Boston Bruins: The Upside To Jonas Gustavsson’s PTO Contract
The Boston Bruins decided to throw a few extra things in the mix when they offered Jonas Gustavsson a professional tryout contract. While the Black and Gold are well taken care of with the Bruins’ own seven-million dollar man in net, they don’t want him to do another seventy games this season. While Gustavsson’s numbers are not really that impressive (60-55-21(six shutouts), .901 save percentage, 2.89 goals-against average), he has a few things going for him.
His last season save percentage in 5-on-5 situations was .939. That’s better than anything any of the other candidates can put up over last season.
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He has NHL experience. That’s something Zane McIntyre and Jeremy Smith don’t have at all. Malcolm Subban only played one game at the NHL level, and it was a rough three goals on six shots performance against the St. Louis Blues. Gustavsson will be going into his seventh NHL season, spending time as both the primary and backup goaltenders for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings. He can soak up an acceptable number of games, especially against the weaker clubs in the league.
It will motivate the rest of the potential goaltenders. None of the perspective number two goaltenders have shown up yet for the informal captain’s practices. It stands to reason that any of the current candidates would want to spend a little extra time with their perspective teammates. (It certainly wouldn’t hurt them to get tips and tricks from Tuukka Rask either.) While it’s certainly not a formal snub, one figures any of them would want to make a good impression by getting to Boston ASAP.
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Signing Gustavsson gives the Bruins a chance to do something they’ve been thinking about on-and-off for the last few seasons; using Malcolm Subban as trade bait. Subban has the pedigree, he is constantly improving, and the Bruins might have all they need right now for goaltending, especially if they extend a contract to Gustavsson to back up Rask.
Overall, this is a win-win for the B’s. It has the potential to be a very-low risk/ very-high reward for the Black and Gold. The Boston Bruins risk nothing giving him a shot. If it works out, it will just make the Providence squad that much better next season. If it doesn’t, then the Bruins are no worse off than when they offered the 30-year old Swede a PTO. With training camp coming on fast, we’ll see if Gustavsson can overtake the other players to win the number two job in Boston.