Boston Bruins: Strength At Center Might Not Be Enough

Apr 10, 2014; Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN; Boston Bruins forward

(46) warms up prior to the game against the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Centre. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Fedyck-USA TODAY Sports

When the Boston Bruins announced they were extending David Krejci’s time here for another six years, I thought moving forward the Bruins were going to have one of the more powerful center combinations in the entire NHL. However, as time passed and I gave it more thought, I was struck by something that wasn’t really being said by experts and fans in reaction to the trade.

If we’re focusing on the negative side or backlash from the signing, a lot of the initial angst was over the length and value of the contract. Six years would put him at the age of 34 and there’s been a tendency for players approaching 30 to not live up to the value of their contract towards the end of these kinds of deals.

There’s also the fact that the Bruins are in cap jail right now and although this contract does not impact the upcoming season, it raises questions moving forward. According to capgeek.com, the Bruins will enter the 2015-2016 season with only 11 players signed under contract and $14 million dollars of cap space to work with to fill out the rest of the roster.Granted the core of the team will be intact but the players needed to put around the core could be hard to come by and thus lies the biggest issue or concern I have moving forward.

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David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, and Carl Soderberg are going to form a formidable group at center and ensure the Bruins are strong down the middle for the foreseeable future. However, how valuable can these centers truly be when the wings around them are not even close to either matching their talent or on a completely different page in terms of their approach or style to playing the game.

Centers like Bergeron and Krejci truly facilitate the offense, however without talented players around them, their skill set is negated and it becomes even harder for these players to truly live up the value and length of their contracts. We all witnessed the disappearing acts of Brad Marchand and Milan Lucic in the playoffs this past season and truth be told this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

It’s also important to keeping to mind that the Bruins didn’t do anything to address some of their issues at wing this offseason. We have to assume that Loui Eriksson is going to go back to being a borderline 30 goal scorer like he was in Dallas. Also, there are fair questions about which Reilly Smith(if he’s signed) will show up to camp this year.

I don’t want to take away from how talented our centers are and how important they  are to this team. The biggest question I have is how great will having all these centers be without talented players for them to feed the puck to and subsequently put in the net. Only time will tell.