Bruce Fedyck-USA TODAY Sports
Most of the Boston Bruins took to the ice on Tuesday for another captains practice. In addition to current roster players, former Bruins Shawn Thornton and Daniel Paille were on the ice, as well as Lee Stempniak.
Stempniak, an alumnus of Darmouth College in New Hampshire, has made more than one appearance at the Bruins captain’s practices. While it appears that he and Daniel Paille are simply skating to get some practice in before potential try-out offers are sent there way, it’s still an interesting development. The Boston Bruins could use scoring depth in their bottom-six and Lee Stempniak could be a good fit for that role.
To put Stempniak’s scoring in perspective, he scored 15 even strength goals throughout the 2014-15 season split between the New York Rangers and Winnipeg Jets in 71 games. Players who scored less at even strength than Stempniak include:
Puck Prose
Niklas Backstrom – 14
Henrik Sedin – 13
Daniel Sedin – 13
Ryan O’Reilly – 13
Bobby Ryan – 13
Jason Spezza, – 13
Joe Thornton – 12
Henrik Zetterberg – 12
Kyle Okposo – 12
Taylor Hall – 11
Nathan MacKinnon – 11
Anze Kopitar– 10
Jakub Voracek, – 9
Claude Giroux – 9
Mikko Koivu – 9
among others.
Every single player listed above is a top-line player on their respective team (with the exception of MacKinnon, who is still a top-six player), and Stempniak matched their pace at even strength scoring. While it’s easy to say that those players put up more goals, and points across the board, a few counter arguments could be made as well. For starters, Stempniak earned less money last season than every single one of the players above. In addition to this, Stempniak received less playing time and less power-play time than each of them, and as a former 27 goal scorer himself, he’s proven that he is capable of scoring when given playing time.
With that being said, Stempniak is best suited for a depth role at this point in his career. Providing depth scoring in limited minutes is exactly what the Bruins would require, and expecting anything near 27 goals would be unrealistic as Stempniak has never scored more than 19 goals outside of that one 27 goal season.
To further put Stempniak’s goal scoring into perspective, the following players only scored one or two more goals at even strength in the NHL than Stempniak last season:
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Alex Galchenyuk – 17
Ryan Johansen – 17
Jeff Carter – 17
Pavel Datsyuk – 17
Sean Monahan – 17
Phil Kessel – 16
James van Riemsdyk – 16
Johnny Gaudreau – 16
Eric Staal – 16
The signing of Lee Stempniak doesn’t seem entirely likely in Boston with the likes of Zac Rinaldo and Max Talbot currently appearing penciled in at the left and right wing spots respectively. With that being said, Lee Stempniak should put up decent scoring in the NHL next season and could possibly be on both of those players assuming he signed a cap-friendly deal (his last contract was worth $900,000 according to GeneralFanager.com).
As it stands, Stempniak is probably just practicing with some fellow NHLers in an attempt to stay ready for other team’s potential try-out offer, but it’s still worth keeping an eye on as training camp approaches.
Follow Brandon Share-Cohen @FansidedBrandon to discuss all things Boston Bruins and sports