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Theoretically, the Boston Bruins have to make a move of some sort.
Unless they want to wait until Day 1 of the NHL season when they can place
Marc Savard’s $4 million plus cap-hit on the long-term injured reserve and
then sign restricted free agents and pivotal pieces of the 2014-15 puzzle in
Torey Krug and
Reilly Smith, a trade needs to be made. So here’s an idea out of left field of fantasyland (depending on which team you support)--
Boston's Johnny Boychuk to the Edmonton Oilers for Nail Yakupov.
The first overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, Yakupov would certainly fill the Bruins’ need for a high-skill right winger (though he’d be another left shot), would come to the Hub on the final year of an affordable entry-level contract, and is still young enough to ‘change’ his game to a more two-way style. (The last point would be an absolute must for Yakupov to make it in Boston, by the way.)
There’s also absolutely no way that the Oilers bail on Yakupov this early, you’d think. In two NHL seasons, the 5-foot-11 winger has scored 28 goals and 55 points in 111 NHL games, and though he’s struggled in the defensive zone, this is not a talent you move just two years into his career.
From David Staples’ blog for the
Edmonton Journal:
I don’t see how the Oilers would be interested in such a trade, though they might be interested in grabbing Boychuk for a lesser player or pick. It’s hard to imagine Boychuk’s value is so high he would command a promising player like Yakupov in return.
I’ve dug into his numbers before, as the notion of him moving to Edmonton has been around for some time. Boychuk has one year left on a contract that pays him $3.4 million a year. No doubt he’ll be looking to have a great year in 2013-14 and earn one big final four or five year contract in the NHL.
Still, there’s obvious connects when it comes to Boychuk and the Oilers. His former Bruins teammate
Andrew Ference is the captain, they’ve put a major focus on improving their defensive game, and most of all, he’s from Edmonton. He admitted to the Journal’s Jim Matheson that he grew up dreaming of playing for the Oilers, too.
But is he worth a player like Yakupov in a one-for-one swap?
Probably not, and that can be said from both sides.
The Black and Gold are in ‘win-now’ mode, and there’s no doubt that they have a greater chance of bringing the Cup back to Boston in 2015 with Boychuk as a member of their top-four defense, even if it raises his summertime asking price and prices him out of an extension with the club. Call it a last hurrah if you will. And while Yakupov is an intriguing talent to say the least, he’d be yet another left shot, and the Seguin fallout of a year ago really put things into perspective in terms of Boston’s willingness (or lack thereof) to deal with a player whose defensive game doesn’t fit their mold.
And in Edmonton, after an offseason that saw the team bring in some veteran blue-line help in Nikita Nikitin and Mark Fayne, and with a defensive pipeline considerably deep in terms of blue-liners of tomorrow, there’s probably little desire to bring in a pending unrestricted free agent in exchange for a former No. 1 overall pick that’s ‘struggled’ to dominate the NHL as a 20-year-old.
Still, Boychuk’s focused on Boston and what the team can and will do in 2014-15.
“Our GM (Peter Chiarelli) is a mastermind,” Boychuk told the Edmonton Journal. “He’s good with doing things like (cap struggles) and we have some good players we’ve developed the last couple of years, but nobody’s heard of them over on the west side (NHL).”
The Bruins are currently $809,143 over the salary cap.
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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