The Boston Bruins currently have nine defensemen you could project as NHL ready.
Take the obvious guys like Zdeno Chara, Torey Krug, Matt Irwin, Adam McQuaid, Kevan Miller, and Dennis Seidenberg out of that conversation and there's three guys vying for one, maybe two at the very most, spots on their NHL roster. So maybe it shouldn't shock you that the Bruins stayed out of the Johnny Oduya sweepstakes (Oduya inked a two-year deal with the Dallas Stars for almost $8 million in total earlier today). And with everything silent on the front for other veteran defenders -- most notably Christian Ehrhoff and Cody Franson -- maybe it's time we're honest with ourselves and understand that this is the finished product for the 2015-16 Bruins.
At least for now.
That would leave the Black and Gold with a blue line battle between Colin Miller, Joe Morrow, and Zach Trotman. And while those names are not ready to put bodies in the increasingly expensive seats at TD Garden, it would show the organization's commitment to developing this defensive pipeline into something of value at the highest level of competition. General manager Don Sweeney didn't seem like a man that wanted to run away from the facts of the B's situation when pressed on it earlier. He wants the Bruins to get back to developing legitimate NHL talent on their blue line. That would make it easy to pass on an Ehrhoff, Franson, or Oduya, and that looks like exactly what they're doing.
But this is similar to a gamble the Bruins unsuccessfully took last year following the Johnny Boychuk trade. They figured that they had the defensive prospects to make it work on the fly, basically. That patchwork effort fell short, however, as guys like Matt Bartkowski failed to take the steps the organization originally projected while Morrow and undersized puckmover David Warsofsky (now a Penguin) were hard-pressed to find legitimate minutes with the big club.
Yet, if Year Two of this gamble fails, the Bruins will have options. Such was not the case last year, as a barren cupboard of prospects and lack of cap space made doing anything borderline impossible for the Bruins at the deadline. If their financial situation holds, the Bruins would have about $5 million to add a blue-liner at the deadline, and with more than a few enticing names potentially out there if certain teams falter and stumble out of the gate, that makes all the sense in the world for Sweeney's squad. If a guy like Florida's Brian Campbell or the Jets' Dustin Byfuglien become available, the B's would be one of the first ones in there inquiring on prices.
And maybe that's what their summer inactivity, at least in this regard, is coming down to.
That or the hopes that somebody is without a job come September and willing to play for pennies.