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The Boston Bruins are up against it. The salary cap ceiling, that is. But you already knew that, and so did they. This was a calculated, ‘all-in’ risk by the 2013-14 Bruins. They knew that the bonus-laden, one-year contract signed by Jarome Iginla last summer -- with a $1.8 million base salary but worth a total of $6 million if No. 12 met all of the games played/performance bonuses -- could come back to bite them in the behind this summer. (And it’s done just that, by the way.)
Even with over two months to go before the puck drops on the highly anticipated 2014-15 season, the Black-and-Gold are a franchise that will desperately need to shed some salary.
They’ll have some viable options to move, too. Yesterday, we kicked things off by looking at some of the forwards the Bruins could and will consider moving in order to fit themselves under the cap, with the heavy contracts of Chris Kelly and agitator Brad Marchand leading the charge.
As we shift to the defensive side of the club’s big league roster, here’s what we know-- Somebody’s gotta go. Simply put, at least one of the organization’s defenders is on the move. General manager Peter Chiarelli believes that the club has nine NHL defensemen in their pipeline, and that somebody’s getting traded in order for the club to run at full, cap compliant strength in 2014-15.
Now, I present to you, the Expendables II, on defense. (Now with far fewer ‘80s action movie stars.)
Matt Bartkowski
Few Bruins have a case as interesting as Matt Bartkowski. Thrown to the wolves and left with the task of replacing Dennis Seidenberg midway through the year, many seemed to forget that last year was the 26-year-old defenseman’s first NHL season playing in more than 11 games. Fair or not (it wasn’t), they expected veteran-esque contributions out of a player that was anything but.
Still, the Pennsylvania-born Bartkowski finished the year with a notable 18 assists, averaged 1:44 of shorthanded time on ice per game, and 155 hits (third among B’s defenders) in 64 games played.
Again, not bad for a guy that entered the year with total of 20 NHL games to his name.
But there’s an understandable belief that Bartkowski really doesn’t have a role with the Bruins.
As it stands right now, including Bartkowski, the Bruins have four lefty-shooting defensemen on their roster. They are captain and top-pairing defenseman Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg, and the still-currently-unsigned Torey Krug. All three of these guys have a solidified role in the club’s long-term plans (though again, while Krug is still an unsigned entry level free agent there’s almost no doubt that he’ll be back with the club for the foreseeable future). And on the other side of the blue-line, the Bruins have four right shots under contract. When you’re this tight against the cap, you simply can’t carry eight defensemen on your everyday roster. That’s just silly.
And if the season started tomorrow, for example, there’s absolutely no way that Bartkowski would bump one of the other lefties out of the lineup. Chara is too important to the team, Seidenberg is too important to the penalty kill, and Krug has become the lifeblood of the club’s man advantage.
It’s just tough to find a role that suits Bartkowski the Bruin more than fill-in defenseman. And to be blunt, his new pay puts him out of the range as viable seventh defenseman candidate.
Inked to a one-year, $1.25 million contract a few weeks back, the once-almost-traded Bartkowski really seems like he’s ready to take that next step into a full-time role with a club, and I just don’t know if that can be done with the Black-and-Gold. He’s willing to adapt to playing either side, which is an obvious plus, but again, I think his availability on the trade market could come down to the fact that this an everyday talent that really can’t be an everyday talent with the Bruins in the now.
Adam McQuaid
I think that a lot of signs really seemed to point to Adam McQuaid receiving the Bruin-turned-Thrasher-turned-Jet Mark Stuart treatment last year.
First came the four-year contract extension handed to Dennis Seidenberg. Given the Bruins’ strength in the defensive pipeline, an extension for their second-oldest defenseman meant that somebody else was going to have to be moved in order to accommodate the youth. Then came Kevan Miller’s call-up and not-long-after contract extension that comes with an affordable $800,000 cap hit. Though a bit smaller than No. 54, Miller played with the same raw aggression (he recorded 103 hits and 85 blocked shots in just 47 games played), and proved to be a steady pairing partner for Krug on the club’s third pairing. This was all while McQuaid was on the shelf, too.
The latter isn’t the 6-foot-5 defenseman’s fault, of course, but my goodness has he had rotten luck.
Since the start of the 2011-12 season, McQuaid has missed 91 games (including 19 playoff games) due to injury, and it’s become increasingly tough to bank on a healthy McQuaid contributing to the club on a full-time basis. And I think you saw the B’s become rather irked by his struggles to get back on the ice last year (to a certain extent anyways), with Julien resorting to the simple ‘I have no idea’ when asked about McQuaid’s progress to getting back on the ice. He’s a question mark, unfortunately.
Naturally, this puts the B’s in a situation where you’d seemingly say ‘well let’s cut our losses and move on’, but I don’t think you do with somebody like McQuaid, either. Yes, he’s your third-pairing defenseman, but he’s also the closest thing you have to a legitimate heavyweight now that Shawn Thornton is out of the picture. (You really don’t want guys like Milan Lucic and Zdeno Chara spending five minutes in the box on a nightly basis.) Beyond that, McQuaid’s a proven asset that’s contributed as a physical presence on two runs to the Finals.
McQuaid is also ‘one tough hombre’ according to Pierre McGuire. You don’t just move tough hombres for nothin’, you know. In the final year of a contract that comes with a $1.56 million cap hit, there’s a good chance that this will be McQuaid’s final year in Boston regardless of his health, so maybe he’s the easiest player to move both in terms of his contract and other teams’ willingness to take him on given the low-risk, high-reward potential he’d arrive with in the right situation.
But when it comes to McQuaid and any trade, I think this is the biggest point that can’t be forgotten-- His value is pretty low at the current moment. You’re going to need a strong -- and above all else, healthy -- training camp from the 27-year-old before you can realistically move him.
Johnny Boychuk
Everybody loves Johnny Boychuk. Well, except for the guys that see him barreling down on them for a huge hit at the blue line, maybe. Now entering his sixth season as a full-time member of the Black-and-Gold, the 30-year-old Boychuk has emerged as a legitimate top-pairing option for the B’s.
And though he’s a fixture next to the 6-foot-9 Chara when the club operates at full-strength, the word is that Boychuk has priced himself out of staying with the club beyond the 2014-15 season, and that a trade to maximize his return could be the route the Black-and-Gold go. A harsh reality of a cap world.
In the final year of a contract that comes with a modest $3.36 million cap-hit, there’s an obvious pay-day coming Boychuk’s way in summer 2015 based on the free agent market’s premium on defensemen, and again, I don’t think that the Black-and-Gold can afford to be ones doling it out.
So, again, this has put him on the block as a potential cap-clearing trade chip.
And believe me, I think just about everybody in Boston hates this idea, too.
On the heels of a career-best five-goal, 23-point campaign in 2013-14, Boychuk is an undeniably appealing defensive option for several teams in need of blue line help, including the New York Islanders or even his hometown Edmonton Oilers. But similar to how they feel about Brad Marchand, the Bruins aren’t going to move him for cap space and cap space alone. That’s what makes Boychuk a different case than say a Bartkowski or even a McQuaid for that matter.
If Boychuk’s moved, the deal has to be sweet, and likely involve a winger to play on the second or third line coming back to the Hub. And even then, I have my doubts as to whether or not he’s moved.
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