Pool Outlook for Boston

The Boston Bruins on the ice were the victims of some questionable and costly salary cap management or at least that was the reason cited for their collapse in the 2015 season.

One of the most notable deals of the 2015 season happened just before the puck dropped on the regular season, as the Bruins shipped away defenseman Johnny Boychuk, due to salary cap constraints and many would say that he was the pillar of strength that helped the team fall when it was removed.

It's hard to imagine one player would have such an effect, but to help the argument out, Boychuk played a lot of large defensive minutes for the Bruins and his absence left that to veterans like Zdeno Chara, who was already responsible for big minutes for the club.

The Bruins were by no means completely inept in their own end, as they still finished 12th overall in goals against, but the biggest problem for them is that they haven't been an offensively potent team, rather winning a lot more low scoring games and if they were giving up a few more goals here and there, a lot of those wins would turn into losses or overtime losses.  I think that's really what we saw here.

With the amount of wins the Bruins would amass in a season, I think the hockey pool teams get a false sense of offense, as the Bruins remained fairly popular in the draft, having 13 picks made in September and most of them sticking.  At that time Boychuk was still on the Boston roster, but by the end of the year, his spot was filled via the Waiver Draft and the Bruins still finished the year with 13 active players.  Besides their best player, illustrated below, there wasn't a lot of punch from this team.

There is nothing to suggest that Tuukka Rask had that bad of a season, as his numbers were pretty hefty in the year.  Rask was another one of those 4,000+ minute goalies in the year, which gave him more than enough games to win 34 and 3 games via shutout, which gave him 74 points on the year, good enough for 21st overall in pool scoring, 12th among all goalies.  Rask is not one of those players you can pin the Bruins' season on, nor would he have been a bad pick for your pool team, as he was still justifying his 1st round selection in September.

Only two Boston forwards finished among the top 100 in their position, as Patrice Bergeron finished with 55 points, while Loui Eriksson had 47 points, barely scraping together offense some nights.  After that, the Bruins couldn't really make up for the loss of David Krejci, due to injury, as Milan Lucic, Carl Soderberg, Brad Marchand and Reilly Smith were all pool worthy, but they were not exceptional in the year.  There was a lot of line-juggling going on with the Bruins all year, but it all worked to no avail.

An injury to Zdeno Chara in the year dropped his overall value and allowed Dougie Hamilton step up and be the best blueliner for Boston in 2015.  Hamilton was ranked 22nd among defensemen this past season after a 42-point season in 72 games.  Torey Krug finished with 39 points in 78 games, while Chara did finish pool worthy, 20 points in 63 games.  It certainly wasn't the year Boston was expecting from the blueline.

Niklas Svedberg was Rask's back-up for the season, minus a game or two, and qualified as a pool-worthy keeper, if only barely, by ranking 45th in the crease with only 19 points, thanks to 7 wins.  He wasn't earning very many minutes behind the Czech number one, but he made use of what he did get.  No one picked Svedberg in the pool, which was someone's loss.

2016 Pool Outlook

Things don't look very rosy for the Bruins, heading into this off-season, as at the time of this post being written, the team did not have management hired, since they let go of their management and coaching team after the regular season.  The new management has a lot to contend with, a hefty burden against the cap, which carries the bulk of the side that failed to make the playoffs and some pending free agents, who are big pieces of the puzzle down the road.  This is beginning to look a lot like when the Flames started their plummet from being a very good playoff bound team to one that floundered through mediocrity.

The top prospect for the Bruins, according to the Hockey News, is Malcolm Subban, who, with the right things going his way in the Summer, could land with the big club as Rask's back-up, since Svedberg will head to restricted free agency.  Subban's name has been popping up as the Baby Bruins have been playing in the AHL playoffs and that would be a good sign to some, as he'll likely get a long look at camp.  If Rask eats a lot of minutes next season, Subban's value will be tempered.

Free Agency and the Salary Cap

The Bruins have a daunting task ahead of them, as the salary cap ceiling is not going to give them any relief in this off-season, especially since they have 29 players signed altogether and their cap hit is already over the projected ceiling.  This is a huge concern, especially since a lot of the teams that have already been covered in these outlooks have far more players signed on and still room against the ceiling.  The 25 players who have their cap hits disclosed bring their 2016 total up to $73.2 million.

Restricted free agency will be the top priority, as Carl Soderberg, Dougie Hamilton and Niklas Svedberg will all need deals, while Brett Connolly, Ryan Spooner and Zach Trotman will need deals too.  The UFA crop out of Boston won't necessarily be pool worthy, but they will be the sort of players that help a team in the depth department and if they are not around, the wins may be harder to come by.  Talk about hard to come by, contracts for these players will be even harder to come by, thanks to the cap crunch.

Needs at the 2015 Entry Draft

The Bruins' success over the last few years has meant that they haven't had high picks in the 1st round or they have traded their picks to ensure they have greater success in the playoffs, so the top end talent in their youth system may not be as high as other teams.  With the 14th pick in the draft, they will have a chance to improve upon that situation somewhat, although they won't be picking from the franchise players that went earlier in the draft.  With their pick, I could see them end up with a kid like Kyle Connor, who has some reasonable size and some good scouting quotables, like a key situation player.  The team has a lot of these kinds of players already, but adding to that list doesn't hurt and it might open up some trade avenues, if it all pans out.

What I Said Last Year, At This Time...

Will the Bruins stay competitive in 2015? There isn't enough reason to say no, so the only logical conclusion is to say yes. The biggest name on the trading block, allegedly, is Brad Marchand and if he was the only player to go in the off-season, the Bruins would still thrive without him. Marchand has been an important player for the team, but at $4.5 million for the next three seasons, he may have priced his 25 goals out of the Bruins budget. Nevertheless, I see this team getting most of what they want done and then setting up a good defense of their President's Trophy. They will be a contender for the Cup and I fully expect much of the same from them in 2015.

Maybe if the Bruins traded Marchand instead of Boychuk before the season started, this whole mess may have been avoided, but looking at the cap situation coming into the 2016 season, there is a good chance that they would be running into the problems are running into now anyways.  In last year's post, there was a hint that they should have been doing a better job at selling off their assets and since they haven't, they have backed their new GM, whoever that may be, into a corner to get out from to start their tenure.  A tough task, no doubt.  With all these problems, my prediction... it went right out the window and rightfully so.

When interviewing for the position of a new manager in Boston, you're going to want to know that the new guy is interested in change.  Of course, change in the NHL is not easy to achieve, especially with contract structures the way they are nowadays.  You would think that a fire sale would be the easiest way to get started, but buyers are now lessening by the year, as each team has found a way to grow internally and costs being on the rise, don't really allow for even the most flexible of budget teams to go out and shop.  With all of this being considered, the Bruins could be in for a tough 2016 season, but they will win some games, they'll bully their way through some stretches, but until the team is flexible as a whole again, they will have more than their fair share of struggles.  Playoffs next season?  Unlikely.