The Boston Bruins core group has been consistent
The core group of players for the Boston Bruins across the past ten years has barely changed, it may have aged, may have slowed down a little but as a group it’s still as impressive as ever. This has always held true of any team seeing prolonged success.
Change too much from the core group and you’re left with an entirely different outlook. Now, the Boston Bruins are helped by the fact that players in their core are likely underpaid in all fairness.
Deals were inked before players became the point-producers they have no become. Look no further than the deal that Brad Marchand is on and it’s safe to say that he’s the best value one hundred point player in the league.
At just $6.125 million per season, nobody in the league, aside from those on entry-level deals comes close. Patrice Bergeron is another key example; he’s been with the Boston Bruins this whole time and brings something as the first-line center that you don’t typically get as cheaply as $6.875 million per season.
Across the board there’s examples of this; David Pastrnak at $6.666 million per season on the right wing, David Krejci even at a more expensive $7.25 million still ranks as a cheap second-line center option when you start looking around the look at his production compared to others.
The consistency of having this core there when new guys join the fray has been vital to preventing any sort of full-scale rebuild. Likewise, the cheapness of their contracts has allowed the team to prevent the need. Other teams have rebuilt due to trapping themselves with all variety of immovable deal.
Whilst the Boston Bruins aren’t immune to immovable deals or bad contracts, the core being available so cheaply has saved them.
That and the experience of these guys; add in the other two names that make up that core group; Tuukka Rask and Zdeno Chara and you have seasons’ worth of knowledge and players that have been all the way to the Stanley Cup Final and actually won it.
Charlie McAvoy likely wouldn’t be half the player he’s growing into without being partnered with Zdeno Chara and also being safe in the knowledge that Rask could bail him out if he stuffed up.
All in all, the Boston Bruins have been incredibly wise these last ten years and continue to look smart in their approach to drafting and training new players. Safe to say we can’t see a rebuild happening here any time soon!