What’s next for the Bruins after early exit?
One week after his team’s spectacular crash and burn on the playoff stage, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney has yet to hold his end-of-season news conference. Eight years into his gig as resident rainmaker, this was by far the toughest of all endings for Sweeney and his charges, harder on the fandom than even the loss on Causeway Street to the Blues in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final.
The 2018-19 team, 49-24-9, didn’t enter the postseason with everyone around here and across North America expecting a June coronation. The Bruins gained traction and belief that spring with series wins over Toronto, Columbus, and Carolina, and were strutting with house money by the time they made it to the Cup Final, ultimately falling one win short of hitting the jackpot.
Whereas this time around, the duck boats were gassed and polished, with “ye olde parade route” loaded on their GPS, never to leave dry dock after the Panthers ran the table in Games 5, 6, and 7. The dumbstruck crowd watched as aged captain Patrice Bergeron trudged to the room in the funeral din of the Garden.
Sweeney, expected to address the media on Tuesday, has to decide how to improve on a 135-point regular-season team (mission impossible) that doesn’t figure to have Bergeron or David Krejci back ever again in Black and Gold (the unimaginable turns inevitable).
To that latter point, the vibe Tuesday on locker cleanout day was that both veteran centers will bid the Hub adieu. Vibes, like tea leaves, are hardly certain, but man, the looks on the two classy veterans’ faces suggested the obvious: slim chance, after their combined 2,656 games (playoffs included) wearing the Spoked-B, that same time next year would produce a different ending.
Sweeney, loathe to make public his thoughts, again is unlikely to provide much substantive detail about how he plans to rework and reload the best regular-season team in NHL history.
He does, though, despite what looks to be extremely limited salary-cap space, have room to make moves. Possibly big moves. If Sweeney indeed opts for an aggressive remake, he can be a dynamic player in the wheel-and-deal market in the weeks leading to the June draft and July 1 free agency.
Normally, in the wake of a recordsetting 65-win, 135-point season, the idea of a bold retool would seem risible and unnecessary. Yet there is that chance, largely because of the, shall we say, eyesore of an ending to 2022-23.
Also, let’s not forget Sweeney has a history of unexpectedly swinging for the fences. Exhibit A: his shock move of less than a year ago, when he abruptly cashiered Bruce Cassidy just a couple of weeks after assuring his then-coach that he would be back behind the bench for 2022-23. Indeed, Cassidy was back, but as coach of the Golden Knights (still doing playoff business, by the way, in Round 2 vs. the Oilers).
Keep this in mind: Because of Sweeney’s astute contract negotiations, there are only two roster players who can’t be traded: star winger David Pastrnak and Hampus Lindholm, the slick defenseman whose game mysteriously withered in the heat of the playoffs.
Everyone else, including franchise faces Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, and even No. 1 goaltender Linus Ullmark, can be dealt. In most all cases, other than Jake DeBrusk, Matt Grzelcyk, Jakub Zboril, and McAvoy, the players have the right to trim the number of cities where Sweeney can shop them, but if wants them gone, they’re gone. Restricted free agents Jeremy Swayman and Trent Frederic also have zero control over where their contract rights can be shopped.
The boldest move of all, without question, would be to ship out McAvoy, 25, who has yet to grow fully into his preordained title as franchise defenseman. He shows impressive, eye-popping flashes, and he just logged his second straight season of 50-plus points. But after six seasons, he’s not quite there.
In 78 postseason games, McAvoy has delivered only five goals, including none over 13 playoff games in 2022 and ’23. Granted, a lot goes into being a franchise blue liner, and McAvoy checks a bunch of those boxes — puck movement, speed, a rattlesnake hitter at times. But before he is fitted for the sacred robe once worn here by Bobby Orr, Brad Park, and Ray Bourque, he’ll have to find the net more, or at least present the threat.
It would be a shock if McAvoy were wheeled, but a disaster like we witnessed in Round 1 has to have Sweeney considering every option, and McAvoy’s contract, with its $9.5 million cap hit, does not convert to no-movement status until after next season.
There are far more likely candidates to be shipped out, if Sweeney wants to shed money, allowing him to seek a different personnel mix or retain would-be free agents.
In back, dealing Grzelcyk and Derek Forbort would shake out $6.7 million, enough possibly to keep Dmitry Orlov.
No telling if Orlov wants to stay. He loved his time with the Capitals, and he could be presented with a legit offer to return.
Up front, sending out Taylor Hall (two more years at $6 million per) could be the way to go if Sweeney prefers to retain UFA Tyler Bertuzzi, who finished tied with Marchand for the club’s postseason scoring lead (10 points). Charlie Coyle ($5.25 million) would seem a sure keep, along with Pavel Zacha ($4.75 million), particularly in light of the expected departures of fellow pivots Bergeron and Krejci. Marchand ($6.125 million) and DeBrusk ($4 million) will stay put.
There could be a dilemma, if not a crisis, in goal, where Ullmark is signed for two more years ($5 million cap hit). Swayman, his partner, has arbitration rights and again delivered solid numbers (24-6-4) this season. He could easily be awarded $4 million a year via arbitration.
Potentially a far stickier problem, akin to Carolina filching forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi from the Canadiens, is that any one of 31 other teams could deem Swayman, 24, as their franchise goaltender and drop a big number ($6 million?) on a deal of, say, 4-7 years.
Could the Bruins cover the number? Could they afford to tie up $11 million in two goalies? If not, could they choose to retain Swayman and dish Ullmark, 30 in July? His deal allows Sweeney to offer him to half the teams in the league.
Amid the pain, sorrow, and frustration of the Cup slipping through their outstretched hands, Sweeney and team president Cam Neely have some painful decisions to make in the next few weeks. They also have a number of surprising options, some that those outstretched hands could be forced to use.
Did Trouba’s slam cross the line?
We were reminded again this past week that the playoffs are for keeps when Rangers captain Jacob Trouba lined up Timo Meier and drove his right shoulder squarely into the head of the slick Swiss forward who was New Jersey’s big get (via San Jose) at the trade deadline.
The gruesome slam came at 14:24 of the third period of Game 7, did not get penalized, and rendered Meier inoperative the rest of the night and again for Game 1 of the subsequent Devils-Hurricanes series (a 5-1 Devils loss). Meier took the pregame skate Wednesday in Carolina, his face covered with a cage, protecting whatever parts were still mending from Trouba’s shoulder. He was back in the lineup Friday night for Game 2.
Trouba’s hit was deemed legal on the ice and he was not tagged with supplemental discipline. The boys in the NHL’s Department of Player Safety ultimately determined, hey, that’s hockey, even here in 2023 amid the mounting pile of CT scans and other scientific evidence about the oft-lingering damage caused by hits (big and small) to the noggin.
Rule No. 48, which specifically governs such hits — the outcome of Matt Cooke’s slam on Marc Savard — can’t interpret intent. No rule or adjudicating body can do that, in any sport.
The view from here in the cheap seats: The Rangers were flat, trailing 2-0, and an opportunistic Trouba figured the way to put a jolt into his fellow Blueshirts was to T-bone the fast-advancing Meier, his head still down one tick after releasing the puck from his stick. For what it’s worth, there was no waking up the Rangers, who were rubbed out, 4-0, and headed home for the summer.
Was the hit legal? Per language of Rule 48, yes.
Should be it legal? Only in a game without its governors’ courage and sense to offer its workforce proper protection. Only in a game where the workforce lacks equal courage to demand change.
No matter his intent, Trouba took out Meier’s head. The good news here, I guess, after watching multiple replays, is that Trouba didn’t take out one of Meier’s knees. Both were there for the taking. But leg checks at high speed present a high, if not equal, risk to the hitter. There’s little to no risk when driving a well-protected, rock-hard shoulder into the face of a defenseless opponent and delivering him to Palookaville.
This isn’t that hard. For decades, hockey has deemed high-sticking a penalty be it for two or four minutes (when drawing blood). Applying the rule doesn’t ask the referee to decipher intent. The stick went up, an opponent was clipped . . . off to the penalty box. No debate. It’s baked into the game’s culture.
Real, meaningful protection won’t be offered until the same standard and ethos is applied to head hits. Whether contact is intentional or accidental, if that contact is primarily to the head (see Trouba on Meier), that hit should be at least a five-minute major and subject to supplemental discipline.
Yes, sure, it’s all debatable. But what isn’t debatable is the hurt head hits too often inflict, which really is where the debate needs to end.
Dubas a better fit in Pittsburgh?
NHL GM jobs remain open in Calgary, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, and the narrative around the league is that the Flames and Flyers hires are related to whether Fenway Sports Group hires Kyle Dubas for its Penguins opening.
In Toronto, Dubas’s Maple Leafs fell into a 2-0 hole Thursday night to the Panthers, which means he soon could be eligible to talk to anyone, provided the Leafs don’t keep him in residence.
“Bright, analytics guy, growing confidence on the job. You know, hockey’s version of Theo Epstein,” said a longtime agent. “Dubas would be good anywhere.”
Perhaps.
The Leafs, finally into Round 2 for the first time since the invention of carbon sticks, have structured a very topheavy cap model in the Dubas era. They’ve stacked the top of the forward order with high talent and higher salaries, dollars that have led to perennial issues on the back end, including defense and goal.
Unlike the Bruins, with David Pastrnak and Hampus Lindholm the only two players who can’t be traded, the Leafs have four players who can’t be moved. Three are forwards: Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner, along with Morgan Rielly on the backline.
That’s four players at an aggregate AAV of $41 million, or half the cap. By the way, two games into their series with the Panthers, the Leafs’ goal scorers were Matthew Knies, Michael Bunting, Alex Kerfoot, and Ryan O’Reilly. The high rollers weren’t rolling.
Yet in Pittsburgh, “Keys to the castle for Dubas,” said one well-connected source in the league’s infrastructure.
Klima forever linked to Bruins
Petr Klima, the dynamic forward whose death at age 58 was announced Thursday in Czechia, forever will be linked to Bruins lore for his goal in triple overtime (official time: 115:13) in Game 1 of the 1990 Stanley Cup Final.
Inside the sweltering old Garden, the little-used Klima jumped off the Oilers’ bench and joined a rush with exBruin Craig MacTavish and Jari Kurri that saw Kurri set up Klima with a dish he ripped by Bruins goalie Andy Moog.
Final score: Oilers 3, Bruins 2. And the post-Gretzky-era Oilers would wrap up the Cup in Game 5.
Oilers coach John Muckler used Klima only sparingly throughout the series, in part because the right-shot winger could be a bit of a freelancer.
“You need a pretty long stick to score from the bench,” Klima kidded after the win. “I was the doorman.”
As the weekend approached, there was no official word about what caused Klima’s death, but reports out of Czechia were that he had recent heart-related issues.
The Bruins were dismissed by the Oilers in the 1988 and ’90 Cup Finals.
Bedard lottery coming Tuesday
Some lucky franchise on Tuesday, shortly after 8 p.m., will re-center its fortunes when awarded generational prospect Connor Bedard via the longanticipated draft lottery.
For position, size, and skill set, Bedard, a right-shot center, is somewhat reminiscent of Dale Hawerchuk —aleft shot and No. 1 pick (Winnipeg) in
1981. Hawerchuk, Calder winner as Rookie of the Year in 1981-82, posted 103 points as a freshman and rolled up 100 or more five straight times after his sophomore year.
Bedard, considered more dynamic than Hawerchuk, could have a legit shot at being only the eighth rookie in league history to debut with 100 points.
The seven: Teemu Selanne, Winnipeg, 132; Peter Stastny, Quebec, 109; Alexander Ovechkin, Washington, 106; Hawerchuk, 103; Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh, 102; Joe Juneau, Boston, 102; and Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh, 100.
All finished as Rookie of the Year, except Crosby, who lost to Ovechkin in 2006, and Juneau, who lost to Selanne in 1993.
Anaheim has the best odds to land Bedard, followed by Columbus and Chicago.
Coyle appreciates fans’ support
In light of the first-round exit, is it a good time or a bad time to be the kid who grew up here and is now playing for the Bruins?
“There’s a little bit of everything,” said Weymouth’s Charlie Coyle, the club’s stalwart No. 3 center. “Most people are kind, and that’s what’s great is the support and the people who support you through the good and bad. There’s always people who are going to be the other way, but there’s more good than bad out there, if you’re lucky enough to play here and get that support, no matter what.”
The fans, added Coyle, “all understand.”
“They all want to win, too,” he said. “We want to win for everyone, you know? There’s no easy way of talking about it, going through it, but to get the support around here has been so great.”
A text to your faithful puck chronicler from a season ticket-holder the day after the Bruins’ exit: “A rough day, dealing with the reality of the lost opportunity. Unfortunately, that’s part of what makes the NHL playoffs so great — anyone can win the Cup.”