Boston Bruins: Are the Calgary Flames and Kevan Miller a perfect match?
By Filip Canda
The Boston Bruins find themselves in mid-August in the same situation as they’ve been for weeks now. They have to shed some salaries to re-sign their two pending restricted free agents. One defenseman on the move might be Kevan Miller.
There has been said enough already about the Boston Bruins and their salary cap issues; both Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo remain unsigned. Don’t worry Bruins fans, it’s still more than a month and a half until the regular season starts and you’d have to say the most logical trade bait might be Kevan Miller.
Easier said than done, for sure. Kevan Miller is 31 and he has one year left on what was a four-year deal. On the right side of the defense, the Boston Bruins have McAvoy, Carlo, Steven Kampfer and Connor Clifton. Losing Miller, despite his leadership and commitment to the team, wouldn’t hurt. Not at all.
His salary-cap hit is $2.5 million per season and the Boston Bruins have approximately $8 million of the salary cap space available. If the Bruins pursue the trade of Kevan Miller, who might be the right candidate? There might well be a desperate one!
The Calgary Flames had devastating news on Monday. Their young and prolific defenseman, Juuso Valimaki tore his ACL in training and might miss the whole 2019-20 season. Flames’ General Manager, Brad Treliving, has admitted that the team is looking for the options externally. He added a trade is the best possible scenario.
Do you need defensive help, preferably a defenseman with just one year left on his contract? Well, the Boston Bruins might have an option for you, Calgary! Though, there might be a few issues with this.
Firstly, the Flames have something over $8 million in their salary cap space as they need to re-sign their star restricted free agent forward Matthew Tkachuk. Adding a Miller’s salary cap hit of $2.5 million wouldn’t help them. However, they might be looking at trading either T.J. Brodie or Michael Frolik, who both earn well above $4 million per season.
On the right side of the Flames defense; Travis Hamonic, Rasmus Andersson and Brodie usually fill out their line-up. However, Brodie is a left-handed defenseman playing on the right side, plus he might be shipped at some point. The Flames would certainly welcome the possibility of getting Kevan Miller on the board.
At this point, the Boston Bruins don’t have a rosy vision. They know that they won’t get anything that decent in return for Miller. As he might miss the first few games of the regular season following his knee issues, for the Bruins the most important thing is to find a suitor.
The Calgary Flames might become that valid trade partner for the Boston Bruins. Nevertheless, at this moment, it’s just a thought.