To meet the fans’ expectations during this year’s trade frenzy, the Bruins essentially needed to find another Zdeno Chara or Dennis Seidenberg. To meet the franchises’ expectations, they would have to find someone as good as those two players, but not be a serious drain on Boston’s talent pool or affect their ability to roll with the punches in the next few seasons. In this trade cycle, neither team was totally happy with the results of the today’s trade deadline.
Corey Potter is neither Chara or Seidenberg. But he’s a product of the Michigan State Hockey program (Torey Krug‘s alma mater.), and is a reliable player. The Bruins were looking for a season ending rental with a moderate price tag. It wouldn’t be the first time that a filler player ended up playing a far more dynamic role for the Bruins than expected. (Let’s use the Bruins acquisition of Marc Recchi back in ’09 as one of those examples.) He will be able to be a filler on the bottom two defensive pairings for Boston. Potter had only played sixteen games for Edmonton, and had five assists to his name. His $800K salary is by no means a hindrance to the Bruins, and they got a fair deal for taking a deep in the waiver pool.
Andrej Meszaros was a last minute pick-up by the Bruins to further address their problem on the blue line. Meszaros got some ice time with Chara playing in Sochi, and there was chemistry there between the two Slovaks. He had seventeen points(five goals) this season with the Philadelphia Flyers. While I can’t argue that would certainly work as a top line pairing for Boston, it’s good to have a player that has played with Chara in international competition. He has only played thirty eight games this season, and he has sustained three separate injuries in the last two seasons. The Bruins did get him for a single third round pick, and that won’t cause unnecessary strain on the organization moving forward.
Is it a spectacular trade session for the Black and Gold? Certainly not. There are players who are going to wail and rally against these trades. Peter Chiarelli chose these players on the fact that they could fill their needs without busting their wallet. Overall, while it’s not a rock star trade and no big name ended up in the Bruins jersey, we acquired reliable people that should help us deep into the playoffs.