Be sure to 'like' Hockeybuzz on Facebook!
The 2014-15 season was a year of hits and misses for the Black and Gold.
In spite of a 96-point season, the Bruins saw their seven-year postseason streak come to an end, realized that their core may be aging faster than they originally anticipated, and ultimately saw their general manager take the fall for the club’s shortcomings. In the month of May (and June), we’ll take a look at the season of every player on the B’s and their future with the club heading on into 2015-16.
The series rolls on with stay-at-home defenseman
Dennis Seidenberg.
The Basics
Player: Dennis Seidenberg
Age: 33
2014-15 Stats: Three goals, 14 points, minus-1 rating in 82 games played.
Contract: $4 million cap-hit through 2017-18.
How he got here: Acquired via trade with Florida Panthers in Mar. 2010.
Overview
Looking back on it, I swear that you could almost feel the wind of Stanley Cup hopes taken out of the Boston Bruins as
Dennis Seidenberg fell to a heap behind the Boston net following an awkward collision with an Ottawa player in a late Dec. 2013 contest. The diagnosis backed his rough exit up, too, with Seidenberg missing the rest of the season with a torn ACL. The Bruins never found a replacement -- acquiring Corey Potter and Andrej Meszaros in separate deadline day transactions -- and never found the perfect second-pairing to take them beyond the second-round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs. If the Bruins made it to the third-round, Seidenberg felt that he could have returned. (Because of course.)
But in year one of a four-year extension worth $16 million, No. 44 proved himself to be a healthy player, and returned to his normal role as the d-zone patrolling second-pairing minute-eater.
Averaging 22:06 a night (second to only
Zdeno Chara among B’s players), Seidenberg recorded three goals and 14 points, and finished the year as Boston’s most
physical defenseman, tallying 212 hits and 146 blocked shots (both tops among Boston defenders). It was the first time that the German blue liner had recorded over 200 hits in his NHL career, and the most blocked shots he’s recorded since the 2011-12 season. Those numbers, while figures that will earn you praise from your coaches and teammates, are not always the best indicator of success.
In essence, it means you’re chasing the puck a bit more than you’d like to.
Such was true for Seidenberg, too, as he finished the year with the six-worst Corsi-Rel60 in the NHL among defenders with at least 60 regular-season games played this year (-9.3). Only Andrew Ference, Nate Guenin, Connor Murphy, Deryk Engelland, and Trevor Daley had worst figures in this department.
“With Seids [Dennis Seidenberg] I felt, and I told Seids this, I felt that the first part of the year was typical of a player coming off of an ACL and generally it takes, for me it takes almost a full year before he gets his skating back,” then-GM
Peter Chiarelli said of Seidenberg’s season. “And I think in the last third of the season I think you saw Seids’ skating come back. So, while his versatility helped us, it’s still like we knew we’d be up against it a little bit because of his recovery time.”
The Good
Seidenberg was back to his durable self in 2014-15, suiting up for all 82 games.
“To be able to play all 82 games, that’s one of the bright spots,” Seidenberg said at his year-end media availability. “Like we always say after a loss, you’ve got to look for the bright spots and go run with it.”
The 33-year-old was just one of two Bruins to play in all 82 games (Carl Soderberg was the other), and was the only d-man on a simply battered Boston point to watch every game from ice-level this year.
“I mean you need luck for that too,” Seidenberg admitted of the first 82-game season of his career. “So many times you get a puck on a finger or a wrist or a foot and you just can’t put a skate on. So, I wasn’t surprised about it because I felt like my knee was ready, but you’ve obviously got to be lucky to be play 82 and that’s the one thing that worked out this year.”
The 6-foot-1 defender also found (surprising) ways to get his shot off, too. While Seidenberg has never exactly been known as the strongest of puckmovers or shooters in the attacking zone, he finished this season with eight games of four shots on goal or more, or 10% of his season. (He took more chances.)
Seidenberg’s year included a milestone of sorts, too, with No. 44 recording the 200th point of his NHL career in a Boston win against the Buffalo Sabres back on Oct. 30.
The Bad
Like Chiarelli alluded to, it took Seidenberg a long while to get going. And for a team that was dealing with a major injury to Chara and without
Johnny Boychuk (traded to New York), it seemed as if
Claude Julien battled frustration with Seidenberg’s ‘recovery’ time to regular game speed.
But like we touched on in the overview, the analytics did not favor Seidenberg one bit this year. His iCorsi/60 and iFenwick/60 at 5-on-5 play were both the lowest among Boston blue liners with at least 500 minutes played. The same can be said for his Corsi-For% (48.3) at even strength.
The Future
Seidenberg, with a no-trade clause (which he has said he’ll waive), is set to begin the second year of his four-year extension inked back in Oct. 2013. But his future in Boston is very much up in the air.
This wasn’t an awful season for Seidenberg per se, but one that brought the reality of what he is to the table: A player with a style that will lead to a steady decline in performance (if not games played with nagging injuries and what not) and a rise in positional penalties by way of trying to do too much.
For Seidenberg to be successful in the Hub, he needs a pairing-partner with an elite set of wheels and strong passing game. In-house talents
Torey Krug,
Zach Trotman, or perhaps
Joe Morrow could be an affordable answer there, but if the Bruins were to set their sights higher (Alex Edler, [maybe-but-not-really] Keith Seabrook, and Christian Ehrhoff come to mind), Seidenberg could actually become a trade piece to make that happen. It’s a weird dynamic.
You want to find an answer on that middle pairing, but moving Seidenberg
may be that answer.
“I mean, there’s a lot of questions right, but as a player all you can do it sit tight and see what happens,” Seidenberg said. “Everyone in this locker room likes each other and we like to play with each other, but if you lose early like we did this year, things are going to change. It’s a just a matter of how many guys or what’s going to happen. So, everybody is wondering about it, too.”
Seidenberg has been with the Bruins since 2010, suiting up for 390 games between the regular season (340) and postseason (50), recording 24 goals (22 regular season, two playoff) and 120 points.
Previous Bruins Year in Reviews
Gregory Campbell
Brett Connolly
Milan Lucic
Reilly Smith
Danny Paille
Loui Eriksson
Chris Kelly
Dougie Hamilton
Carl Soderberg
Matt Bartkowski
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
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
Join the Discussion:
»