On Tuesday morning, Georgii Merkulov considered his zero-point output and declared himself unworthy of NHL employment if it continued.
“I don’t have confidence right now. Just because I haven’t been able to produce points,” said the 24-year-old forward, granted a second-line ride next to Elias Lindholm and Charlie Coyle. “They called me up to help secondary scoring. That’s why I need to contribute to help the team score more. Because (David Pastrnak) can’t score all the goals. We have to score. Our second line, third line, we have to produce points. That’s why I’m here and I haven’t been doing that. I need to change that.”
One day later, following his fifth no-point game of 2024-25 in the Bruins’ 6-3 loss to the Nashville Predators, Merkulov (one shot, four misses, 16:08 of ice time) was back to the minors. Whether the pending restricted free agent gets another varsity sniff is unknown. Merkulov has zero goals and one assist in 10 career appearances.
“You have to try and take advantage of the opportunity, especially if you’re put in a more offensive situation,” interim coach Joe Sacco said. “It’s not like he’s trying to miss the net. But those are the opportunities where you want to see some production there on net. Maybe he’s not going to get the primary goal. But somebody’s going to get a rebound chance.”
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