The Boston Bruins continue to be mired in one of the NHL’s most dangerous arms races. The Atlantic Division has been steadily upping the ante in a pursuit of what figures to be mutually assured destruction.
The sheer amount of firepower throughout the division should be enough to give coaches and GMs hallucinations of an apocalyptic season.
However, the Bruins haven’t really added to the weapons stockpile. Yes, they made a massive move by bringing in JJ Peterka. His arrival in Beantown should provide plenty of ammo to blow rivals out. Other moves around the fringes, such as Connor Clifton and Ivan Ivan, should also give Marco Sturm some additional options.
But GM Don Sweeney has failed to address the most important question of all: The team’s need for at least one top-six center.
Yes, the club has Pavel Zacha and Elias Lindholm. But they’re hardly the answers the Bruins need to keep up with the other Atlantic Division teams as the Doomsday Clock inches closer to midnight. Zacha is a solid second-line center. In fact, you could even argue that he’s a high-end third-line center on a deep, championship-caliber team.
But is he really the answer to the need Peterka and David Pastrnak have for an elite playmaking pivot? The answer remains “meh”.
As for Lindholm, the Bruins hoped he would cement himself as a true number-one guy. The hope was that he could emerge as an elite two-way center. Unfortunately, Lindholm hasn’t really entrenched himself as such. Like Zacha, he would be a solid 2C on a deep team. If you move him to the wing, like Zacha, he could easily become a top-six forward.
So, what does Sweeney do to address this situation? The answer may not even be in his hands.
The Bruins are victims of NHL supply and demand
All right, so let’s move away from the military theme and focus on economics. The NHL market for high-end centers has been afflicted by the law of supply and demand. Just about every team in the league is looking for top-six pivots. However, the teams that have them don’t want to let them go.
And the teams that might make one available want an arm and a leg for such a player.
A good example is St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas. The chatter posited Thomas’ availability at last year’s trade deadline. But the Blues’ exorbitant asking price scared the bejeezus out of just about every GM in the league.
That’s why solving the matter is likely out of Don Sweeney’s hands. It’s not that he doesn’t want to address the matter. It’s that there’s no supply out there.
Oh, and don’t even think about free agency. Unless Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews hit the market in 2028, the Bruins won’t likely find the type of center they’re looking for on the open market. Even if McDavid or Matthews were gung-ho about signing with the Bruins, that would still be two years away.
At the end of the day, Sweeney can only hope that a top-six center suddenly falls on his lap. He’ll need to conserve plenty of dry powder to make a deal like that happen. So, let’s see what plays out in the coming months.
It wouldn’t be out of the question to hear rumblings of centers potentially becoming available as teams fall out of playoff contention.
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