Boston Bruins: Why did they resist signing Kevin Shattenkirk?

The Boston Bruins have had limited options on the free-agent market this off-season. With the salary cap situation very tight, the Bruins needed and still need to be very cautious. No more risky deals allowed; Kevin Shattenkirk included.

The Tampa Bay Lightning; a divisional rival, signed Kevin Shattenkirk on a one-year deal worth $1.75 million per campaign. At first glance, that’s a solid-looking deal. Some Boston Bruins fans might raise the question – why did they pass on a Kevin Shattenkirk signing?

There are plenty of reasons for it; most importantly the health concerns. It is no secret that the Kevin Shattenkirk signing didn’t work out as predicted with the New York Rangers.

The Rangers were acquiring a 28-year-old defenseman back then, who had always reached at least 40 points in a full 82-game NHL season. They beat out the Boston Bruins for his signing in the 2017 off-season, as we noted on Monday.

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Then an unfortunate knee injury occurred and Shattenkirk’s Rangers reunion was shattered. They decided to buy him out just last week – that definitely won’t help their salary cap situation, but given his 28-point campaign last year, the Rangers simply couldn’t afford him.

Why wouldn’t the Boston Bruins take a look at Kevin Shattenkirk signing, especially at such a bargain price?

They already have their salary cap problems. As of now, the Bruins have something around $9 million in the salary cap space. That’s probably not good enough to re-sign Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo. That’s why the Bruins stayed away from Kevin Shattenkirk and every other big free agent signing this summer.

In addition to that, the Boston Bruins were after Kevin Shattenkirk in 2017. However, in those sweepstakes, he chose the New York Rangers. Why would the Bruins take him this time when he had already turned them down once before?

Even if the Bruins found a tiny piece of the salary cap space to sign Shattenkirk (remember, he has spent three seasons with the Boston University before his NHL debut), his presence wouldn’t make much sense. Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo are locked for the right side of the top two defensive pairs. A 30-year-old Shattenkirk would probably find his place only on the third pair.

But that would force out Connor Clifton, who has shone for the Bruins lately and was just handed a cheap three-year contract. Shattenkirk is a tremendous puck-moving defenseman but the Boston Bruins have already guys like Torey Krug, McAvoy or Matt Grzelcyk for their power play.

On the surface, the Tampa Bay Lightning, after shipping out Ryan Callahan to Ottawa, were the better candidates for Shattenkirk.

The Boston Bruins weren’t expected to make their pitch, and probably didn’t even attempt to do so. The McAvoy annd Carlo situation is already a big enough headache for the Boston Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney.

There is simply no space for the experiments, like the one with the hypothetical Kevin Shattenkirk signing.