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The Boston Bruins are up against it. The salary cap ceiling, that is. But you already knew that, and so did they. This was a calculated, ‘all-in’ risk by the 2013-14 Bruins. They knew that the bonus-laden, one-year contract signed by
Jarome Iginla last summer -- with a $1.8 million base salary but worth a total of $6 million if No. 12 met all of the games played/performance bonuses -- could come back to bite them in the behind this summer. (And it’s done just that, by the way.)
Now, even with over two months to go before the puck drops on the highly anticipated 2014-15 season, the Black-and-Gold are a franchise that will desperately need to shed some salary.
They’ll have some viable options to move, too.
Here’s part one of their hypothetical assets to consider moving.
I present to you, the Expendables I, the forwards. (Now with far fewer ‘80s action movie stars.)
Gregory Campbell
Ask people in Boston about Greg Campbell and they’ll recall No. 11’s courageous, one-legged shorthanded effort in Game 3 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’ll talk about the raw emotion of Campbell in that moment, and tip their cap to the fourth-line pivot for his refusal to lay down and wait for a whistle. Broken leg and all, he was up and trying to keep the Pens off the board. To this day, that’s still one of the most absurd things I’ve ever witnessed.
But that was in June 2013. This is August 2014, and the Bruins are a club in the midst of a slight identity crisis. They’ve already moved on from veteran enforcer
Shawn Thornton, a staple of the Campbell-centered Merlot line, and the harsh reality is that Campbell might be next.
Entering the final year of a contract that comes with a $1.6 million cap-hit, there’s already been talk of moving the 30-year-old to the wing to accommodate the expected NHL arrival of the club’s top center prospect,
Ryan Spooner. Spooner, a former second-rounder drafted 45th overall in 2010, recorded 11 assists in 23 games with the big league Bruins last year, and plays the style of game that belongs at center, not on the wing where he’ll be outmuscled in battles along the boards.
Campbell, however, can play the wing.
But I don’t think that really matters if the Bruins are as hellbent on moving on from the idea of the ‘Merlot line’ as they sounded at the end of their season. And I mean, if you’re gonna do it, do it. Don’t just move one player that played seven minutes a night on a busy night and say that your issues are a thing of a past. That’s not progressing from a philosophical standpoint as an organization, that’s just masking the issue by shifting pieces elsewhere throughout the lineup. And though he’s been a good soldier throughout his four-year tenure with the B’s (and been willing to do anything in the name of the team), a fourth-line center that had a horrible time getting the puck out of his own zone during the postseason counting for nearly $2 million against your cap is a recipe for disaster.
When it comes to Campbell, it’s not that he’s a guy you don’t want playing as much he’s a player whose intangibles bring value to a locker room if you ask just any general manager in the league, and that his contract, with just one year left on it, isn’t an overly difficult one to move.
If the B’s need to, they could find a suitor for Campbell tomorrow.
Danny Paille
“Could the speedy Danny Paille find himself the victim of cap cuts?” Y’know, I’ve been asked this question a few times, and every time I really can’t emphasise the ‘nope’ strong enough.
Let’s put this in perspective: There are just three Boston forwards signed in 2014-15 that make less than Paille’s $1.3 million salary. They are
Jordan Caron and
Justin Florek, who will each make $600,000 at the NHL level this season, and center
Carl Soderberg, who is entering the final year of a contract that comes with a modest $1.008 million cap-hit.
On top of that, Paille’s the perfect player for the Bruins’ current situation.
When you look at what the Bruins lost this summer (here’s lookin’ at you, Iggy), the easiest and most logical solution is a basic bump up throughout the lineup for most. That means bumping
Loui Eriksson up from the third line to the top line. That creates a hole on the third line. That’s where you could plug Paille in with great ease, really. From the moment he was acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in 2009, the 30-year-old Paille has moved around the lineup without skipping a beat, and even served as one of the club’s better skaters on the third line in the 2013 playoffs.
He’s not a long-term solution on the third line by any means, but trading a player with his versatility and affordable deal for pure cap relief would be straight-up silly for the Black-and-Gold.
Loui Eriksson
The 29-year-old Loui Eriksson was in a no-win situation from the moment he got here, really. The main return for the trade that sent budding superstar
Tyler Seguin to Dallas, Eriksson struggled at first, and then got bonked twice in a two-month span. Missing a total of 21 games with concussion woes, the Swedish talent finished his first year in Boston with just 10 goals and 37 points in 61 games played. Naturally, this has led to overzealous talk of Eriksson being a bust for the Bruins, and cries that call for his trade out of town as soon as possible. (Dumb, dumb, and dumb.)
Let’s take a look at Eriksson’s post-Olympics game. Watch it for five minutes and try to tell me that he wasn’t the true Eriksson the B’s were sold on last summer. He was every bit the player the B’s wanted.
In fact, I think that Eriksson was one of the team’s best forwards during the playoffs, even if he finished his first postseason trip since ‘08 with just two goals and five points in 12 contests.
I understand the frustration with Eriksson (to an extent), but just how can you honestly and truthfully analyze one’s season when they suffer two concussions in less than two months? Hell, if he only had the
John Scott concussion, I’d still factor it into the equation. Loui’s healthy, and you don’t trade healthy players of his caliber for cap relief and nothing more.
Especially when he’s slated to fill in for Iginla on that top line this upcoming fall.
Chris Kelly
While the club was unable to buy the veteran center out during the compliance buyout window given the season-ending back injury sustained late in the regular season, it seems like every fan in Boston has their eyes on cutting ties with the 33-year-old Chris Kelly and his rather bothersome contract.
Awarded a four-year, $12 million contract after his 20-goal 2011-12 season, complete with a no-trade clause, the growing belief out there is that Kelly’s simply overpaid for what he brings to the rink. Honestly, I don’t think that this belief is wrong per se, but I don’t think it’s right either.
One of the locker room’s true leaders, Kelly is a perfect presence for the club’s bottom-six, and could’ve easily made that money elsewhere given the love affair teams have with grizzled leadership and centers when they hit the open market. But since the start of the 2012-13 season, Kelly’s pain has hurt the Bruins. Missing a total of 39 regular season contests and 12 playoff games to various injuries, Kelly’s absences from the lineup have really put the Bruins in positions to see how they can manage without him, leading most to believe that the team
could do without him in 2014-15 and beyond. Again, I disagree. You really don’t want
David Krejci killing penalties on a regular basis, and you don’t want to have
Patrice Bergeron become your only viable defensive-zone faceoff option. This is where Kelly brings value to the Black-and-Gold on a nightly basis.
On the flip-side, Soderberg has really seized the opportunity to become this team’s third-line center, and I think Kelly’s contract is to heavy to honestly relegate him to fourth-line center duties. If he’s on this team in 2014-15, it’s providing that ‘jam’ on the wing of the third line, or maybe taking the draw when it’s an own-zone faceoff. But above all else, what could keep No. 23 in Boston? His no-trade.
Brad Marchand
Again, here’s another option that I fundamentally disagree with. Yes, Brad Marchand has not scored a goal in 20 straight postseason games (and he won’t have the chance to ‘til April). Sure, historically, the ‘agitator’ act has grown old for coaches and teammates. And yeah, Marchand’s $4.5 million contract becomes an albatross if No. 63 crosses the line far enough to warrant another suspension.
But my goodness, like I’ve said a dozen times now, you just can’t teach the chemistry the 5-foot-9 winger has with
Patrice Bergeron on the B’s second line. Nor can you find a player on the B’s wing that’s better at driving possession up into the attacking zone than the Nova Scotia native.
He scored 25 goals in 2013-14 (just three shy of his career high), and that’s with a miserable slump that prompted
Claude Julien to move him down the lineup on numerous occasions.
Marchand can be better, and I think he certainly will be in 2014-15.
So, again, this is not a player you move to get under the cap. If Marchand
was going anywhere, it’d be for an impact player that changed more than the left wing of Bergeron’s line. And the Bruins know that.
"I have had no discussions for Marchand and I have no plans to trade him,” Chiarelli said in June.
He has the vote of confidence from just about everybody that's in charge of anything.
Fridays are Tydays: HockeyBuzz Cast
Today I, Vancouver Grizzlies shirt and all, appeared on the HockeyBuzz Cast to talk about the
P.K. Subban contract situation and some other stuff with Eklund and Mike Augello.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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