Coach Claude Julien Talks About A Slumping Carl Soderberg.
Carl Soderberg started out as a Swedish dervish for the Boston Bruins. For a while the lineup of Soderberg, Chris Kelly, and Loui Eriksson was one of the lines that was consistently firing for the Black and Gold. Now, Soderberg’s production has fallen way off, and he hasn’t scored a goal for Boston since January 17th (against the Columbus Blue Jackets).
Coach Claude Julien had a conversation with members of the media before tonight’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning (which the B’s won in a 3-2 shootout), and the question of Soderberg’s lack of production came up. Julien defended his Swedish center.
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“His line is still producing,” said the Bruins bench boss of Soderberg’s slump. “Loui’s [Eriksson] been scoring some goals for that line and at the end of the day you’d like to see him maybe be better and I think right now he’s putting a lot of pressure on himself to produce because he can and we know he can as well. Again pardon my talk, yesterday was like you got to just play the game here and make sure you play it right. You’re line is still producing so it’s not like you guys are dry and you’re not bringing much.”
“Eventually by just playing our game you hope that his production will come too. We’ve seen other players go through those slumps but where Carl [Soderberg] is one of those players that takes a lot of pride in bringing something useful to his team and he’s not really, I guess, disappointed for himself more than he’s disappointed for what he lacks in bringing to the team. He’s a team player and he wants to help out. That’s the part that I really like about Carl.”
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The Bruins have placed themselves in a very rough scenario when it comes to Soderberg. The Bruins are running out of money and running out of time. The organization has to quickly figure out if he’s going to have a future with this organization. The Bruins only have around ten million dollars left to play with before hitting the NHL’s cap ceiling of seventy-three million dollars. The Bruins already have committed to eleven forwards in the organization.
So, will the Boston Bruins find the money to retain Soderberg next season? Will the B’s ask Soderberg to take a low-pay, cap-friendly contract next season (like Torey Krug and Reilly Smith took last season) in the hopes of making a multi-year contract happen after the 2016 season? At the moment, it’s likely the Bruins will let Soderberg test the waters of free agency where the B’s will likely lose his services.
A slumping Soderberg will make the choice easy for Boston. If the big Swede finds his hot hands again, it will certainly muddy the waters come July 1st.
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