By this time tomorrow, the roster for the Boston Bruins' bid for their second Stanley Cup in four years will be set. They won't be able to make any trades or add any free agents that can help them win a game in mid-April or early June. In essence, general manager Peter Chiarelli has less than 24 hours to decide whether or not this roster is it.
The obvious question: Is this roster deep enough and skilled enough to win 16 playoff games?
No matter your dedication to the club, it's tough to say yes. The defense, led by a tired looking Zdeno Chara, has been hit-or-miss since late December, with players such as Matt Bartkowski and Kevan Miller forced to play roles above their skill-set.
For the Bruins, there's obvious pressure.
Last summer, the B's bailed on Tyler Seguin just three years into his NHL career because they couldn't 'babysit' the then 21-year-old sniper while Chara (who will turn 37 later this month) enters the twilight of his NHL career. The Bruins’ return package for Seguin wasn’t anything to sneeze it, especially with the emergence of Reilly Smith and improving play of Loui Eriksson, but the move still required an awful lot of guts for the Boston front office.
Ditching a kid with 56 goals and 121 points in his first three seasons in a defense-first system sent an obvious message that the Bruins are serious about getting Big Z a second Cup before he retires. And to most, standing pat at the deadline with Dennis Seidenberg's money freed up on the long term injured reserve due to his torn ACL/MCL, goes against that thought process.
It just wouldn't be consistent.
In other words, the B’s need to bring somebody into the fold by 3 p.m. tomorrow.
But for the Bruins, many of the rumored targets are flying off the board.
Stephane Robidas went to Anaheim for a fourth round pick. Andrew MacDonald was moved to Philadelphia for a second and a third. Reports out of Ottawa seem to indicate that Chris Phillips and the Senators are getting closer to an extension, which would make sense with the Sens' early afternoon waiving of defensemen Joe Corvo.
Names like Henrik Tallinder, Christian Ehrhoff, and Philadelphia's Andrej Meszaros remain on Boston's board. Lesser known targets like the Panthers’ Tom Gilbert and Dmitry Kulikov are in town tonight. Their prices vary.
Among those not listed is a forward. Of any sort. That’s not stopping the rumor mill from churning though, as Sabre-turned-Islander Thomas Vanek has reportedly drawn interest from the B’s.
Huh?
In case you’re unaware, the 30-year-old Vanek is not a lefty nor a defensemen. Thus, he just does not fill a need for a Boston attack that’s scored the fifth most goals in the entire league. And that’s not even touching on his enormous price in both cap-hit and assets moved to NY. Aligning Vanek with the B’s seems like a ploy to drive up the price for a team like the Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston’s biggest competition in the East and a club that stole Jarome Iginla from ‘em last spring.
But if you wanna connect some dots, take a look at the rapidfire scouting bonanza between the B’s and Columbus Blue Jackets. With Boston’s head scout checking out the past three Columbus games, and with two scouts from the Jackets’ organization in attendance for tonight’s Panthers vs. Bruins contest in Boston, it seems as if a swap between the Black-and-Gold and Blue Jackets could be on the way.
On the ‘Lumbus point, names like Jack Johnson and Nikita Nikitin seem like plausible short term solutions for the Bruins. Both are lefty-shooting d-men that log over 17 minutes a night, a match for the Bruins’ second pairing. Johnson has recorded four goals and 25 points in 61 games this year, Nikitin has two goals and 15 points in 54 games, but only Nikitin is a free agent at season’s end. Johnson, a former Olympian, is signed through 2017-18 with a $4.35 million cap-hit.
Oh, and yes, there’s a hockey game tonight.
In the middle game of a three-game homestand that began with Saturday’s loss to the Washington Capitals, the Bruins will play host to the woeful Florida Panthers. Entering play with 23 wins and 53 points in 61 games this season, the ‘Cats are a team littered with changes over the past 24 hours, with Scott Gomez and Scott Clemmensen placed on waivers just hours before the Panthers acquired Roberto Luongo from the Vancouver Canucks, the same team they traded him to eight years ago. Oddly enough, Clemmensen will still back up the Panthers’ Tim Thomas (who’s still a Panther… for now) tonight despite being placed on waivers.
Thomas stopped 35-of-38 in his last outing, a 5-3 win over the Islanders, but comes into play with an .889 save percentage and two losses in as many career games against his former club.
Boston counters with Chad Johnson. The 27-year-old Johnson is 11-3-1 this year, posting a .917 save percentage and 2.30 goals against average, but was saddled with the loss in his last outing, a rough 21-of-26 showing in Buffalo last Wednesday. Johnson’s undefeated at TD Garden as a Bruin, posting a .938 save percentage on Garden ice. This will be his first career start against Florida.
On a lineup note, Loui Eriksson will take a seat tonight with a “minor issue…, putting Jordan Caron back into action for the first time since Jan. 27. Caron has one goal and a minus-6 in 25 games this year, and 12 goals and 26 points in 113 NHL games to date. Unlike most game-nights for Caron in 2013-14, Caron will skate on the third line with Chris Kelly and Carl Soderberg, not the club’s fourth line. Let’s spell it out now: S-h-o-w-c-a-s-e. And while head coach Claude Julien was vague in his explanation of Eriksson’s injury, I’d be legitimately shocked if the scratch is due to an upcoming Eriksson trade.
Eriksson has a no-trade clause, has played better as of late, and would undoubtedly have a greater impact had he not dealt with two concussions this season.
A source says that there’s no funny business here, and that Eriksson’s staying put.