Defenseman Mason Lohrei will join the Providence Bruins on an amateur tryout contract after his second season at Ohio State ended in the NCAA quarterfinals. Winslow Townson/Associated Press
The Boston Bruins’ top amateur prospect took the next big step in his career on Friday.
Defenseman Mason Lohrei eschewed two years of NCAA eligibility at Ohio State and signed an amateur tryout contract to play for the Providence Bruins. The 6-foot-4, 205-pound Lohrei should get some valuable pro experience while playing for playoff-bound Providence.
Lohrei, 22, had an excellent career at Ohio State after the Bruins chose him in the second round (58th overall) in the 2020 draft when he was still a member of the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers.
A native of Verona, Wisconsin, he spent another season with the Gamblers before moving on to the Buckeyes, for whom he had four goals and 25 assists in 31 games his freshman season. In his sophomore season, which ended on Sunday when Ohio State was ousted from the NCAA tournament by Quinnipiac, he had four goals and 28 assists in 40 games after starting slowly while bouncing back from a knee injury.
It is difficult to see Lohrei – a big, offensive-minded blueliner – making any kind of impact with the big club this season. While some observers have tried to draw comparisons between Lohrei’s situation and Charlie McAvoy’s when the Bruins defenseman signed out of Boston University six years ago, the Bruins are in a much different spot now.
The team that McAvoy had joined was not only coming off back-to-back non-playoff seasons, but also was beset by injuries as it headed into the playoffs against the Ottawa Senators. After McAvoy played just four games with Providence, the Bruins had no choice but to throw him to the wolves – with the strong hunch that he was one of them. They were proven correct.
For Lohrei to get a chance with the big club in the Stanley Cup playoffs, an awful lot would have to go wrong for the Bruins. On Thursday, they set a club record for wins with 58, and even with Derek Forbort currently out of the lineup because of a lower body injury, the Bruins have depth on the back end that other team would love to have.
That’s not to say Lohrei isn’t a very intriguing prospect.
“He’s a special player,” Quinnipiac Coach Rand Pecknold told reporters Sunday. “He’s elite. He should probably be in the NHL right now, and probably will be in a day or two, is my guess.”
Maybe for another organization, that would be a slam dunk. But Lohrei will at least gain some valuable experience in Providence while the Bruins further evaluate him.
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