B’s back home amid outbreak
Players in self-quarantine
The Bruins announced that after additional testing in Buffalo on Friday, the club returned to Boston later that evening, separately from the five players who are on the NHL’s COVID protocols list.
According to the club’s release, “After communication and cooperation with the league and the NHLPA , all of (the players on the protocols list) have returned safely to Boston.”
The players are now expected to self-quarantine through Tuesday. The target date for the B’s to be able to reopen their training facility in Brighton is on Wednesday.
Sean Kuraly landed on the list Thursday prior to the B’s game against the Sabres and then on Friday was joined by Jake DeBrusk, David Pastrnak, David Krejci and Craig Smith, causing a shutdown of the Bruins’ operations.
With the postponements of Saturday’s game in Buffalo and Tuesday’s game against the Islanders, the B’s will have to play 28 games in 45 days, unless the league decides to extend the team’s May 8 end-of-season date.
Exactly why the players are on the list is not known and league rules prohibit clubs from giving precise reasons.
There are five different ways
players can be placed on the list according to the league: (1) an initial positive test that remains unconfirmed until confirmatory testing is completed pursuant to the Positive Test Protocol; (2) mandated isolation for symptomatic individuals pursuant to the Positive Test Protocol; (3) required quarantine as a high-risk close contact in accordance with the Positive Test Protocol; (4) isolation based on a confirmed positive test result and/or; (5) quarantine for travel or other reasons as outlined in the COVID-19 Protocol.
Trade deadline musings
We are less than a month away from the NHL trade deadline and it’s obvious that the Bruins need help. And they could use it at both forward and defense.
But to get a truly impactful player, they may have to settle on one or the other, with the limited resources they have. If that’s the case, a top six forward is by far the biggest need.
In their last 10 games since suffering back-to-back blowout losses in Manhattan and Long Island, the B’s have allowed one regulation goal or fewer in eight of those games but only have five victories to show for it in that stretch. They are currently 28th in the league in 5-on-5 scoring with 44. Not good.
Amazingly with all the injuries that the back end has suffered — Brandon Carlo, Jeremy Lauzon, Kevan Miller and now Jarred Tinordi —keeping the puck out of their own net has not been the problem. And if the B’s go out and get Nashville defenseman Mattias Ekholm — perhaps the name most often linked to the Bruins — that would present another problem. Would it be worth giving up the substantial assets to obtain Ekholm, who has one more year left at a reasonable price ($3.75 million), if the Bruins will have to turn around and expose Matt Grzelcyk in the Seattle expansion draft in a few months? The answer is no.
If the B’s can add decent depth on the back end for a low level draft pick, fine. Tinordi had been more than serviceable in the role he was asked to play, and he was picked up off the waiver scrap heap.
But if those injured Bruins blueliners can come back, the defense should be in good shape. Unless
there are complications, Lauzon, who suffered a now surgically repaired broken hand in the Lake Tahoe game on Feb. 21, is at the fourweek re-evaluation date. The hope is that he’ll be available within the next two weeks. The 2021 futures or Carlo, Miller and Tinordi are all murkier. Carlo and Tinordi have appeared to have suffered concussions and there is no way to put definitive timetables on head injuries. Miller left the lineup for what was thought to be maintenance for his surgically repaired right knee (four times over), but it has now been over a month since he’s played.
But they could all, or at least a couple, conceivably come back and contribute. If not, the season may not be worth saving anyway.
But there is no cavalry waiting in sick bay to help with the forward group. Yes, there is Ondrej Kase, who has been out of the lineup since the second game of the season with a suspected concussion, and he was a major part of the team’s plan for this season and presumably beyond. But even if he gets healthy enough to return, we still don’t know exactly who he is as a player. In a grand total of 19 games with the Bruins, he has five assists and no goals. The
Bruins need someone who can fill the net and, as many good attributes that Kase may bring, he doesn’t seem to be that guy.
So who could it be?
Detroit’s Bobby Ryan has just six goals, but one could surmise that, at 34, he has a few more goals left in him. But Ryan hasn’t hit the 20-goal mark since 2015-16. He’s short money ($1 million cap hit) on an expiring deal.
Buffalo’s Taylor Hall could have signed with the Bruins and played for a contender, but he chose to take big money on a one-year deal ($8 million) with a longtime loser. The results have been predictably unsightly. I’d be more inclined to take a look at the Sabres’ Sam Reinhart, who’s got 11 goals and is on an expiring deal (cap hit $5.2 million).
And there’s the perennial Bruin “trade target,” New Jersey’s Kyle Palmieri. In past years, he’d have been perfect, a right shot to play with Krejci. And now he’s a rental on a deal with a cap hit of $4.65 million. But he’s not had a good year. After five straight 20-plus goal seasons, he’s got only four in 26 games.
Whomever the B’s target, it’s clear they need help. It’s also clear where they need it most.