Boston Bruins: Who do you put on David Krejci’s right wing?
By Luke Ryan
The Boston Bruins have a strong top-six group, there’s no doubting that. However, there is a weakness on the right-wing heading into the 2019-20 season.
When it comes to your first choice right-winger in the Boston Bruins line-up, regardless of which teammates you match him with, it’s David Pastrnak. That goes almost without saying. Much like considering anyone but Brad Marchand as the first choice left winger.
With regard to the center depth, you could make an argument for pushing David Krejci into a first line role thus shuffling Patrice Bergeron to a second line role. Equally, you could make the same argument in reverse; keep Bergeron on the top line and keep Krejci on the second – both make sense on some level.
The Boston Bruins are lucky enough to have Marchand and Jake DeBrusk as left wing depth and Bergeron and Krejci down the middle. Unfortunately, when you look beyond Pastrnak on the right-hand side, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
Last season saw David Backes play a fair bit on the right, likewise Danton Heinen. In the playoffs, the Boston Bruins even experimented, to some success, with Karson Kuhlman in that spot. In all three of these cases, nobody truly lives up to the billing of a right-winger worthy of Krejci’s talents.
Given the contracts that will be dished out to blue-line talent, Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo; it’s highly unlikely the Boston Bruins can look externally to fill the gap, so it’s all down to the internal options next season.
We break down the guys that could potentially step into the role on the right.