Poitras enjoying unexpected journey to NHL lineup with Bruins 

BOSTON -- The moment it all became real wasn't when Matthew Poitras first laced up skates at 2 1/2 years old, it wasn't when he started hockey at 4. It wasn't when he became captain of the Whitby Wildcats U16 AAA team, or when he was selected No. 12 in the 2020 Ontario Hockey League Draft by the Guelph Storm.

No, the moment when hockey began to seem like a viable career path was when Tricia Poitras heard her son's name called by Boston Bruins director of player personnel Ryan Nadeau on July 8, 2022, when the team chose him with the No. 54 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.

That was when she wrapped her arms around her son, as he walked away from his family and into his new life. That was when she understood that he might really make the NHL.

"We were always very realistic, I would say," Tricia said. "So honestly, I would say, last year when he was drafted. That was probably our time of, 'Oh my god, his childhood dream could really play out.'"

That's why when Bruins fans look at Poitras, the center who has slipped almost seamlessly into one of the team's vacated center spots, who has made the Bruins out of training camp as an unheralded 19-year-old rookie -- at least as long as his nine-game trial period -- they're not alone in wondering where exactly Poitras came from, how this all happened so quickly.

He has, somehow, jumped from Guelph to galas, needing a last-minute shopping trip to find formalwear to celebrate the Bruins' Centennial team with his newfound teammates one night after his debut, scoring his first NHL point and meeting Bobby Orr as his new life tornadoed around him.

On Sunday, he scored his first two NHL goals in a 3-1 win against the Anaheim Ducks, giving his three points on the season.

"I think for me, just getting the first one out of the way, is a big thing," Poitras said Tuesday. "You don't want to dwell on it too much. It's nice to get that first one and get some confidence. Hopefully I can keep it rolling."

He will look to keep it rolling Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center (8:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ESPN, TVAS). He will be the other rookie center on the ice, his profile far lower than that of Connor Bedard.

But though the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft’s place in the Chicago lineup was all but a given, Poitras's journey has been far more unexpected, making the NHL after only two seasons of OHL hockey, jumping into the Bruins lineup with hardly a hiccup.

"We asked for a surprise at the start of training camp and, lo and behold, we have one here," Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said.

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As soon as David Krejci announced his retirement on Aug. 14, joining Patrice Bergeron who did so a few weeks earlier, in riding off into the sunset, the panic began. The Bruins were down two centers -- two historically good centers -- and there was no one on the horizon, certainly no one who could help as soon as the upcoming season.

The Bruins would be reliant on Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle and hope down the middle.

By the end of training camp, two rookies had staked their claim, with Poitras and John Beecher making the roster. By the second week of the season, Poitras had leapfrogged Coyle and was getting the chance to center Brad Marchand and Morgan Geekie on the team's second line.

It felt both sudden and inevitable.

"Every guy would like to sit up here and tell you that's exactly what we expect," Sweeney said. "You just don't know the timeline. … You're just hopeful that players are going to be ready when you need them. And Matthew has stepped forward [with] every challenge thus far. We'll see if that continues. We're hopeful it does and it's a credit to him."

But even though he had come to camp with the mindset of making it as difficult as possible for the Bruins to send him back to juniors, even he is not sure his brain had fully wrapped around that idea. As he admitted, "I came to camp and obviously I wanted to make the team, but I didn't really expect [to]."

He was going to work as hard as he could every day, knowing that this is what he wants to do and where he wants to play, knowing the possibility – even faint – that was in front of him. But, really? Did he think all of this was going to happen?

Not exactly.

He's not alone.

"It's all pretty surreal," Tricia said last week. "My head is still spinning. My husband and I were talking about it last night, actually. No, we didn't expect this."

He had trained all summer with that in mind, five days in the gym, three-to-four on the ice. He knew that as a smaller player – Poitras is 5-foot-11, 180 pounds – he would need to put on some size, some muscle, to be able to hold his own against NHL players.

He felt good from the start, from his first preseason game.

He thought to himself, "I think I can play with these guys."

He started to see patterns on the ice, the movement of players slowing. It was, in some ways, more predictable than juniors because his teammates and the opponents were more apt to be in the right spots at the right time. The game started to crystalize.

"He reminds me a lot of (Mitchell) Marner, the way that he plays," Marchand said, comparing Poitras to the Toronto Maple Leafs forward. "He's smart on both sides of the puck. He's really good with it, the way he moves, can dish it. He just reminds me of him, similar where he's not timid to get in the dirty areas and compete for pucks.

"He's got great vision. He does a great job cutting to the middle and buying himself some space. He's able to find those quiet areas on the ice where he has an extra second to make a play, even when he's under pressure and guys are barreling down, he seems to find holes."

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For Poitras, it started early, the constant competitions, the obsession with sports. He was happiest on the field or on the court or on the ice, especially playing hockey or lacrosse, battling it out with his siblings, including older brother Adam.

"Honestly, he had a stick in his hand probably before he could walk," Tricia said.

It extended to school, where he competed with himself on his grades, to family meals, to whatever was in front of him at that moment. He gave up sugar and junk food somewhere around age 10, figuring that if he was going to make the NHL, he needed to take care of his body.

He had to be first, best.

"He's always had that competitive drive," Tricia said. "I think that's something you can't teach. It's really just in him. It was in everything in our house, everything in house was a competition. It was who could run up the stairs faster, who could brush their teeth faster."

It was that drive that Chad Wiseman saw immediately when Poitras arrived in Guelph. He could tell that Poitras's ceiling was not just high, but "incredibly high," because of a combination of his hockey IQ and his willingness to compete.

"His tenacity, his ability to win small puck battles," Wiseman said. "I think it's maybe from his lacrosse background, but his ability to get through players' hands and under sticks. He's not a huge guy in stature but I think he's probably learned from a young age how to use his body, so it's amazing how many times he goes into a small area and comes out with possession of the puck."

Wiseman found that some of his most important teaching moments came not in exhorting Poitras to do more, but in reining him in. He would consistently engage with bigger and strong athletes, so, for Wiseman, the key was training him to pick his battles, to keep him out of nonessential situations that might drain him physically.

"Any time you don't have to push a kid forward to compete, you have to pull him back, it's a little bit easier," Wiseman said.

But it was toward the end of last season that Wiseman truly saw Poitras pop.

Because while Wiseman -- perhaps unlike Tricia -- always knew that Poitras would make the NHL, he watched as the center blossomed before his eyes, his 200-foot game coming together. He started entrusting him with key face-offs, defending a lead, killing penalties, situations he wasn't putting Poitras in at the start.

"I don't want to say a light switch went off, it wasn't that," Wiseman said. "But it was just understanding those situations, how to take care of yourself off the ice, the importance of prevention, recovery and doing the little things every day.

"We saw a huge jump in maturity and leadership from Matthew last year. By the time the playoffs came, he was a different player than when he started the season. That process of preparing to play in the NHL for him obviously started a long time ago, but the strides he made last year, I'm not shocked that is where he is today."

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There is a learning curve for any rookie, figuring out how to do laundry and cook – "I can do the stuff with the instructions on the box, that's about it," Poitras quipped – building a wardrobe that conforms to road trip dress codes, finding a way through a dressing room filled with new teammates, some nearly two decades his senior.

But so far Poitras seems to have struck the right notes, even if his presence might have been unexpected.

"He doesn't really waver from who he is, whether it's an intense situation on the ice or whether it's speaking in front of reporters, Matthew doesn't really change who he is as a person," Wiseman said. "He's got a smile on his face, he's a smart kid. … He's confident in himself as a person and as a player.

"I think because of all those things, he's got probably more pro-like habits or abilities than people would realize being only 19 years old."

There remain no guarantees for Poitras, who could be sent back to Guelph after nine games without burning a year of his entry-level contract. But that decision is coming and remains in the back of his mind. The game against the Blackhawks marks his sixth in the NHL and by likely by Halloween, the Bruins will need to make the call.

For now, Poitras is doing all that he can do to keep himself in Boston, to leave Guelph behind for good. But that doesn't mean that Poitras has fully comprehended any of this.

It has all happened just so fast.

"If I'm being honest, it doesn't really feel real," Poitras said. "It feels like a dream, honestly. I don't know when it's fully going to sink in -- or if it ever will."