Attilio Biasca eager to show Bruins how fierce of a competitor he can be: ‘I’m not afraid to have the puck’

The Attilio Biasca who signed last weekend with the Bruins is the same Attilio Biasca who played regularly on a line last month with Swiss countrymen Nico Hischier and Timo Meier, a pair of top-six Devils forwards, at the IIHF World Championship.

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The Bruins will begin to find out in September, upon Biasca reporting to rookie camp, if the plucky left winger can filch a spot among their varsity forwards. Ideally, he’d fill a second- or third-line role, no doubt a lofty goal for a 23-year-old who hasn’t played in North America since a three-year run in juniors with the Halifax Mooseheads that he wrapped up in spring 2023.

“Always around the net, always around the puck,” mused Dennis Bonvie, about to enter his fifth season as the Bruins’ director of pro scouting. “And at the end of the day, he’s playing with Hischier and Meier — and they wanted to play with him. That tells you a lot in itself. I don’t want to overmarket the player, but I think he’s a smart, two-way player who has those intangibles … can skate, competitive, with skill level and a nose for the net.

“I like the odds. If he puts the work in, I like the odds.”

A willingness to get to the net, and make something happen there, was badly lacking among the Bruins forwards, particularly the top three lines, during this year’s Round 1 playoff loss to the Sabres. If the 6-foot-1-inch, 185-pound Biasca can gain a leg up on the roster competition upon arrival, presence and attitude around the blue paint will be the place to do it.

In other words, be the player he was at Worlds en route to Switzerland clinching silver for a second year in a row.

“You go out there and just want to play hockey and have fun,” said Biasca, talking by phone from Switzerland, explaining his approach with Hischier and Meier. “They told me to get open and everything, for sure. That sounds easier than it is, but I want the puck, too. That’s the kind of player I am. I’m not afraid to have the puck.”

Undrafted out of juniors, Biasca returned home after his time in Nova Scotia, where he captained the Mooseheads his final season. The last three seasons, he played in the Swiss league and helped Fribourg-Gotteron win the title this spring. He finished second in goal scoring with 15 over 45 regular-season games.

The Bruins signed Biasca to a two-year, two-way deal, a total of some $400,000 of it guaranteed, in the hope that he can transition back to the smaller ice sheet of North America and deliver some offensive pop. In today’s NHL economics, he’s a low-cost flyer with a potential high return.

Biasca has never been to Boston, but feels a connection after meeting former Bruins center David Krejci. After winning the Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011, Krejci spent a day with the trophy that summer near his hometown of Sternberk, Czechia. Biasca’s mother, Gabriela, grew up in the area and made sure 8-year-old Attilio made the trip to see the Cup. He keeps pictures of that day on his cellphone.

“I did a picture with [Krejci] and the Stanley Cup, too,” recalled Biasca. “And I told my mom that one day I want to bring that home, too.

“It’s pretty special now that I’ll be going to Boston, and that I’ll have a chance to play there.”

Biasca grew up in Zug, Switzerland, and is multilingual, fluent in English and German and able to understand French. He and coach Marco Sturm, proud son of Dingolfing, Germany, will be able review game tape in the language of their choosing.

Germany and Switzerland, on the world hockey stage, are longtime and intense rivals, at a level of discord approaching Canada and the United States. Just prior to the NHL shutting down for the Olympics, Sturm, once coach of the German national team, spoke good-naturedly about the “hate” the two countries have for each other when the puck drops.

“Ah, I know what’s coming!” said Biasca, laughing out loud when apprised of how Sturm framed the Swiss-German/cat-dog hockey relationship. “Yeah, that’s kind of our rivalry, for sure … it’s true. That’s awesome. But that’s just the hockey part.”

Biasca most likely begins the season with Providence, but like all kids with a dream, whether from Switzerland or Swansea, he’s not setting his sights on the AHL.

“For me, mentally, I want to start right away in the NHL,” he said. “I know I can do it and that’s what I’ve worked my whole life for, this chance. I really believe in myself, that I can do it.

“I know a lot of people don’t know me yet, but I think I’m going to surprise a lot of people.”

With July 1 free agency less than two weeks away, the Bruins still have not inked winger Viktor Arvidsson or defenseman Andrew Peeke to contract extensions. They also have not announced new deals with a number of their AHL regulars, most notably forwards Georgii Merkulov, Fabian Lysell, and Matt Poitras.

The presumption as the weekend approached was that many of those players will not be walking back through that door, though Lysell and Poitras, unlike the other three, lack unrestricted free agent status. Unless the Bruins opt not to deliver either a qualifying offer, they remain restricted free agents. The Bruins would be due compensation if they sign with a different organization, and maintain the right to match that offer.

Lysell, the No. 21 pick in the 2021 draft, has played a mere 12 NHL games across four pro seasons. The winger has remained in perpetual career development in Providence, where this past season he logged 17-25–42 in 57 games.

Poitras, a center/winger who made the varsity as a 19-year-old at the start of the 2023-24 season, this past season delivered 13-31–44 in 69 AHL games. It set his career high for points as pro, but he suited up only three times for Sturm’s varsity squad.

Merkulov paced Providence in 2025-26, his fourth in the AHL, for assists (37) and points (61). Originally signed as a promising free agent with NHL goal-scoring potential out of Ohio State, the center/winger has led the AHL team in point production in each of his four seasons. Like Lysell, his looks with the varsity have been brief (11 games: 0-1-1) and not exciting.

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Two other productive Providence forwards, Riley Tufte (56 points) and Matej Blumel (52) have UFA status. Each suited up for only four games and a handshake with the varsity last season.

There remains time to get deals done for all of those players. It takes but a nod of the head and a swipe of the autopen for both sides to find a landing spot for contract extensions.

Yet as of today, seven-plus weeks since their last game (May 1), the Bruins appear poised to let some familiar faces on both rosters find work beyond the Spoked B.

Former Bruins goalie prospect Brandon Bussi, now with a Stanley Cup title stapled to his résumé after backing the Hurricanes to victories over the Golden Knights in Final Games 4, 5, and 6, dramatically changed the course of his career by signing last July 1 with the Panthers.

One day later, July 2, ex-Northeastern goalie Cayden Primeau inked a near-identical one-year contract with Carolina. Primeau’s one-way deal was slightly better, guaranteeing him $775,000 no matter if he played in the NHL or the minors. Bussi’s two-way deal, also for $775,000, trimmed his compensation to $400,000 if sent to the minors.

Both former college goalies were looking for the exact same thing: an opportunity for a career kickstart with a new team.

Bussi, the former Western Michigan standout, was 26 at the time. He calculated his best chance of one day landing work, actually getting in his first NHL game, was with Panthers, where veteran Sergei Bobrovsky was about to enter the final season of his contract.

Primeau was once a Montreal prospect who suited up for 55 games with the CH across six seasons. In the spring of 2019, he departed NU at age 19 after collecting 44 wins with the Huskies in his two seasons on Huntington Avenue.

Age 25 last July, Primeau eyeballed the Hurricanes, who had Pyotr Kochetkov and an aging Frederik Andersen, as his best bet to get back to the big time. Then came Oct. 5, the day Carolina clipped Bussi off waivers from the Panthers. Little did anyone expect, including Bussi, that 252 days later he’d be the guy to snuff out Vegas and hoist high the Cup last Sunday night in the Nevada desert.

One day after Bussi said adieu to Sunrise, the Hurricanes surrendered Primeau to the Maple Leafs via waivers.

Which was OK. Because on Oct. 14, Primeau was back in the NHL, his 26 saves backing Toronto to a 7-4 win over the Predators. That very same night, Bussi indeed made his NHL debut, a 5-1 win win at San Jose, the first of his 34 victories (including the Cup clincher).

As for Primeau, his time with Toronto was brief. He went 2-1-0 in his three October starts, only to be waived back to the Carolina organization Nov. 6. Yep, technically the two goalies were teammates much of the season, albeit with Primeau spending all his time in AHL Chicago, where he finished with 29 wins, logging eight of those in the Calder Cup playoffs.

Bussi in February signed a three-year contract extension with the Hurricanes, all of it guaranteed, for a total payout of $5.7 million. As the weekend approached, Primeau remained without a contract for the upcoming season but with Carolina owning his restricted free agent rights. For now.

John Tortorella’s time in the desert proved brief, as was Vegas management’s terse farewell statement upon dismissing him as coach less than 48 hours after losing the Stanley Cup Final to Carolina.

The following day, the Golden Knights promoted Ryan Craig, their coach at AHL Henderson, to be the new bench boss. Craig was an assistant on Bruce Cassidy’s staff in 2022-23 when Vegas won the franchise’s lone Cup.

It might have been a one-and-done plan going in with Tortorella. General manager Kelly McCrimmon ditched Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season in hopes that Tortorella’s hiss-and-vinegar approach would lift the team to greater heights.

Or it could be that they didn’t like how it fizzled out altogether at the end, with Tortorella’s troops pooping out by the shift in Games 4-5-6. In those three consecutive losses, the Golden Knights led for a mere 4:54 total, while the Hurricanes controlled the scoreboard with 133:45 in lead time (a ratio of some 26:1).

Carolina put on a clinic in puck tenacity in the final three games, two of those on Vegas ice, and outscored the Golden Knights, 12-5. It was the same woodchipper approach the Former Forever .500s used to turn the Senators, Flyers, and Canadiens into sawdust in the prior three series.

The Hurricanes finished 16-3 for the postseason and outscored their opponents, 66-39. In the 82-game regular season, only eight of the 32 franchises finished with a greater goal differential than that plus-27 in 19 playoff contests. Mercy.

The Predators, now with Chris MacFarland and Rob Blake running the show, made a low-on-the-radar deal with the Avalanche, bringing University of Vermont product Ross Colton to Tune Town. Colton, who will be 30 in September, got his name on the Stanley Cup in 2021 with the Lightning and again will provide pivot support for former Tampa Bay teammate (and fellow Cup winner) Steven Stamkos in Nashville. The Lightning picked Colton at No. 118 in the 2016 draft and he departed the Burlington, Vt., campus in 2018 after two seasons to launch his pro career. Don’t be surprised if MacFarland, his general manager in Colorado, soon signs Colton to a contract extension for three or four years. Colton would be entering the final season of a four-year/$16 million pact he signed with MacFarland and the Avalanche less than a month after being dealt to Colorado in 2023. The $4 million in salary relief more than doubled Colorado’s cap space to nearly $7 million … Samuel Ersson, the post-Carter Hart workhorse in the Flyers’ net until they hired ex-Bruins prospect Daniel Vladar, was dished to the Maple Leafs in a swap that brought former Boston College goaltender Joseph Woll to Broad Street, along with blue liner Simon Benoit. The swap provides resets for both goalies. Ersson stands to split the Toronto job with Anthony Stolarz, and Woll, hurt for a portion of last season, should see upward of 35 games as Vladar’s partner. The Maple Leafs first have to sign restricted free agent Ersson to a contract extension … Sergei Samsonov spent eight seasons (2015-23) in Carolina management, helping to shape the now championship roster both as a scout and later as a development coach. The Magical Muscovite, named NHL Rookie of the Year (Calder) after his first season with the Bruins in 1997-98, left Raleigh, N.C., when GM Don Waddell (now the boss of the Blue Jackets) departed. Samsonov has spent the last three seasons as director of player development for Dan Milstein’s Gold Star Hockey agency, which represents, among others, a number of high-profile Russian players, including Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov … The Sharks added former Boston College forward Andre Gasseau when they swapped Round 4 picks with the Bruins, who also acquired a fifth-rounder in the exchange. Born in Los Angeles, Gasseau now has a chance one day to play in his Golden State homeland. The Bruins were encouraged by the 6-4 pivot’s development across his four seasons at The Heights, but traded Gasseau’s rights when he made clear his intention to pursue free agency in August, which is his right under the collective bargaining agreement. It’s long been a surprise here that more college kids don’t remain true to their school for four years and then bid out their services across the league upon graduation. The dynamic explains, too, why clubs are eager sign NCAA kids after their freshman, sophomore, and junior seasons … San Jose also acquired the RFA rights to Michael Kesselring, a depth defenseman with the Sabres, in a deal that moved Buffalo up seven notches (from No. 27 to 20) for Friday’s first round of the draft. Kesselring, who carried only a $1.4 million cap hit, played two seasons on the Northeastern backline and joined the Sabres a year ago in the deal that saw JJ Peterka sent from Buffalo to the Mammoth. Sabres GM Jarmo Kekalainen has about $12 million in elbow room under the cap, possibly two-thirds of which will disappear if he decides to keep forward Alex Tuch on the roster. Tuch, a BC product and possible target for the Bruins, is on track to hit unrestricted free agency July 1. The 30-year-old arrived in Buffalo via the high-profile Jack Eichel swap and has played out the seven-year/$33.25 million pact he signed with the Golden Knights in October 2018.

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