Casey Mittelstadt

You know, not winning the draw to start when I thought that we, you know, Elias Lindholm was out there to win draws.

Yeah, it was Mitten.

Mitten loses one, and then I think it was, was it Zaka, the second one?

I don't

know who the second one was.

No.

Nice burgers.

If Mitten, Higgins, and Brene continue to get better, then it's easy to trade away the vets.

Boston Bruins, 2.8 total heading into Carolina.

The Hurricanes have a 3.8. Boston going Zaka, Pasternak, Paterka, Mitten, Geeky, Kuznitsinov, Lindholm, Middlestad, Higgins.

Carolina going Ajo, Svechnikov, Carrier, Stankov, and Ehlers, Blake, Martinuk, Jarvis, Hall.

Although Hall left Morning Skate.

Paterka up.

He wanted to swap Hustadinov and Paterka and bring Mitten up to the first line center, I think.

Which, listen, I'm not going to mock him.

There's days I would want to do that conversation.

J.J. Petraeca, Pavel Zaka, and David Pasternak will be line number one for Boston.

And then also Marat... who's not enough, will be on line number two with Frazier-Menton and Morgan Geeky, Elias Lindholm, Casey Mittelstadt, James Higgins, the former Pred, Tanner Junot, Matthew Petratz, Mark Kastelec will be the forward lines, Hampus Lindholm, Charlie McAvoy, Nikita Zdorov, Will Borgen, Frederick Brunette, and Mason Lorai will be the defensive pairings tonight for the Boston Bruins.

The goaltenders...

And it'll be Michael DiPietro in Boston for them tonight as he is 1-1-0 on the year, a 2-5-4 goals against average and a 9-1-1 save percentage.

Predators trail the Bruins 2-0 after one period of play.

Chase McCabe with you in Smashville.

Casey Mittelstadt and Elias Lindholm, the goal scorers for Boston, one of those coming on the power play.

And the Predators have some work to do in the second period as they find themselves down 2-0 on the scoreboard and have been outshot 12-8 through one period of play as well.

And so I think bringing in a guy like Borgen, um, you know, he's not the guy that's gonna steal headlines as far as trading for him right in the off-season, but I think he's a guy that'll help in that regard of maybe ironing out some of those D zone flaws and limiting just how much guys like Jeremy Swayman and Michael DePietro are put under duress over the course of a season.

Um, moving back up front, Connor, um, how about a guy like Casey Mittelstadt? A guy who's pretty highly touted coming out of junior.

Just seemed like he was just treading water in Buffalo.

Uh, has he finally found a home and a role he can really grab onto?

You look at maybe, like, the baseline stats, you know, maybe doesn't, like, jump off the page, but he's been a guy that kind of wherever you put him in the lineup, he does some of the little things, the dirty work, that really helps out his line.

Like la- you look at last year, I don't think anyone expected Pavel Zacha, Mittelstadt, and Victor Olsson to be one of the best second lines in hockey, but you look at, like, the goal differential, you look at how they control play, that was the case, and a lot of it was kind of Mittelstadt.

Maybe he's not getting a point or he's getting a secondary assist or something like that, but, like, he was, you know, winning board battles, doing things that I think when you look at Casey Mittelstadt and what his profile was for his first few years, you wouldn't expect that to, to be the case.

But he's been, you know, carrying out that role really well under Michael Sturm, and now he's on the third line, uh, with James Hagelin and Elias Lindholm, a group that's kind of a, a two-way line, but you have that upside with a guy like Hagelin.