Boston Bruins: What To Do With Frank Vatrano

Boston Bruins: What To Do With Frank Vatrano

While there are many pleasant surprises within the Boston Bruins’ organization to celebrate this year, I don’t think anything compares to what Frank Vatrano has shown us this season. Before the Boston Bruins called up Vatrano for the first time from Providence, he was scoring a goal a game in the AHL. While this in itself was extremely impressive, I did not think that that kind of pace would hold up once he was inevitably sent back down from the big club. Now, here we are, almost in March, and Frank Vatrano is still scoring at a pace of more than a goal a game.

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This remarkable discovery has put the Bruins in a much better situation going forward and makes the all but official departure of Loui Eriksson easier to swallow. While I still believe that Eriksson will remain with the Bruins after the deadline and hopefully during a playoff run, another team will sign him during the offseason leaving Boston with more cap and roster space.

Frank Vatrano is clearly a goal scorer and if he were to be paired with a playmaker like David Krejci, he would be given loads of offensive ice time and have an experienced, defensively responsible, role model helping him out. Vatrano shoots left and therefore would be placed on the left wing with David Pastrnak most likely taking the right wing spot giving Krejci too young offensive weapons to work with.

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While this line seems promising in some aspects, I can see how the lack of size, grit and veteran awareness could be an issue. However, the Boston Bruins are only getting deeper as a team. The current line of Ryan Spooner, Jimmy Hayes and Matt Beleskey is performing very well and will often be given more ice time than a typical third line. Having this type of third line will allow the coaching staff to play Krejci’s line at opportune moments and to not treat them like a usual top line. Patrice Bergeron‘s line will continue the shut down role, which seems to also lead to a great number of points lately as well.

Now, even if this set up does work out, it is still a lot of pressure to put on such a young, unproven player. Thankfully, we have two young unproven players who shoot left and could take the next step in their careers. It is common knowledge now that Alexander Khokhlachev is tired of playing in the AHL. In his defense, he is, once again, scoring at a decent pace. What Khokhlachev and Vatrano will both need to cope with is the fact that they will not be playing the center position if they are to be members of the Boston Bruins. With that being said, management has two offensive prospects that they can experiment with during next year’s training camp.

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If Vatrano proves to work well on a top line in the NHL, Khokhlachev stays in Providence. However, if Vatrano struggles in the big league, Khokhlachev should be given the same chance, and vice versa. Some players, like Brad Marchand can enter the NHL as a fourth line grinder and work their way up the ladder to eventually become the leading goal scorer. However, there are others who are not effective in limited roles. Khokhlachev has been proof of this in the past and needs to be given a good long look in the NHL if the Boston Bruins want to truly consider him as a top prospect of theirs.

Putting Vatrano against Khochlachev would save the Bruins the trouble of needing to find a roster replacement for Loui Eriksson. This would give the Bruins more cap space to improve their defense and sign the ridiculous amount of RFAs this offseason, including Khokhlachev. In all honesty, if the Bruins do not consider upgrading Khokhlachev to Eriksson’s position next year, they might as well trade him at the deadline in exchange for a rental player for this year’s postseason.

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Frank Vatrano is finishing up his first of a three year deal with the Bruins organization and should be used as well as he can before the dreadful day comes when he too will need to be offered too much money like Loui Eriksson. Until that day comes, the Boston Bruins need to seriously start planning life without Loui Eriksson and, more specifically, life with Frank Vatrano.

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