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Boston center
David Krejci (undisclosed) put an end to a brutal 11-game absence with last night’s showing against the Minnesota Wild. Skating in just his third game since Nov. 1, and his 12th of the season, the 29-year-old logged a heavy 18:22, finishing the night with one shot and winning two of 11 faceoffs.
It wasn’t the prettiest of nights for the B’s top-liner, but his return had an undeniable trickle-down effect on the Black and Gold, who got huge contributions from their second and third line in the overtime victory.
An active Krejci will help, but it surely won’t cure all that’s ailing the Bruins. There’s without question more work to be done, but from the office of B’s general manager
Peter Chiarelli. In a summer of controversial (maybe ‘questionable’ is better) -- headlined by the cap-cutting
Johnny Boychuk trade to New York -- Chiarelli has talked of his ability, and in all likelihood his need, to use some of his assets to improve the Bruins before or by the league’s trade deadline. Even with Krejci, he’ll need to do that.
And it seems like that talking is becoming more of a looming action with each passing day, too.
It’s no longer a secret that Chiarelli and assistant general manager
Don Sweeney are heavily scouting certain teams and players throughout the league. Often in person, too. Boston has been linked to Buffalo’s
Chris Stewart since the year started. Chiarelli and Sweeney have also taken in their share of St. Louis Blues games, generating buzz with reported interest in
T.J. Oshie and
Patrik Berglund. Arizona forward
Antoine Vermette is another player the B’s could have their eyes on, while home run fantasy options reside in Edmonton in
Jordan Eberle and
Taylor Hall.
If you’re talking about this list, there’s no doubt that one of Berglund, Stewart, or Vermette is a more likely option than Eberle, Hall, or Oshie. That’s in terms of competition, price, and everything in between.
But maybe you can begin to add another guy (or guys) to the list with the rumor that Chiarelli has picked up some dialogue with
Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks.
TSN’s Darren Dreger briefly touched on that idea in a morning interview with TSN 1260 in Edmonton, noting that the Bruins are ‘hungry’ to add a top-six or top-nine forward to their roster.
Where does leave you when it comes to finding a legitimate option or target for the Bruins? Well, given their desire to add a winger -- preferably a scorer with a little bit of nasty to his game -- you’d think
Chris Higgins,
Alexandre Burrows or maybe
Zach Kassian would be on their list.
Higgins, with five goals (76 shots) and 15 points in 31 games this year, would provide an interesting complementary option somewhere in Boston’s lineup, but would be far from the high-end answer they seek. He’s also in the second year of a four-year extension that comes with a $2.5 million cap-hit, and has a limited no-move clause. The left-shooting Higgins has familiarity with the East, too, between stints with the Montreal Canadiens (2003-09), New York Rangers (2009-10), and Florida Panthers (2010-11).
Burrows is an interesting option, but has a no-move clause, a left shot, a habit of stirring things up (sometimes to a fault) and a $4.5 million cap-hit ‘til 2017. He’s basically an older version of
Brad Marchand. Burrows’ numbers have also taken a nosedive, and the 33-year-old certainly looks like a talent that misses skating with the Sedins on a nightly basis. There’s also the whole, “Hey Patrice Bergeron, sorry I bit your finger that one time” bridge that’d have to be crossed. (It’s an unlikely fit, is what I’m saying.)
And then there’s Kassian.
At 6-foot-3, and originally acquired in an attempt for the Canucks to find their version of Milan Lucic, a player that bullied the Canucks around during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, the 23-year-old has become a polarizing skater for Vancouver. Is he a mucker that’s been asked to be more, or is there more offensive potential to his game? In his first full season in the NHL last year, Kassian tallied 14 goals and 27 points along with 124 penalty minutes in 73 games played.
Signed to an affordable $1.75 million contract through 2016, it’s tough to envision a scenario where the Canucks move on from Kassian for cheap, especially with Benning’s love for a physical brand of hockey.
But you’d have to wonder if there’s an internal belief from the Bruins that Kassian could mesh with Lucic for a straight-up terrorizing first line with Krejci dishing the puck, therefore making Kassian a legitimate target for Boston. He doesn’t have the skill of a Jarome Iginla or even a Nathan Horton like the B’s aim for with that line, but it’s clear that the club like the idea of putting two bigger frames around Krejci.
As for what goes back the other way, the Bruins would certainly be in the market to send a defender back the other way, or maybe package a player like Ryan Spooner or Alex Khokhlachev (though I know they’d prefer not to move him) to the Canucks along with a draft pick.
It’s also been discussed that the Bruins are into the idea of dumping salary on a team as a prelude to a bigger trade. Sorta like a you scratch our back, we scratch yours kind of thing. So maybe there’s an appeal there for Benning, you’d think, as he oversaw many of the current B’s during his tenure as assistant general manager here.
Given the holiday trade freeze that’s just hours away at this point, the Bruins aren’t expected to make a major shake-up or salary dump anytime in the immediate future, but the list of names and teams linked to the Black and Gold will surely continue to heat up through the freeze.
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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