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Almost every single time the Boston Bruins have been involved in a trade rumor of sorts, the go-to player thrown in a trade has been bottom-six forward
Chris Kelly. The 34-year-old Kelly, a fixture on Boston’s third line since coming to the Hub in a trade with the Ottawa Senators back in Feb. 2011, is entering the final year of a four-year contract that comes with a $3 million cap-hit.
To most, he’s overpaid. But to the Bruins, he’s a jack-of-all-trades Swiss (er, Canadian) army knife that head coach
Claude Julien can rely on in every which way. Kelly can win faceoffs, he can play both center and wing, he kills penalties, and he dons an ‘A’ as one of the locker room’s leaders. And in a year in which the Bruins struggled to be much of anything, No. 23 was always in his stall, holding himself and his teammates accountable for what misfortunate somehow found them on that night.
He also put up a respectable season on the statsheet, too, tallying seven goals and 28 points in 80 games for the Black and Gold last year. Those 28 points were the second-highest single-season total for Kelly in his four full seasons with the Bruins (his 20-goal, 39-point 2011-12 season, the year that earned him this contract in the first place, remains his best single-season with the B’s).
Still, people want to see the Bruins try to get out from Kelly’s contract, even though this is the last year.
This is … well… confusing.
Is Kelly overpaid? Maybe. But if he is, it’s by $500,000, if that. If Kelly hit the free agent market -- in a real way, of course -- back in 2012 he could have made more than $3 million (especially when you consider the insanity known as free agent contracts during that two, three-year stretch). And
that would have been an overpayment, I would agree. But I think that for what he is, this current contract is/was market value. If there was an overpayment to Kelly from the Bruins, it would have been in terms of years that then-GM
Peter Chiarelli doled out to veteran grinder.
But entering the final year of that contract, and with the Bruins in a much better financial standing than they were a year ago (or two years ago), Kelly’s name should be safe in the Hub.
In an offseason that’s already seen
Gregory Campbell and
Danny Paille depart from the organization, the Bruins’ penalty-killing forward corps is a bit rough looking. The Bruins still have their one-two punch in Bergeron-Marchand (which I honestly view as perhaps the best shorthanded forward combo in the league), and
Loui Eriksson remains as a solid second-unit winger. But beyond that, it’s Kelly, perhaps David Krejci, maybe Max Talbot, and maybe -- just maybe -- Zac Rinaldo.
Take Kelly out of that equation and you’re putting Krejci, your $7.25 million center, in hard minutes. (And no, projected third-line center Ryan Spooner will not kill penalties for the Bruins next season, and would-have-been in-house option Matt Lindblad left for the New York Rangers organization in July.)
It’s not necessarily something that I think the Bruins, though they’ve plugged Krejci into the PK mix before, are high on given the injury woes that Krejci has gone through and what his absence often means for the club. Krejci himself doesn’t hate logging shorthanded minutes, but the wear-and-tear it’d put on him could limit his effectiveness in areas the Bruins need him to thrive in, and put more taxing minutes on Bergeron as well given Julien’s desire to put him out there for the tougher assignments.
What’s often lost in this discussion, too, at least from those that want Kelly gone, is that Kelly has always been one of Julien’s mix-it-up options. When the team is struggling, Julien almost always throws one of Kelly or Paille into that line’s rotation and sees if something clicks, even for just a quick minute. With Paille gone, Kelly is his option there. Taking two of those options away from a coach like Julien, who I’ll admit has always been a bit stubborn when favoring his veterans over younger talents, is putting the coach in a tough spot on a roster that’s already loaded with new faces heading into the year.
You’re not moving Kelly unless you have a solidified in-house option to roll out in any scenario.
And maybe there it is a player on the market that you could view as an upgrade -- or more likely, a lateral move in talent but more cost-effective in price -- to Kelly.
Marcel Goc, for example? He’s a fourth-line center fit, is a left-shot (like Kelly) and logs a significant enough amount of penalty-kill time to view him as a potential replacement. But if you’re trying to move Kelly to sign Goc, for example, why wouldn’t the team you’re trading him to just sign Goc for cheaper instead? See what I mean?
Goc is just one name, I’m aware, but there’s not a single trade to be made involving Chris Kelly until there’s a legitimate replacement in the wings for the Black and Gold. And right now, they simply don’t have it. Nor do they necessarily have the need to move a player of Kelly’s caliber just yet.
That’s honestly not the worst thing, either.
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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