After a full weekend of the Bruins again playing up to their potential, it feels like at the very least that the B’s have righted the ship while still holding a five-point lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Atlantic Division standings.
Now it’s about the final couple of months of the NHL regular season and getting ready for the playoffs, and next up on the schedule is the NHL trade deadline set for about three weeks from now. As one might expect, the Bruins fans out there are mighty curious about what the Bruins are going to do and have plenty of questions about it. There are also a few curveballs in there as well, but the unexpected is what you come to expect in the Hagg Bag mailbag.
As always, these are real questions from real Bruins fans using the #HaggBag hash tag, real messages to NBCS Facebook fan page and real emails sent to my JHaggerty@nbcuni.com email account. Now on to the bag:
If the Bruins are truly interested in Dillon (San Jose) does that make it probable that they are considering moving [Matt] Grzelcyk or [Torey] Krug?
--Robert McNeil
JH: No, I think it makes it probable that the Bruins don’t feel like Kevan Miller is going to make it back for a healthy return and that they need to add another big, rugged defenseman to a mix that’s on the small-ish side right now with Torey Krug, Matt Grzelcyk and Connor Clifton very much on the small side and John Moore not really an in-your-face type of defenseman either. I don’t think Dillon has much of anything to do with Grzelcyk or Krug being moved because they are wholly different types of players.
Let’s be honest about Dillon: We’re talking about a guy who has two goals and 35 points in his last 135 games, so he’d be brought in to rattle cages rather than light up scoreboards. And the B’s most definitely could use another 6-foot-3, 220-pounder on the roster, even if I think it would be more useful to have that guy play the forward position rather than bringing in another D-man to be a bit of an intimidator.
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Does JG Pageau need a place to stay when the Bruins trade for him? I offer up my residence as tribute with the added perk of being strategically located near 4 corners and a plentiful supply of Gold Fever Wings.
--Mike From Woburn (@mikefromwoburn)
JH: C’mon, Mike. If you’re going to impress somebody at least go with the Country Fried Chicken or Chicken and Sausage Al Forno from the 9’s rather than the pedestrian Gold Fever Wings. The only way to prove you’re a high roller at the 99 is to start ordering off menu while you’re drinking tall boys of Bud Light at the bar. I will give you credit, though. You have been on the JGP bandwagon from the very beginning. Who knows? Maybe it will end up happening, but I don’t think he’s close to the top of Boston’s need list.
Am I correct to worry [John] Moore is trending to be similar to the Backes situation? Bad contract, good player you are hoping things turn around for. What happens to him if Kevan Miller gets healthy. Seems like two too many NHL ready D-men with Lauzon’s performance, trade? #haggbag
--David Andrew DeWilde (@nddwld)
JH: There’s really no comparison between John Moore and David Backes because Moore’s cap hit is $2.75 million as opposed to the $6 million cap hit for Backes. Moore is being paid like a bottom pairing defenseman, so he’s not a cap killer if he’s a healthy scratch for stretches of the season. It does beg the question why the Bruins felt the need to offer him a five-year term in the first place, but he does give them a guy who can do a little bit of everything while not really being outstanding at any one area of the game.
He’s big, he’s mobile and he has all the tools to be an effective guy for the Bruins, but it’s been difficult for him to establish himself within a deep group of defensemen who were already entrenched here when he arrived last season.
Moore would be movable if the Bruins ended up picking up some of the money in the deal if that’s the direction they wanted to go in, but I don’t think it’s ever smart to trade away any NHL-caliber defensemen for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.
Let’s see what Moore can do in the second half of the year after not even playing in any games until the beginning of December.
What is the news on Joe Thornton coming to Boston and what is the news on Chris Kreider from New York coming to Boston? Also, who are we looking to deal on the trade deadline?
--PHS (@paulsantos6954)
JH: Jumbo Joe will be among several Sharks who should be moving ahead of the trade deadline, particularly in the wake of the Thomas Hertl injury that’s knocked him out for the season. There is no update beyond that because San Jose hasn’t even really put their players up on the trade market as of yet, and it still remains to be seen if Jumbo is a good fit for what the Bruins need up front. The jury is out on that one, though it would be an amazing story if he returned to Boston.
Kreider is out with a suspected concussion after taking a nasty hit to the head during last weekend’s game against Detroit. So stay tuned on that one. Once again the New York Rangers have not given up hope of re-signing him, so he’s not available quite yet either. But he’s the top name on the list of trade options for the Bruins if/when he becomes available. He’s big, he can skate, he can score and he will play on the edge from time to time. That’s exactly the kind of guy that the Bruins really need in their top-6 forward group.
Who’s your fan cast of Norman Osborne for the MCU? I would love for Willem Defoe to return but the likelihood of that is less than a Backes retirement announcement. I’d personally like to see Christian Bale #haggbag
--Tyler (@TylerBrewsBeer)
JH: Maybe it will be Christian Bale. I know he’s been cast in the MCU in an as yet unidentified role. It sounds like Norman Osborne is going to have a major role in the next few phases of the MCU as a villain-type and he may have even already been mentioned as the rich benefactor behind Sonny Birch in the Ant-Man and the Wasp movie. So I would like him. You could go outside the box and cast somebody like Adam Driver too, although he might be a little too physically intimidating for a guy in Osborne I’ve always felt is a little bit of a Jekyll-and-Hyde type as Osborne and the Green Goblin.
I’ll tell you what really has me excited. There are rumblings that Keanu Reeves is going to play the Silver Surfer. How awesome would that be as they naturally get into Galactus and the Fantastic Four among other things? Also, potentially Emily Blunt as Sue Storm, and if that happens they absolutely, positively have to get John Krasinski as Mister Fantastic himself, Reed Richards. That is the kind of casting I need to have as they try to find ways to get fans excited after the departure of RDJ and Chris Evans as Iron Man and Captain America.
Hey there Haggs,
Now that SJ has lost Hertl is it possible that the B’s have a young forward (prospect or current B) that may interest them enough to land Dillon? I love Dillon’s game and the B’s need his type. Secondly, could we have enough trade chips to land BOTH Dillon and Kreider? Would love to see that happen.
--Jeff Gold
JH: I think the Bruins definitely have enough chips to land Dillon and Kreider, potentially. I don’t think Dillon is going to cost all that much. I mean, we’re talking about a guy who doesn’t put up points, doesn’t even play 20-minutes a night in a top-4 role and is a straight-up rental player. I think a draft pick rather than a prospect would be sufficient to land a bottom-pairing D like Dillon who does bring something to the table, but isn’t an elite player by any stretch of the imagination.
The issue, as I see it, with Kreider is that the Bruins are going to be bidding against a lot of other teams for the Rangers winger if/when he becomes available, and there may simply be other contenders that can offer a better prospect/draft pick package. It seems an automatic that it’s going to be a first-round pick and a legit prospect, so the Bruins are going to have to pay a premium for him if they want him.
Hearing lots of trade talks like Kreider, Toffoli, even Brendan Dillon. If a big deadline deal is to happen (fingers crossed) what is your idea of a realistic trade? And does [Charlie] McAvoy really get moved? Feel like trading him would hurt in the long run.
--Isaac Edwards (@isaacedwards46)
JH: There’s no way Charlie McAvoy is getting traded, particularly right now when he’s got zero goals and is coming off a “meh” first half in the first year of a three-year contract where he’s still a reasonably priced player. That’s just crazy talk. But it does speak, I think, to a general displeasure with some of the aspects of his game in the first half of the year despite the fact he’s blocking shots, paying more attention to the defensive end of his game and trying to be a more well-rounded player. He just hasn’t been enough of an impact player for a guy who's on the ice more than anybody else in a Bruins uniform, and the win over Winnipeg was a good example of that.
He was beaten defensively for Winnipeg’s first goal in a start that wasn’t great, but it was his massive hip check on Mark Schiefele entering the zone that flipped the momentum of the game, and set up the power play goal that got Boston’s offense up and running. The frustration with McAvoy this season isn’t that he’s been terrible, because he hasn’t been. It’s that his ceiling is so high and he’s not getting close to reaching it yet, and the expectation was that he would be closer in his third full NHL season.
But McAvoy is still just as big as David Pastrnak when it comes to importance in the long-term future view of the Bruins. That hasn’t changed, nor will it barring anything crazy from happening.
What does Gary smell like?
--Bill (@BjMcDaddy)
JH: Gary Tanguay? He smells like rich mahogany, leather-bound books and greatness. It’s a pretty intoxicating combination if we’re being honest. You should check out Early Edition nightly on NBC Sports Boston to see (and smell) for yourself.
Joe,
As much as many in Bruins Nation gripe about Sweeney’s 2015 draft moves, let’s not forget he also passed on Thomas Chabot before selecting McAvoy! Yes, the need may have been for a RD, NOT the “best available player” as is usually the mindset when the B’s are on the clock....
Ron
JH: Yes, Sweeney did pass on Chabot in 2015 and instead selected Jakub Zboril with the 13th overall pick and the first of the three straight selections that the Bruins made in that draft. That was a miss, but it was more forgivable in my opinion because both Zboril and Chabot were viewed as second-tier D-men prospects in that draft behind Noah Hanifin, Ivan Provorov and Zach Werenski. Those were the three that the Bruins were really interested in and wanted to trade up in order to select, but when that fell apart for Sweeney it became a matter of taking the next best player available in Zboril before going with Jake DeBrusk and Zach Senyshyn after that.
As I’ve said on many, many occasions, the legit second-guess in that draft was bypassing the highly-ranked Mat Barzal, who went with the very next pick after Boston’s three straight selections. They drafted wingers instead in DeBrusk and Senyshyn, but they should have simply taken the “best player available” in Zboril, or a more sure thing than Senyshyn whether it was Kyle Connor, Travis Konecny or Brock Boeser. Obviously they have received good value from DeBrusk and he was a good pick, but batting .333 with three straight first-round picks in arguably the most loaded draft in the last 10 years is going to stick with Sweeney and Co. for their entire run in Boston.
If they had drafted better there, they probably have enough talent to beat St. Louis in last year’s seven-game series. I don’t think there is much debate in that argument given how narrow the margin of victory was for the St. Louis Blues, and given how many good, impactful players have come out of the first round of that draft.
Do the Bruins have any salary cap room now since they just said Backes is healthy & back with the club? Is there any wiggle room?
--Dan (@blackorrgold4)
JH: David Backes is not with the club. He is not with Providence either. They get the cap relief as if he were in the AHL, which amounts to roughly $1.25 million, but they won’t get full cap relief from the 35-year-old winger unless he’s traded somewhere else in the next few weeks. Even then, the Bruins will probably have to eat half his contract, and that would mean being on the books for $3 million next season even if he’s not here anymore.
As with the answer up above, it would have been nice to see what might have happened if the Bruins had a more impactful player than a past-his-prime Backes in last June’s Stanley Cup Final when their marquee free agent signing from the summer of 2016 was scratched for the final three games of the Cup series. If the Bruins had that $6 million cap slot reserved for a better, more useful player, they might have actually edged out the Blues and claimed the Cup.