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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, 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 defenseman
Matt Bartkowski.
The Basics
Player: Matt Bartkowski
Age: 26
2014-15 Stats: Zero goals, four points, minus-6 rating in 47 games played.
Contract: $1.25 million cap-hit through 2014-15 season.
How he got here: Acquired via trade with Florida Panthers in Mar. 2010.
Overview
Yes, he’s a professional hockey player. And sure, maybe he should always be ready for the opportunity, but there’s no way you could look at what the Boston Bruins asked of
Matt Bartkowski following
Dennis Seidenberg’s season-ending injury in Dec. 2013 and tell me it was fair.
The Black and Gold wanted Bartkowski, who entered that season with 20 games of NHL experience (27 if you want to count Bartkowski’s seven-game playoff run with the B’s in 2013), to fill in the void of a bonafide top-four defenseman for 40 games and what they hoped would be a deep playoff run. Insane.
And when the B’s traded
Johnny Boychuk a week before the season started, it was clear that they viewed the 26-year-old Bartkowski, on a one-year ‘show me’ contract, as a potential answer.
But by the end of November, Bartkowski had played in just 11 of Boston’s 23 games.
A litany of injuries to the blue line ultimately forced Bartkowski into a near full-time role with the Bruins, but the bumps and struggles as a player in just his second
full season of NHL player were still painfully apparent, and ultimately cost Bartkowski ice-time for a ‘win now’ Boston club. It wasn’t as bad for No. 43, though, as he had several games where a simplified approach to the d-zone and puck up ice seemed to benefit his overall game. ‘Sound’ was the word I’d use, and that’s an obvious plus.
“I mean, inconsistent kind of like the team,” Bartkowski said when asked to evaluate his play this past season. “Could have played better here and there. I’m sure we all feel the same way.”
The Good
Bartkowski’s best game of the season came in a homecoming of sorts with the former Ohio State Buckeyes captain returning to Ohio in a Nov. 21 win against the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. In 20:38 of time on ice, the 26-year-old recorded two primary assists (his highest single-game assist/point totals in his career), and chimed in with a plus-2 rating and five hits.
It was a teaser of what Bartkowski could have been for the B’s, too. It came in stretches, but there were moments when No. 43 looked like a confident mid-tier puck-moving defenseman that seemed to sometimes surprise teams with his speed up and out of the defensive zone.
All four of his assists were primary helpers as well, so the passing game had its moments as well.
At a time where the B’s were decimated with injuries and inconsistencies, Bartkowski was not nearly the ‘liability’ you feared the year before in the postseason.
The Bad
For Bartkowski, the search for career goal No. 1 continues.
Although Bartkowski scored in Boston’s Game 7 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the 6-foot-1 d-man is
still skating without a regular-season goal to his career. And with 131 games in the books, Bartkowski is within striking distance of an NHL record. Steve Halko, a defenseman for the Carolina Hurricanes from the late-90s on into the early 2000s, went 155 games without scoring an NHL goal. That’s a league record, and something Bartkowski is within 25 games of breaking. Yikes. (Seriously, it’s gotta happen someday, right?)
I highlighted Bartkowski’s speed and puck-dishing skills in the good, but it also hurt the blue-liner at times, too. Talking to some scouts that got a closer look at Bartkowski between the 2013-14 season and this past season, they felt that teams felt as if they could relax a bit more when Bartkowski had the puck on his stick because they simply knew he was going to lose it or make a ‘boneheaded’ play with it to create a chance going back the other way. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I suppose.
The Future
Bartkowski is an unrestricted free agent, and his return to the Hub is very much in doubt. Actually, I’m not sure if ‘doubt’ is the right word, either. I’m sure that the Bruins would like to have Bartkowski back as a depth defenseman, but if you’re Bartkowski, why would you do that? It seems like the Pittsburgh, Penn. native could use a change of scenery with a team that could ‘live’ with the highs and lows of a developing middle-of-the-pack (I think at his best he could be a second-pairing puckmover) NHL d-man.
“I honestly really haven’t thought about it,” said Bartkowski when asked about his free agent status. “I’ll think about it this summer I guess once things get deeper into the summer.”
Bartkowski has spent his entire pro career with the Bruins organization, recording 24 points and 77 minutes in penalties in 131 games with Boston.
Bruins sign Anton Blidh to entry-level contract
General manager
Don Sweeney has made his second move in a little over a week, inking 2013 draft pick
Anton Blidh to an entry-level contract. Blidh, a sixth-round choice in 2012 (180th overall), spent this past season with Frolunda HC (Sweden), recording five goals in 48 games.
The 6'0'', 181-pound winger from Molnycke, Sweden represented Team Sweden in the 2015 World Junior Under-20 Championship, where he registered one goal and two assists in seven games.
Previous Bruins Year in Reviews
Gregory Campbell
Brett Connolly
Milan Lucic
Reilly Smith
Danny Paille
Loui Eriksson
Chris Kelly
Dougie Hamilton
Carl Soderberg
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 • 
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