The Bruins tidied up their season-opening roster with a number of moves on Sunday, including placing veteran defenseman Henri Jokiharju on waivers in anticipation that he will go unclaimed and make his way to AHL Providence.
The move was not a shock, given how the 27-year-old, a member of Finland’s Olympic squad in February, stacked up among a group of 10 blue liners under coach Marco Sturm’s charge at the start of training camp.
Sturm was left with little choice but to include Frederic Brunet, an impressive rookie, on the roster. And even with veteran defenseman Charlie McAvoy out of the mix for the first six games as he serves a suspension, Jokiharju still could not crack the back line mix.
James Hagens, the ex-Boston College forward, also earned a spot. The 19-year-old is expected to be in Tuesday night’s lineup, working at No. 3 left wing on the so-called Kid Line with Fraser Minten (center) and Marat Khusnutdinov (right wing).
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Sturm may continue to review his lines, but as of Sunday, the likely trios looked like this: JJ Peterka-Elias Lindholm-David Pastrnak, Casey Mittelstadt-Pavel Zacha-Morgan Geekie, Hagens-Minten-Khusnutdinov, and Tanner Jeannot-Sean Kuraly-Mark Kastelic, with Mikey Eyssimont as a spare forward.
The backline, with McAvoy out until Oct. 13: Hampus Lindholm-Will Borgen, Nikita Zadorov-Connor Clifton, and Brunet-Mason Lohrei, plus Jonathan Aspirot.
Goalies are Jeremy Swayman and Michael DiPietro.
Matt Poitras, hoping to earn his way back on the roster this season, was placed on injured reserve because of an unspecified ding sustained in recent days.
The designation avoided, at least for the time being, the Bruins potentially losing Poitras, 22, if they were to place him on waivers.
Other hopefuls among the forward group, Riley Duran and Dans Locmelis, were assigned to Providence. Alex Steeves and Lukas Reichel, both of whom were placed on waivers Saturday, will join them as they went unclaimed as expected.
Forward Jake Schmaltz, said the club, also will join Providence.
Swayman will get the start vs. the Rangers. His workload this season is expected again to be somewhere around 55 games, though Sturm did not discount the chance that Swayman would see a bigger share of work this season.
The ex-Maine Black Bear played 58 and 55 the last two seasons.
“He’s definitely our guy,” Sturm said of his No. 1 stopper, while noting some uncharacteristic breaks in this season’s schedule could lead to Swayman getting added work. “He can maybe recover better [around the breaks] and maybe that gives him a few more games. I didn’t really put a number on it.”
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.