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As the Boston Bruins nervously approached the 2015 NHL Trade Deadline this past season, it seemed like everybody and everything was on the table. Teetering between buyers and sellers (the Bruins ultimately opted to buy, at least in the most harmless of ways in terms of the assets they were giving up on), it seemed like anything could have happened in regards to the Black and Gold’s core.
One of those players mentioned around that time -- and again at the draft -- was top-four defenseman
Dennis Seidenberg. A mainstay on the B’s point since 2010, and one of the club’s ultimate unsung heroes during their unforgettable run to the 2011 Stanley Cup, Seidenberg became a potential trade target out of town by way of his semi-worrisome struggles in 2014-15 (his first season since tearing his ACL in Dec. 2013), and heavy contract that includes a $4 million cap-hit through 2018.
Seidenberg was honest with the situation and openly said that he would waive his no-trade clause if the B’s did try to move him. (Like Scott Hartnell expressed when he moved to Columbus from Philly, who would want to remain with a club that tried to trade you?) That would benefit general manager
Don Sweeney and the Bruins in the sense that Seidenberg skates with a full no-trade through the 2016 calendar year (after then Seidenberg has a list of a few select teams he’d accept a trade to), some 17 months away at this point, if they indeed intend on including him in a trade.
But Seidenberg survived the deadline. And he survived a turbulent draft weekend in late June.
And now, with the Bruins in the dog days and Sweeney ‘not finished’, will No. 44 survive the summer?
One of just two Bruins to skate in all 82 games this past season (
Carl Soderberg was the other, though I feel like
Tuukka Rask played in every single game), Seidenberg went through undeniable bumps in his road back to normalcy after tearing his knee to shreds the year before. And though he’s an absolute monster in terms of his physical fitness and conditioning, you could tell that the veteran Seidenberg needed more than a couple of months to get back to the game speed of playing in the National Hockey League. At 33, now 34 after this past weekend, that was to be expected.
The stats were not kind to the German defender, either.
His Corsi-Rel% was the fifth-worst in the entire NHL by defensemen with at least 50 games played, and his Corsi-For% (48.3) was the lowest among Boston d-men. It almost goes without saying that possession figures are never necessarily kind to defenders like Seidenberg -- who tend to make their living with blocked shots and brutish physicality around the net -- but even for Seidenberg, those numbers were a legit representation of his struggles. Now, as easy as it would be to bash on him, I think it’s important to remember a few factors in analyzing his play. One? Whether you find it to be a cop out or not, he
was coming off major knee surgery. Two? The Bruins never had a legitimate partner to stick with him at almost any point throughout the season. Two is the big one for me, too.
I still think there’s enough tread on Seidenberg’s tires, even after 697 games of considerable wear-and-tear, to make him an impact defender for the Black and Gold next season. But that will not be the case if you do not find him a pairing partner that can help him move the puck out of his own end. It’s really that simple -- although it’s proven to have been anything but -- for Sweeney and the Bruins. Seidenberg will be a liability if he’s paired with a defenseman that moves the puck as poorly as he does (see: that disaster of a middle pairing featuring No. 44 and Adam McQuaid last season). Seidenberg will always need a partner that knows how to distribute the puck and make that strong first pass out of the d-zone. With one failed experiment after another, this should be painfully apparent to the Boston brass.
Could
Torey Krug (though that would require Seidenberg shifting to the right side) be that guy for the Bruins? Given his one-year, let-me-prove-that-I’m-a-top-four-defenseman contract, the B’s could have that hope, sure. And even behind Krug, guys like Joe Morrow or Zach Trotman could be a fit.
Or maybe even one of the remaining veteran free agents -- like Christian Ehrhoff or Cody Franson -- could be that guy for Seidenberg and the Bruins. But there’s also a belief that acquiring one of Ehrhoff or Franson (though I believe this theory aligns way more with a potential Franson signing more than Ehrhoff) that acquiring one of those talents would come at a cost. And that cost, of course, would be Seidenberg’s contract being shipped off to insert-city-here as needed cap relief for the B’s.
In my opinion, that’s somewhat counterintuitive, as every guy left on the free agent market comes with concerns like Seidenberg does. If we stick with these two names, Ehrhoff has obvious health concerns, and Franson’s defensive game has always been in question. So, if anything, you should acquire a guy to help Seidenberg. At the same time, however, if the Bruins believe that Seidenberg’s game is trending south (and fast), it’d make sense to get out from under the final three years of that contract while you still can. Personally, I don’t believe that the B’s think that just yet, as they likely would have dealt him for whatever they could have nabbed at the deadline or draft if such was the case (read as: you wouldn’t let a guy continue to play and diminish his value if you thought he was on a heavy decline).
With nine bodies vying for seven spots on the NHL roster, if an Ehrhoff or Franson come into the picture with Boston, somebody’s on the outs. But making Seidenberg that guy would require a long look.
Luckily for the Bruins, there’s no shortage of time to sit and think ‘til September.
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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