lets Tyler Randell take care of things and they can go do what they want …  to me that wasn’t a fair play for a guy like that.

“I would prefer us to be responsible for our teammates on the ice every shift, no matter if Adam Payerl or Hick or Sena’s out there or if it’s a skill line, they can all still get in there and take care of each other,’’ he said.

No wallowing

The disappointment of being cut by the NHL club in training camp is one of the hurdles that P-Bruins players have to get over, whether they are high draft picks or free agents.

“That’s part of being a pro. Managing  adversity.  Getting through some challenges. It’s part of the learning process. How they react to adversity and overcome it is part of the learning curve, part of professional development,’’ said John Ferguson Jr. , Providence general manager and Boston’s executive director of player personnel.

Leach, who played 12 seasons as a pro, feels their pain.

“You have to validate that. A lot of them had nice camps and they pushed. That’s what we asked; that’s what they did. We would never want to discount that, first and foremost. And then I think  you’re going to try to get them to a place where they accept where they are and build from there,’’ said Leach.

“Some it takes a little longer than others. Ultimately, they all figure out that it doesn’t do them any good to wallow. And I don’t think a lot of them, if any of them, do. On a personal level, I can share some experiences where I had a little bit of bitterness in me and it did affect me throughout the year. I will definitely share that experience.

“Training camp is a grueling time for a young kid. He shows up for the rookie tournament. Organizations are watching him play every single day for a month. They’ve got to perform under that microscope. If they’ve done well, we should – and we do – make sure they understand that we’re proud of them.  They probably need a day or two to just breathe,” Leach said.

Danton Heinen, for one, went right back to work after being sent down last week.

“He was firing pucks in practice, he was working on his sticks. He was ready to go,’’ said Leach.

Senyshyn on the board

Zach Senyshsyn got his first pro goal out of the way in the first game of the season on Saturday, burying a feed from linemate Chris Porter 45 seconds into the third period.

“I thought that overall he was good. I lost him in the second (period) when we had a lot of penalty kills,’’ said Leach.

“We got him right out there at the end of the second and in the third with (linemates Porter and Josh Hennessy) and they did an excellent job on the forecheck and (Senyshyn) was consistent the rest of the way through. He showed signs of his skating ability and disrupted some forechecks and in the neutral zone, so he was good.”

Playing with veterans such as Porter and Hennessey should be good for Senyshyn.

“Porter can really skate and obviously finishes (his hits) and it’s tough on defensemen. Zach and Ports, with that speed, it’s pretty nice.”

 

 

PROVIDENCE –Just like in Boston on Thursday night, the kids came through in impressive fashion in Providence’s 5-2 win in Saturday’s opener. Four of the goals were by rookies Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson, Ryan Fitzgerald and Zach Senyshyn and second-year pro Peter Cehlarik. Here are three takeaways:

CEHLARIK

Jay Leach put it best: “Peter Cehlarik looked like a man on a mission.’’ Did he ever. Cehlarik made Springfield defenseman Josh Brown look foolish and scored a pretty goal in the first period. Then he froze goalie Harri Sateri and fed Forsbacka Karlsson for an easy score. Impressive for a guy who did not play any preseason games after undergoing shoulder surgery in May. After the game, rink rat Cehlarik was at the stick rack working on a stick, even though the P-Bruins have Sunday off.  With Don Sweeney (who was at the game) mulling a callup after the injury to Noel Acciari in Boston, Cehlarik picked a perfect time to have a great game.

McINTYRE

Zane McIntyre delivered some very timely saves on Saturday. Springfield had chances to take the lead early, but he shut the door. Guarding the lead in the second period, he made a pair of terrific stops and the P-Bruins finished the period up by three. “Early on in the season you’re going to have breakdowns. Zano was huge on those breakdowns for us,’’ said Leach. McIntyre had a great season a year ago. If he can come to close to matching that this season, Providence will be in great shape.

ROOKIE DEFENSEMEN

The American Hockey League can eat up rookie defensemen, but Jakub Zboril, Jeremy Lauzon and Connor Clifton acquitted themselves well on Saturday. They’ll have their struggles at times, but Saturday was a positive, confidence-building start. “We’ll have our (video) clips for them. We have some stuff to work with, but I thought that throughout the game they started to find their feet a little bit, and see the structure,’’ said Leach. “First pro game (for all three) with a good crowd, playing with some pretty good players, there’s probably some expectation there – our forwards want the puck, so get it to them. I thought throughout the night (the three rookies) got better as every shift went by.’’

PROVIDENCE — It’s a clean sheet for the Providence Bruins until just after 7 tonight when the puck drops for the first game of the season vs. Springfield.

“As long as we play hard, that’s all I really care about. We’re going to make mistakes. It’s really just a baseline to get going, so we can figure out where we’re at with everything,” said coach Jay Leach. “Everybody’s excited. I’m ready to go. It’s been a long training camp.”

This will be the 26th season for the P-Bruins. Their first home game was on Oct. 16, 1992, when they crushed Hershey, 9-3, before a roaring sellout throng of 11,909.

Tim Sweeney and Jozef Stumpel had 2-2-4 and Jim Vesey had 2-1-3 for the P-Bruins, who went 4-for-8 on the power play.

Chris Winnes went forehand-backhand on a penalty shot to beat the Bears’ Scott LeGrand, who left Boston College early to sign with Philadelphia.

There was a fight between Chris Jensen of Hershey and Denis Chervyakov.

Mike Bales made 45 saves for the P-Bruins.

Earlier that week, team captain Peter Laviolette had predicted a 9-2 victory. So he only missed by a goal.

We can only hope for that much entertainment tonight.

I’ll have pregame, in-game and postgame tweets from the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

The lines:

Heinen-Szwarz-Fitzgerald

Agostino-JFK-Cehlarik

Defense:

Lauzon-Cross

O’Gara-Zboril

Breen-Clifton

Goal

McIntyre starts, with Vladar as the backup

Scratches: Johansson, Hickman, Hargrove, Payerl, Acolatse, Doherty (injured)

PROVIDENCE — I’m looking forward to the season opener between the Providence Bruins and Springfield Thunderbirds on Saturday night. My P-Bruins preview will be in tomorrow’s paper-and-ink Providence Journal. Or you can read it here:

http://www.providencejournal.com/sports/20171006/mark-divver-plenty-of-reasons-to-be-excited-about-p-bruins-season

BOSTON – How about those kids?

Jake DeBrusk (1-1-2), Charlie McAvoy (1-1-2) and Anders Bjork (0-1-1) had some exciting and encouraging moments in Thursday’s 4-3 win by Boston over Nashville in the season opener on Thursday night.

They weren’t the only youngsters who played well. Matt Grzelcyk was good. And let’s not overlook steady Brandon Carlo, who is no longer a rookie but is most definitely  a kid, and dynamic David Pastrnak – starting his fourth season at age 21 – who scored the first goal of the night.

Boston has said it is committed to its young players. That will mean riding the rollercoaster as they figure some things out.

As good as Game 1 was, there are valleys ahead, without question. It’s part of the learning curve that kids have to experience.

The Bruins should be rewarded down the road.  Thursday was a tantalizing look into the future.  It could be a fun ride.

Thoughts on three of the young guys:

DeBRUSK

He can finish, as he demonstrated with a nifty goal early in the second period. He nearly had a second goal a couple of minutes after the first one. And he made a play or two, including an assist on McAvoy’s goal.

DeBrusk played with pace and had four shots on goal, tying Pastrnak for the most on the Bruins. I liked the play he made with about four minutes left, where he ate the puck along the boards rather than make a risky pass.

All in all, it was an impressive debut.

McAVOY

Nineteen-year-old defensemen are going to make mistakes. McAvoy took three minor penalties – two for holding and one for hooking. But his goal and assist made up for the time in the box.

He joined the rush to score his first NHL goal off a beautiful set up from David Krejci and Bjork.

I liked the subtle play he made in the defensive zone midway through the third period where he put a hip into Nashville’s Scott Hartnell, muscled him off the puck in the corner and calmly cleared the zone.

BJORK

After the first period, an NHL scout told me he thought Bjork had been Boston’s best forward, and I agreed.

The speedy winger from Notre Dame didn’t have a shot on goal in the game, although he was ready to one-time the Krejci pass that McAvoy scored his goal on.

Despite the lack of shots, Bjork had the puck a lot and made some smart plays that showed off his offensive IQ. Leading up to DeBrusk’s goal, Bjork made a perfect touch pass to Krejci.

For sure, Bjork is going to be fun to watch.

Providence College opens the season on the road this weekend at Miami University. Here is my Providence Journal column previewing the season: http://www.providencejournal.com/sports/20171005/mark-divver-good-times-should-continue-to-roll-for-friar-skaters

PROVIDENCE – For the first time in a dozen seasons as a pro, Josh Hennessy is in training camp without a contract.

Rest assured, the 32-year-old center isn’t losing any sleep over the uncertainty of his situation. Quite the opposite.

“I’ve actually kind of enjoyed it, to be honest. It gives you energy every day, keeps you pretty sharp. I’m really excited. It’s been fun so far,’’ said Hennessy, who is competing for a job with the Providence Bruins.

Hennessy spent the 2011-12 season with the P-Bruins before heading to Europe, where he played in Russia, Switzerland and Sweden over the last few seasons.

A return to the P-Bruins would be a great fit for the Hennessy family – Josh, his wife Amelie and their four children, including three-year-old twin boys. They bought a house in East Greenwich in the spring of 2013.

“We ended up being really comfortable and falling in love with Rhode Island, which was funny, being from Boston, we never spent time down here. The kids were approaching school age and we were looking for a nice town with good schools. The year we had (with the P-Bruins) we really enjoyed,’’ said Hennessy, who grew up in Rockland, Mass.

He played in both of Providence’s preseason games over the weekend and Providence coach Jay Leach has been impressed so far.

“He’s cerebral. You can tell he’s been around. He looks good out there. Low to the ice. You can tell he knows the deal,’’ said Leach, who had Hennessey centering first-round pick Zach Senyshyn and veteran Chris Porter on Saturday night.

Hennessy has scored more than 20 goals five times in the AHL, including a 30-goal year with Binghamton in 2009-10.

“I remember him being a little bit more one-dimensional, from when I was playing against him. Now he looks very aware in every situation. He can probably play in a lot of different spots,’’ said Leach.

The pro game has gotten faster since Hennessy, a second-round pick by San Jose in 2003, broke in as a pro with the AHL Cleveland Barons in 2005.

“Pretty much everybody can move, everybody can skate. Guys are flying out there, up and down the lineup. It speaks to the depth in hockey in general, in the world,’’ he said.

“I couldn’t believe when I first got to Europe how good a lot of the players there are who we’ve never heard of. Some of them haven’t even tried to come over here. They’re just amazing hockey players that, given the opportunity, would probably do really well over here, too. There’s just good players coming from everywhere.’’

One of those players is Artemi Panarin, a 30-goal scorer in his first two NHL seasons. In Hennessy’s first season in Russia with Chekhov Vityaz of the KHL in 2012-13, Panarin was his linemate.

“We had a lot of fun. He made my transition that first year pretty smooth. Looking back, our coach was pretty hard on him, only because he was a young guy. If our line wasn’t producing for a couple of games, he would be the guy who got moved off the line, which now seems pretty comical,’’ Hennessy said.

“He’s an awesome kid and an amazing talent. I’d tell my buddies when I got home, ‘I just played with a guy over there that has the best hands I’ve ever seen, including anybody in the NHL.’ And they were like, ‘Come on.’

“When he was in Chicago his first year, I was texting all of them saying, ‘I told you.’’’

PROVIDENCE — The Providence Bruins today released nine players from tryout contracts.

They are: Dylan Blujas, Ryan Penny, Alex Gacek, Phil Lane, Chase Witala, Lindsay Sparks, Zach Malatesta, Nick Luukko, Brendan Leahy.

Gacek, Lane, Witala and Malatesta have ECHL deals with Atlanta, Boston’s affiliate.

Here’s who is left in Providence camp:

Defensemen: Tommy Cross, Connor Clifton, Chris Breen, Ben Marshall, Jeremy Lauzon, Taylor Doherty, Jakub Zboril.

Forwards: Zach Senyshyn, Josh Hennessy, Justin Hickman, Sena Acolatse, Jesse Gabrielle, Ryan Fitzgerald, Colton Hargrove, Anton Blidh, Chris Porter, Colby Cave, Adam Payerl, Jordan Szwarz.

Goalies: Zane McIntyre, Dan Vladar, Matt Ginn, Mac Carruth.

Hennessy, Acolatse and Carruth are on PTOs.

All the rest are on either NHL or AHL contracts.

The P-Bruins’ roster will remain in flux until Boston makes its final cuts over the next couple of days.

Kenny Agostino has arrived in Providence after clearing waivers on Saturday.  To my knowledge, he hasn’t been officially assigned to the AHL by Boston. How long he stays in Providence remains to be seen.

The P-Bruins’ opener is Saturday night.