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When it comes to the new contracts for now-former restricted free agents Torey Krug and Reilly Smith, the Boston Bruins should consider themselves lucky, really. You could even argue, smart, I suppose, given the fact that these players had no rights to talk with other teams or receive offer-sheets. No matter the phrasing, the Bruins got the duo in for a combined $2.8 million against their cap in 2014-15, and that’s something worth celebrating if you were among the contingent of B’s fans expecting -- or perhaps ‘prepping’ is a better word in this case -- a cap-crunching doomsday along Causeway Street.
Instead of having to sell off a Johnny Boychuk or Chris Kelly for mere picks and cap space, the Black and Gold find themselves back in a position of strength, where a minor trade off their NHL roster could give them enough breathing room to ice a full roster (a full roster!) before they place Marc Savard’s $4 million cap-hit on the long-term injured reserve on opening night.
Everybody in the league knows where that subtraction is coming from, too. General manager Peter Chiarelli tipped his hand in July in that regard. Ask him and he’ll tell you that the Bruins have nine NHL-ready defensemen. That’s about one or two too many, by most teams’ standards.
But the Bruins no longer have to entertain the thought of moving somebody like Boychuk, who’s set to skate in the final year of a contract that comes with an affordable $3.3 million cap-hit, which is an obvious plus given his value to the B’s defense and uncertainty that seems to surrounds this blue-line’s health every year.
The more likely trade options come behind Boychuk on the depth chart, such as Matt Bartkowski, Adam McQuaid, or perhaps the club’s other undersized puck-mover, David Warsofsky. And financially speaking (and like we’ve talked about all summer and even through training camp), moving one of Bartkowski or McQuaid seems to make the most sense for the club in need of just a bit of wiggle room.
When it comes to Bartkowski, there’s a lot of legitimate questions yet to be answered.
Is he a top-four defenseman? The Bruins tried to answer that question last winter when they threw the Pittsburgh, Penn. native into the fire when Dennis Seidenberg went down with a torn ACL. The results were mixed. Bartkowski was sometimes great, sometimes a trainwreck. There wasn’t a happy medium, but I’m not sure what else you’d expect from a 26-year-old defenseman that entered the season with a combined 20 games of NHL experience. The hiccups were to be expected, but overall, his performance wasn’t nightmarish. He was an adequate fill-in asked to fill in for a minute-eating, shot-blocking core piece.
So, back to the initial question, is Bartkowski a top-four for the Black and Gold? Not yet. But can he be with more seasoning? You’d think that there’s that potential, no doubt. I maintain the belief that Bartkowski’s a defenseman that does everything a bit above average. He’s not a horrific skater, he has an accurate shot (don’t let that zero goal mark last season fool you), and he’s no stranger to the d-zone side of things.
He’s also coming pretty cheap for your club in 2014-15, with a $1.25 million cap-hit. For a player that can conceivably plug in multiple holes on your blue-line in the event of an injury, there’s value there.
But keep in mind that the Bruins have traded Bartkowski before (well almost), when the club signed him to an extension with the intention to trade him to Calgary for Jarome Iginla back in 2013, so maybe that gives you a brief idea as to what his value and future with the club is to those behind the scenes.
His versatility has been nice, but it’s also quite confusing, and everybody knows it.
“Who really knows?… Bartkowski said when asked about his role on the B’s depth chart. “But that’s something that we can only control with our play, so I don’t really intend to worry about it.
“We just kind of roll it in preseason, so that’s what you kind of expect.…
Then there’s McQuaid.
When healthy, McQuaid is an animal. He hits everything that moves, has proven time and time again that he’s capable of protecting or standing up for his teammates, and has been to two Stanley Cup Finals. The Bruins undoubtedly missed his presence last season, and even though they saw similar contributions from Kevan Miller (whom they even gave an extension to during the season), there’s obviously a reluctance on the B’s part to just give that away to pinch a few pennies here and there.
“From the defensemen perspective, I liked what I’ve seen in Adam [McQuaid] coming back, he’s played well. I bring up him because he’s been out of the mix and now he’s back in the mix just because he had been injured,… Chiarelli admitted earlier this week. “I know guys want to stay here, so I liked what I’ve seen competition-wise. The one thing that I’ve liked too at our camp for the most part has been the execution. I don’t know if one follows the other, but I think the execution generally has been pretty good.…
But in the final year of a deal that comes with a $1.56 million cap-hit, there’s a belief that the Bruins could move on from McQuaid and get away with it given Miller’s play and McQuaid’s inability to stay healthy. Again, though, when healthy, McQuaid is a player you want to go to war with. And the Bruins know that. Like most talents on the Boston blue line, this isn’t a guy you want to move for nothing.
And though somebody’s gotta go, it doesn’t seem like the Bruins will tip their hand one way or another before getting a few more looks at everybody this weekend as the club closes out their preseason.
“When that time comes, we’ll have to deal with it,… B’s coach Claude Julien said after Tuesday’s preseason contest. “But right now, I have all those guys at my disposal and I have to think as a coach who’s got those guys with him. But nothing’s been done that says you may not have this guy or that guy yet. I’m playing with the guys that I have right now. I’m using them as if I’m going to have them.…
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