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At the beginning of last season Sports Illustrated picked the Boston Bruins to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, that may be the case again with the off-season moves and acquisitions that have occurred. That is only if General Manager Peter Chiarelli does not dismantle a potential league leading team that is currently intact.
Two of the Bruins key players, goalie, Tim Thomas, and center, Marc Savard, have been the discussion of numerous trade rumors. Many Bruins and NHL analysts believe that neither will be with the team at the start of the regular season, which would be a major mistake on the part of Chiarelli.
With the drafting of center, Tyler Seguin, the B’s are cluttered down the middle. Seguin will make an impact next year, but to say that he is ready to replace Savard in his first years in the NHL would be unrealistic and irresponsible of Chiarelli. It would make more sense to let Seguin get his feet wet his first year or two in the NHL on a wing position.
Savard is good for 70-points in a bad season, if he’s healthy; it is unrealistic to think that Seguin will do that in his first year. Plus, Savard signed a “Bruins Friendly” contract just this past year that will keep him in Boston for the next seven years at just over 4 million a year. By Savard signing this contract it shows that he is committed to bringing a cup back to Boston in his remaining time here. If Chiarelli does trade him, he will likely not get a major player back, since the only two teams Savard will waive his no trade clause to are Toronto and Ottawa, and Toronto reportedly has no interest in the first line center, according to CSNNE.com.
The newly acquired Horton is also a dangerous combination when being paired with Savard on the top line, and if he does stay at center, it is not unrealistic to say that Horton could have 35 goals next season, if healthy.
The Bruins last top pick was Joe Thornton back in 1997, first overall, and in his first season Thornton had a total of 3 goals and 7 points through 55 games, who’s to say that the same won’t happen to Seguin? For a team that was at the bottom of the league all year in scoring, it would not be smart to trade away their top offensive player. By getting Seguin in the draft the Bruins took two steps forward next season in the offensive category; if they trade away Savard they’ll take four steps back.
Tim Thomas is another Bruin that shouldn’t immediately be traded away. Tuukka Rask had a good season last year and showed the league that he is ready to be the number one goaltender, but one bad week in the NHL could erase all that and Tim Thomas could re-emerge as the starter for the B’s.
Though Thomas has 5 million in salary, which may be a bit hefty in the capped league, but it would be smarter for Chiarelli to keep Thomas. Rask is young, and he still needs to put together a string of seasons like last year’s to show he’s ready to handle a heavy load of games.
It would be smart to keep Rask around 55 games next season to keep him fresh for the long haul. And if the B’s need a goalie that can play 25-30 games and have a high chance of winning, it would be best to keep Thomas for those games where he could win them 20-something games out of 30. Franchise goalies in the NHL are a scarce so by keeping Rask fresh instead of rushed would benefit the B’s in the long haul.
A prime example of a rushed goalie would be Canadiens goalie, Carey Price, who won 24 games his rookie year with a .920 save percentage and was being named the future of the Montreal franchise after that season. But since then, he has not performed as well as he did his first season, with just a .902 save percentage in his sophomore year and only winning 13 games last season.
Chiarelli may argue that he wants to trade these two players in order to clear cap room, but most teams will send him back role players equal to the same cap space, and much less in value and quality. Unless Chiarelli can guarantee that he’s going to use that nine million in cap space to acquire a major player in free agency, such as Ilya Kovalchuck, then it would be best to keep both players, at least for next season.
Nicholas Vitukevich is Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the Pierce Arrow and can be contacted at arrowpublisher@gmail.com
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