Boston Bruins Rumors: Trading Malcolm Subban.
The Boston Bruins are working hard to secure North Dakota junior Zane McIntyre for their organization. While he will be a free agent, the young goaltender has expressed a desire to be signed with the Bruins organization. If the Bruins are able to lock up the impressive young goalie, they’ll have the strongest goaltending depth since they won the Stanley Cup in 2011.
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With McIntyre, the Bruins will have four professional level goalies ready to go. But there is already talk amongst the Boston media that the Bruins might be looking to move one of their goaltenders. There have been discussions that the Bruins might package Subban as part of a deal to get another first round draft pick for the Entry Draft in June.
Frankly, it’s a stupid idea to move him. The Bruins are finally going to have solid goaltending capable of winning a Stanley and a Calder Cup in the same season. With Jeremy Smith being the early front-runner to take over the number two job in Boston (since Niklas Svedberg has decided to spend (at least) a year in the KHL), Malcolm Subban will likely be the starter for the Providence Bruins next season.
The Bruins can’t afford to move him. As long as the McIntyre plan works out for the Black and Gold, they won’t have to look outside the organization for a goaltender. Free agent frenzy is about to begin, and once again NHL teams will overpay for replaceable talent. A backup goaltender would fetch around a million dollars and the B’s just can’t afford that right now. With the two-way contracts the other three players will have (assuming it all works out with McIntyre), they’ll have a cheap and easy way to have all the goaltending they need.
Tuukka Rask is signed until 2021. Barring a Raycroftian trade to another team, Rask will remain the number one goaltender in Boston until his contract is up. The Bruins will need a reliable goaltender that will play fifteen to twenty games. Most importantly, they’ll need a goaltender that they have confidence in (something Niklas Svedberg did not have, despite having numbers that were comparable to Rask).
That may not be Subban this year. But he certainly could be ready for the 2016-17 season. Giving away that much potential would be as big a mistake of trading Tyler Seguin or Johnny Boychuk.