Boston Bruins: Noel Acciari heads off to sunny Florida
The Boston Bruins, hamstrung by restricted free agents that haven’t yet signed new deals, bid farewell to versatile bottom-six forward, Noel Acciari as free agency kicked off.
Noel Acciari is headed to the Florida Panthers, after playing a key role in the Boston Bruins recent run to the Stanley Cup Final. He, of course, was part of a fourth line that at one point was seeing ice-time equivalent of a second line.
You can’t really begrudge Noel Acciari signing a deal with the Florida Panthers especially considering it was a 3-year, $5 million deal. Noel will make $1.67 million against the cap each season. That’s a number, with the current climate, that Boston couldn’t necessarily match, especially given there is replacement value to be found in their prospects pipeline.
Noel Acciari departs the Boston Bruins on a high note having tallied 14 points this past season across 72 games – the latter a figure that marks his highest appearance total in an NHL season since debuting in the big-time after captaining Providence College to an NCAA Championship. He also added 2 points in 19 play-off games for the Bruins this campaign.
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He joins the Florida Panthers haul of free agents that has included Sergei Bobrovsky, Brett Connolly, Anton Stralman and himself so far, that will be facing off with his now former Boston Bruins teammates plenty as he remains within the Atlantic Division as a result.
It’s safe to say that the Florida Panthers will be sporting somewhat of a new look the next time the Bruins line-up against them; it’s hard to imagine though that Noel Acciari is bumped much higher up the line-up down South.
At a stretch he may now find himself on the third line as opposed to the fourth, and potentially with some penalty-killing expected. In all fairness, he has earned the reward of some contractual term as a result of his strong performances.
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Fair play to him and as much as it’ll be hard seeing the Boston Bruins line up against him; heck, it’ll be hard work lining up against him, he’s moved on now and we’ll find someone new to slot into his spot.