The Boston Bruins have had trouble counting while Peter Chiarelli was in charge, so now they need some cap space – which means that Milan Lucic is in trade rumors.
Lucic has a 5v5 points per 60 minutes north of 2 in four of his last five seasons and is, generally, a good possession player. Does that sound like someone that might have a pretty good experience riding shotgun with Joe Thornton? Or giving Logan Couture a full time winger that isn’t 50 years old?
With the Bruins cap situation they are primed to be fleeced for Lucic – that’s just how it works. They need the clear money, so they won’t be taking much in a player(s) salary back.
What about Tommy Wingels and Noah Rod? Would that satisfy the Bruins? More? Less? I’m not the Bruins so I don’t know what they want, but I do know that they’re standing at the cash register and the debit card isn’t working. Bruins fans, you know your team better, I’m open to more realistic trade options here.
Wingels is $3.5M less on the cap than Lucic. Sure, he’s not going to replace what Lucic brings for the Bruins, but he does give the Bruins a winger that can play and a nice chunk of cap space. Rod is a project prospect but, hey, it’s something. Maybe they just want young players on two-way deals and a draft pick. I’m sure Wilson could accommodate that without doing much damage to the teams future.
If Lucic was riding with Joe Thornton his 55+ point days would return and he’d be a likely candidate for 25 goals again as well. It’s worth a phone call and it would bring in a top six player under 30, which is never a bad thing. Him being a UFA after next season doesn’t really matter to me, that’s what contract negotiations are for.
Fleece the Bruins. Dallas did, why can’t San Jose?
Of course, there’s that whole internal cap thing – but we’ll pretend the Sharks want to actually get better for today.
More Coaching Notes:
Dave Pollak has a few tweets to satisfy anyone interested in the coaching search for the Sharks.
#SJSharks have not contacted Ducks for permission to talk w/asst coach Trent Yawney, per @helenenothelen covering ANA-CHI series.
— David Pollak (@PollakOnSharks) May 22, 2015Doesn't mean it won't happen, of course. CHI assistant coach Kevin Dineen may also attract #SJSharks interest (or not) down the road.
— David Pollak (@PollakOnSharks) May 22, 2015That’s Dineen, Yawney, Lowry, Carlyle, Bylsma, DeBoer, Babcock, Granato, Oates….did I miss anyone? The list of people Doug Wilson has talked to, is rumored to talk to, or potentially intends to talk to, is a long one and I probably did miss someone, or a few someones.
In any event, with Babcock now settled in Toronto that should mean Jeff Blashill is heading to Detroit and Ken Hitchcock is staying in St. Louis. Still no word on Claude Julien in Boston but let’s pretend he’s staying there as well.
There’s no need to have a coach in place by the draft but if the right guy for the job is found then by all means grab him. Just don’t hire someone because you have some foolish, irrelevant, deadline. There are a lot of potentially good coaches out there and they won’t all be scooped up by the NHL Draft – just stop interviewing Randy Carlyle.
Thanks for reading.