The Boston Bruins signed Alex Petrovic after a successful professional try-out this summer, he has since performed well in the AHL.
Aside from his strong performances in the AHL, Alex Petrovic also has NHL experience; this makes him the perfect low-risk summer signing that the Boston Bruins might well be able to package into a high-reward deadline deal.
Of course, on his own Alex Petrovic is getting you an AHL player, maybe a seventh round pick or likely a very average fourth line forward or seventh defenseman at the very best, depending on the trading team’s need.
Among Providence defensemen, Petrovic leads the way scoring-wise with 19 points in 41 games this season, just under a 0.5 points per game pace. He has also managed to keep his game incredibly clean this year with just 11 penalty minutes too; not always the easiest thing to do in the AHL.
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He has played a big role quarter-backing the Providence power-play this season and it certainly feels like he wouldn’t be out of place on the Boston Bruins’ roster. It’s likely his waiver eligibility that prevents any move back to the NHL at this point.
Therein lies the issue for the Boston Bruins; they’ve ended up promoting Jeremy Lauzon, Urho Vaakanainan and Jakub Zboril this season when their ‘first man up’ should realistically be Alex Petrovic.
After all, he does have 263 games of regular season NHL experience under his belt. In his previous two NHL seasons, he was trusted to regularly play more than standard third pairing ice-time and did as decent of a job as could be expected in Florida and Edmonton at the time.
Hence why there may be some appeal from teams that the Boston Bruins seek out for trades this deadline. Sitting on their minor league team is a player that is more than ready to step back up to the NHL level and likely would handle it without any adjustment period.
For a team looking for that additional stability on the blue line, potentially for injury cover or otherwise, he is the perfect bargaining chip for the Boston Bruins to throw on the table.
Now add in the fact that he has cost the team essentially nothing, aside from the giving him a shot at training camp and it’s actually a great deal by Don Sweeney.
Of course, all of this is reliant upon a team fancying adding him to their roster, but it’s not the worst problem to have; a clear NHL talent (albeit a low-end one) that is working hard and doing a job in the AHL, all the while waiting to be required.