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Is Bartkowski a goner?

July 10, 2014, 2:24 PM ET [38 Comments]
Ty Anderson
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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Of the 20 National Hockey Leaguers that filed for salary arbitration last weekend, The Boston Bruins had just one, Pennsylvania-born defenseman, Matt Bartkowski. That’s certainly fitting too, because who the hell knows what the club should pay Bartkowski in 2014-15, if at all?

I’ve said it from the beginning and I’ll say it again: Bartkowski was in over his head this year.

He was the guy the Bruins turned to and said, “Hey give it go,” when they lost Dennis Seidenberg to a season-ending knee injury. Y’know Seidenberg, the veteran defender the Bruins have paired with Zdeno Chara nearly every postseason to form one of the league’s top shutdown pairings. Or, at the very least, a player you relied on to give you nearly half an hour of hard minutes complete with punishing physical play and a block-it-all attitude in the defensive zone.

For a player that entered this past season with a combined 32 games of NHL experience (20 regular season contests and five postseason games), that’s a tall order. Too tall of an order, in fact.

But though it’s undeniably easy given his struggles against Montreal in the Bruins’ second-round exit, now’s not the time to pound the 26-year-old Bartkowski into dirt. He gave you everything you’d expect out of a player with that experience (or lack thereof), and it’s not his fault that he wasn’t a top-four defenseman after 32 games at the NHL level. That was an insane request from the club.

Recording 18 assists and a plus-22 rating along with 155 hits (fourth among Bruins) in 64 games played this year , Bartkowski proved himself to be a capable middle to lower pairing defenseman at this level, and is obviously set for a raise from his $650,000 salary last season.

And that’s a raise that the Bruins really can’t afford to give.

With Marc Savard’s eventual placement on the long-term injured reserve, the Bruins will have $5.668 million in space to re-sign Bartkowski along with Torey Krug and Reilly Smith (both of whom cannot receive offer sheets from other clubs, as they’re entry-level free agents with less than three years of NHL experience). And that’s already with six NHL defensemen signed to the B’s roster in 2014-15; Chara, Seidenberg, Johnny Boychuk, Dougie Hamilton, Kevan Miller, and Adam McQuaid.

Signing both Krug and Bartkowski would leave the B’s with eight defensemen on the roster, and that’s with David Warsofsky, Zach Trotman, and former first-round pick Joe Morrow banging at the NHL door. And there’s obviously upside to Bartkowski’s game -- especially in this system given Claude Julien’s playoff decision to play him over deadline pickup Andrej Meszaros -- but this meeting with an arbitrator honestly seems like Bartkowski’s way out of getting out of Boston. That’s not an indictment against Bartkowski, who has handled his ever-changing role with the big B’s like a true professional, but he’s obviously ready for a role that’ll see him play on a full-time basis, and I’m just not sure he can find that here.

The pairing of Chara and Hamilton (or Boychuk) has obviously emerged as the Bruins’ No. 1 pair after a strong sophomore season . Seidenberg will be back on the second pairing with Boychuk (or Hamilton). And the B’s would love to keep the 5-foot-9 Krug with a bigger, more physical player like Miller or McQuaid on the club’s third pairing. One of Miller/McQuaid will have to sit as the seventh defenseman to start the year, and given the Bruins’ cap situation, carrying eight seems absurd.

Now imagine an arbitrator awarding the Pennsylvania-born blue-liner close to a million bucks?

The Bruins just couldn’t do that, and I think everybody knows it. So, in a way, maybe this is the will-be second-year pro’s way of accelerating his way to unrestricted free agency.

When push comes to shove, the Bruins would ideally prefer to use any and all of the money that Bartkowski will be awarded to address their concerns up front with a veteran forward/bargain bin project that can give the Bruins’ emerging youngsters some competition for ice time on the wing.

(Think Dany Heatley’s Anaheim money of $1 million for one year on somebody like Peter Mueller, Devin Setoguchi, or Lee Stempniak.)

But would the Bruins miss the former seventh round pick of the Florida Panthers? Well, in short, no, I don’t think so. Here’s the thing with Bartkowski: He’s your perfect fill-in defenseman. He does just about everything right. He’s not exceptionally talented in one area, but he’s not terrible in one department, either. There’s obvious value there, but on a Bruins roster that seeks roleplayers within their defensive structure in the now, this wouldn’t be a loss in the lineup or on the cap.

With the arbitration hearing set for July 30, the Bruins do have some time to figure out just what’s going to happen with Bartkowski and the rest of their defensive pipeline. They’ll need it, too.

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
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