Boston Bruins: Something has got to give on the blue-line

The Boston Bruins have a solid looking group on the blue-line; however, there’s maybe a few too many names there. Something has got to give.

If (or should that be when) the Boston Bruins eventually re-sign restricted free-agent defensemen, Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy, they’ll have a group of nine blue-liners on their roster. It’s ten if you include Alex Petrovic’s professional try-out contract.

Now, granted that two of those guys, John Moore and Kevan Miller will be starting the year on injured reserve but that’s still seven guys fighting for six spots, not to mention that there’s at least a couple of Providence Bruins blue-liners ready to make the step up.

The obvious way out of this is to trade someone, but realistically you’re not trading away McAvoy or Carlo, nor Zdeno Chara or Torey Krug, even if they only have the one year on their deals.

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Likewise, it’s hardly likely the Boston Bruins consider giving up on Connor Clifton after his breakthrough campaign and Matt Grzelyck, whilst he might collect an alright return isn’t getting traded either.

That leaves us with Steven Kampfer and the two injured names as trade bait, none of which are going to fetch anything too significant in return. Once their time on injured reserve is up, the Boston Bruins are going to be forced to make some challenging roster decisions, so best bet would be to move someone sooner rather than later.

Let’s also consider that if McAvoy or Carlo remain un-signed through training camp, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the Boston Bruins extend a one-year deal to Alex Petrovic. Then you’re struggling even more once everyone is fighting fit and realistically are losing a decent player to a waivers claim at that point.

A trade is going to be a challenge to construct though, so it’s nowhere near as easy as this all sounds. The injuries to Moore and Miller are career-threatening so any sort of hiding cap hit on long-term injured reserve deal is off the table.

Likewise, the fact that both are realistically third-pairing defensemen based on the most recent seasons, yet are earning over $2 million a campaign makes moving them without retaining salary an additional challenge.

Smart money has Kevan Miller as the guy you seek to move out and maybe retain a solid 30% of the cap hit to sweeten any deal. The fact he’s in the final year of his contract as opposed to having multiple left surely makes him more compelling than Moore.

Now, that’s the common-sense route. However, I’ve heard plenty of people suggest moving Torey Krug this year because he’s going to cost considerable dollars to re-up next season. Likewise, every summer there seems to always be a quiet whisper of moving Zdeno Chara to allow younger players to progress.

I don’t advocate for either of these suggestions – we’d be better off retaining Krug for the season; his value to us for one year is more than any return we could likely find. Unless of course someone is willing to do an Adam Larsson for Taylor Hall deal. In which case, I’ll take a guy that can win the Hart Trophy with us.

As for shifting Chara; maybe when he was still pulling $5 million a season, but his current deal and his play still are worthy of a spot with the Boston Bruins and you don’t shaft your captain after all of his service, especially as he’s likely going to hit 1,000 games with the organisation this coming season.

Long and the short of it is that the Boston Bruins need to find a way of making some space.