Will the Boston Bruins move on from Jaroslav Halak after this season?

Jaroslav Halak has been a perfectly serviceable number two goaltender for the Boston Bruins, however there’s every chance he may not be retained.

Statistically speaking the Boston Bruins netminder, Jaroslav Halak is top-ten in the league among goalies that have played more than 14 games, in both save percentage and goals against average, as well as sharing the lead for most shut-outs this year.

These strong performances have been a blessing for the Boston Bruins in the past couple of seasons, allowing them to rest Tuukka Rask suitably ahead of the post-season. They are also, though, the reason he likely isn’t renewed this summer.

Looking at this from the standpoint of Jaroslav Halak producing at a top-ten rate, you’d have to, at the very least, expect him to seek a pay rise from the current $2.75 million value deal he is on.

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Given his goaltending counterpart with the Boston Bruins is paid a tidy $7 million per season and the fact some of the goaltenders in that top-ten group are paid significantly more than him, it’d only be fair for Halak to seek more money.

Funny thing is though, Anton Khudobin and Darcy Kuemper both appear among the best for save percentage and goals against averages, but are on even less than Halak. Safe to say, they’ll also seek raises at the end of their contract terms too.

The Boston Bruins might have some cash to spare, with $3 million in dead cap space finally available at the end of this campaign, but with a contract renewal looming for Torey Krug, you’d have to imagine some, if not all of that is already tied up.

Although Jaroslav Halak has been a sturdy choice for the Boston Bruins; you would be reasonable in expressing concern that he’s conceded 4 goals five times this year, with 9 of his 19 appearances seeing at least 3 goals get past him. These numbers do offer some cause for concern, though can also be assessed as poor team defense.

Fact is, his 10 wins in those 19 games is still above the 50% you expect at a minimum from a backup (or more fairly put, a secondary option) in goal.

Moving on won’t be easy though with all somewhat limited free agency options likely to be available this summer. These options either being guys that would need to be relegated to pure backup duties as opposed to the near 50/50 split that Jaroslav Halak and Tuukka Rask share for the Boston Bruins, or players expecting raises.

It’s be nice to trade in Jaroslav Halak for Kuemper, Robin Lehner or Thomas Greiss; especially as it’d allow us to fill the position with a slightly younger player. However, we could imagine all three expecting $4 million or more this summer.

There’s other ideas out there such as approaching the New York Rangers about Alexandar Georgiev or seeing whether the Los Angeles Kings’ Jack Campbell can put up numbers more akin to last year once more, but either way it’d mean moving on from Halak.

Boston Bruins fans may not love the notion of steering away from the 34 year-old Slovakian, but long-term, it’d be smart to cut ties this summer. If we can get some trade value before the end of the campaign, why not?