Boston Bruins: How they might look to long-term injured reserve for help

Could the Boston Bruins get smart with their use of injured reserve and find ways to get around their potential salary cap issues?

The Boston Bruins begin their regular season rather soon. Still, there is no time to panic. However, the training camp for the team this week.

Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo are not yet under the new contracts. What options do the Bruins have? The Boston Bruins salary cap issues might require a bit of injured reserve trickery. How can they find relief through injuries?

For once, the Bruins can use the injuries to their advantage, not as a long list of something that keeps them up at night. That tends to happen, for some reason, every regular season for the Boston Bruins. When injured reserve list talk comes out, it’s not usually an enjoyable talk, for either party involved. However, it could prove to be key to the Boston Bruins salary cap problems.

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As of now, the Bruins have something around $8 million in the salary cap space. That leaves them without enough cap space to ink both McAvoy and Carlo. Where to find the money then? There have been many scenarios considered, but time continues to pass, and there is still no deal on the table.

What would Charlie McAvoy want in his new deal? That pretty much depends on the market, which hasn’t been yet set. The waiting game continues. Although it’s very tough to believe that the Boston Bruins don’t have some solutions in their sleeve – injured reserve might be just one of those solutions.

As of the last week, there have been rumors that David Backes might miss the opening game of the regular season due to an undisclosed injury. What could this injury be? Maybe his concussion problems from the past. Or just some of those injuries the 35-year-old forward has suffered during the past two campaigns. However, Backes was present during the Captains Practice last week in Boston. Nothing definite to say the least.

Then there are two defensemen in the queue; Kevan Miller will almost certainly miss the start of the regular season with his knee concerns. Late in August, he hadn’t yet resumed skating and the comeback road for the 31-year-old veteran blueliner will only become tougher.

The other of those blue-line injuries, John Moore, underwent shoulder surgery after the playoffs in June and was initially expected to miss four to six months. If you do the math, Moore shouldn’t be ready by the start of October. He might be out well until December.

No other injuries have been reported by the Boston Bruins, aside from notes about a variety of niggles. And now, how these injuries relate to the Boston Bruins salary cap? The three players aforementioned count for $11.25 million against the cap. Shedding that amount would fix a lot of problems, but it’s not as easy and smooth as all that.

Putting David Backes on the long-term injured reserve for the upcoming season smashes all the Boston Bruins salary cap issues. Despite the injury talks, Backes appears like he is fit. Let’s observe how his situation unfolds as the regular season nears.

The Boston Bruins, however, will likely start the new season with both Miller and Moore on the injured list. That could free up more than $5 million in the cap space. More than enough to sign both McAvoy and Carlo before opening night against the Dallas Stars.

That would be a short-term solution as it would be difficult to see John Moore recovering from his shoulder injury for a year.

For the Boston Bruins, after Miller is healthy again, a trade would be the best option. Miller is already 31, and he will become an unrestricted free agent next summer. If the Bruins don’t plan on re-signing him, it’s not worth keeping him as a rental. Especially with a practical armada of right-handed defencemen on the roster already.

Trading Miller now is going to be almost impossible as he is injured. Let’s imagine the Boston Bruins begin their season with Miller and Moore on the long-term injured reserve. Miller should return sooner than the 28-year-old defenceman.

Maybe until Moore’s return, the Bruins can showcase him and push hard for his trade. The Bruins would also by then have a better idea to see what exact chunk of cap space they need to free up.

It appears as the Boston Bruins salary cap road will take its next swing. A pretty high possibility is that they utilise long-term injury reserve and its tools to exceed the salary cap. In what way the Bruins will use it exactly, that’s an unknown.

Nevertheless, three injured players or at least ones battling health concerns, cover up to $11.25 million of cap space. Taking a bit of that sum to handle new deals to young guns, McAvoy and Carlo is something the Boston Bruins should consider. And they sure will.