Boston Bruins: Are The B’s Still In The Hunt
It’s been an interesting offseason for the Boston Bruins organization. They’ve made a lot of moves, from the general manager on down. While it’s clear that Bruins are a team in transition, people need to relax a bit. The Bruins are not in a rebuild.
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The Bruins still have a solid group of players. The Bruins still have strong forwards for their top six. Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, and Loui Eriksson will all be back next season. The B’s still have what the need offensively to make a name for themselves next season. Thankfully, the Eastern Conference is a little less competitive than the West.
Tuukka Rask had a slightly disappointing season last year. (It’s not often a player can claim a .922 save percentage as a ‘bad’ year.) It certainly didn’t help matters that the organization just didn’t have much faith in Niklas Svedberg. The Bruins attempted to debut Malcolm Subban, but his showing was a three goals on six shots game disaster against the St. Louis Blues. Whoever ends up getting the number two job in Boston, the B’s organization will need to have more faith in them than they had in Svedberg (who went off to the KHL).
If the Bruins ask Rask to shoulder another seventy game season, then they’re only asking for more disappointment.
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The big issue now is how the Bruins will reshape their blueline. While the Bruins have four defensemen coming back to the team (Adam McQuaid, Dennis Seidenberg, Torey Krug, and Zdeno Chara), all but one of them were recovering from injuries last season. The Bruins have seven defenseman prospects capable of moving into the final two slots, but it’s still a big question mark with training camp less than a month away.
The Boston Bruins have about $4.7 million remaining under the salary cap. At the moment, it appears that the B’s have stopped looking at the free agency market. Many of the analysts and a lot of the fans feel that the Black and Gold could definitely use another defenseman. The open market still has several high quality choices available to them(Cody Franson or Christian Ehrhoff). As we get closer to training camp and the regular season, it’s likely those free agency players will be willing to drop their asking prices.
The Bruins may also be holding on to that cash to find the right deal during the season. The Bruins have had great years making trades at the break (2011), and some not so great (2014). If a veteran player is looking to leave a tanking team, the B’s might be able to swoop in and get that ‘X factor’ the Bruins might need.
All in all, the Boston Bruins don’t look as bad as everyone thought they would just two months ago. At the moment, (barring another disaster filled season) the Boston Bruins have what it takes to make the playoffs. After that though, it’s looking like a rough and quick postseason.