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Fitness testing at the TD Garden tomorrow afternoon marks the start of training camp for the Boston Bruins, but it doesn’t sound like restricted free agents Torey Krug and Reilly Smith, two major contributors from last year’s squad still without contracts, will be there.
Smith, a restricted free agent, is not close an extension, according to agent Anton Thun. The No. 2 right wing is coming off his three-year entry-level contract, worth $900,000 annually. The 23-year-old Smith will be the first holdout in Peter Chiarelli’s nine seasons as general manager.Smith and Torey Krug, who is also unsigned, are skating and working out together in Connecticut. It’s expected that Krug will also not be present for camp’s opening. Lewis Gross, Krug’s agent, was unavailable for comment.
Holdouts, if that's the word you want to use, aren’t exactly common in Boston.
The closest thing the Bruins have had to one prior to this involved Phil Kessel in 2009. The contractual dispute between Kessel and the Bruins reportedly came after No. 81 didn’t seem content with taking a ‘bridge deal’ (like the one David Krejci did that same summer) after scoring 36 goals on the club’s top line in 2008-09. But even then, Kessel could not have participated in training camp due to a shoulder injury, and was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sept. 19 for three draft picks.
But this is a strange case, really. The Bruins want to keep these guys. They would like to keep them as part of their core moving forward, and there are absolutely no ‘issues’ with Krug or Smith like Kessel.
They just don’t have the money to do so right now.
As it stands right now, the Bruins are more than $809,000 over the salary cap, and though that’s without Marc Savard’s $4 million cap-hit on the long-term injured reserve, that’ll be the case barring a trade until opening night. The Bruins can’t free up that $4 million until opening night, too. But both Krug and Smith, as we’ve discussed many times, are entry-level free agents, thus unable to sign offer sheets.
So, here we are-- Krug, Smith, and general manager Peter Chiarelli are stuck in this weird limbo.
And with camp less than 24 hours away, it’s here, and staring all parties right in the face.
Theoretically, the Bruins will have to make a trade in order to fit new contracts for Krug and Smith in. They have 11 forwards signed to the roster, but expensive pieces like Gregory Campbell ($1.6 million) and Chris Kelly ($3 million) could be moved in order for Smith to get the raise that he’d like after a 20-goal, 51-point year where he emerged as a solid fit on the Bruins’ second line. On the point, the Bruins have seven defensemen already signed, but Krug deserves a raise, and that could force a veteran like Adam McQuaid or Johnny Boychuk -- both in the last year of their contracts -- out.
It’s not going to be an easy decision for the Bruins, and that’s why it’s taken all summer (and then some). According to sources, both Krug and Smith are ‘nowhere near’ a deal, and that’s a problem on it’s own.
Smith would likely be in the category of a Tyler Johnson, who earned a three-year, $10 million pay-day from the Tampa Bay Lightning this summer, but the Bruins sound like they’d rather keep him in on a cheaper, one or two year deal similar to the one they signed Brad Marchand to in 2011. For Krug, who’s by all accounts third-pairing defenseman, the fact that he was such an asset to the B’s power play complicates what would seemingly, normally be a $1.75 to 2.25 million dollar payday.
At the absolute best case scenario at this point, the Bruins get Krug and Smith back in at slightly over $4 million.
That’s still too rich for the Bruins to ink without moving a piece or two out of town.
But the Bruins believe that they have 'replacements' ready to go in the event of a lengthy holdout.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,… head coach Claude Julien said at the club's charity golf tournament this week. “We’ll find out Thursday morning, but if they don’t [show up], then I’ve got to find some replacements, and we feel that we’ve got them at our camp. We’ll just move forward.
“There’s going to be some openings there, and we feel we’ve got some people at our camp that can certainly fill those openings,… he said. “So it’s up to every one of them that has that chance to stick with the team to take advantage of it and have a good camp and force us to keep them.…
The Bruins could hope that one of Simon Gagne or Ville Leino come in and replicate the success Smith had on the Patrice Bergeron line, and hope that fellow undersized puck-mover David Warsofsky fits in with the Boston man-advantage.
But even then, make no mistake about it, the Bruins need Krug and Smith on their roster if they're going to seriously compete for a Stanley Cup in 2014-15.
Putting a price on that -- in terms of dollars and sacrifices in other areas of the roster -- is now up to the front office staff that's desperately tried to find every possible loophole this summer.
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