With the April 12 NHL trade deadline coming up and Bob McKenzie reporting last week the Bruins were open to in-season extensions with their goalies, Boston’s roster is drenched with intrigue.
It will continue to be long after the trade deadline, as the remainder of the season will serve not only as Boston’s audition tape for a Stanley Cup run, but an indication as to which players the team will protect from the Seattle Kraken in the July 21 NHL Expansion Draft.
The rules, in a nutshell: Teams can either protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie or eight total skaters and one goalie. Players with no-trade clauses have to be protected unless they waive them.
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Ranking the buyers and sellers that must make moves ahead of deadline
Seattle can only take one player per team. Players in their first two years as well as unsigned draft choices are exempt; that can be a little confusing, so you can check PuckPedia.com’s player pages to see a player’s eligibility.
Notable exempt players for Boston include Jack Studnicka and Urho Vaakanainen. They don’t need to be protected and cannot be selected.
Free agency opens one week after the expansion draft. Tuukka Rask, David Krejci, Jaroslav Halak, Sean Kuraly and Jarred Tinordi are unrestricted free agents. If the Bruins plan on retaining any of them, they can wait until after the expansion draft so they don’t have to protect them. Matt Kalman wrote on the logistics of signing players too early; that was the inspiration for this exercise.
Boston Bruins
Here’s what my protected list would look like for the Bruins, using the 7-3-1 format:
Forwards: Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Charlie Coyle, Nick Ritchie, Jake DeBrusk, Trent Frederic
Defense: Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk
Goalie: Dan Vladar
Biggest risks to be lost: Jeremy Lauzon, Craig Smith, Jakub Zboril, Anders Bjork, Connor Clifton
We might be getting into "Do they really need to protect DeBrusk?" territory, but for now I’ll still say yes. He’s an asset, albeit a diminishing one. I’m guessing the Bruins didn’t sign Smith with plans on exposing him, but Ritchie and Frederic might have changed Boston’s plans by being good NHL players.
Frederic could very well be the team’s fourth-line center next year and Ritchie looks like a middle-six winger who’s years younger than Smith.
Now let’s be silly and imagine what an 8-1 list might look like. Spoiler: It looks like the worst idea.
Skaters: Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Charlie Coyle, Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk, Jeremy Lauzon
Goalie: Dan Vladar
Biggest risks to be lost: Jake DeBrusk, Nick Ritchie, Craig Smith, Trent Frederic, Jakub Zboril, Anders Bjork, Connor Clifton
I don’t think websites do this, but this section should be in Comic Sans. The 8-1 would absolutely not be the way to go for the Bruins. Really, the only way I could see them doing this would be if they were hell-bent on keeping Lauzon and couldn’t work out some sort of agreement with Seattle.
We’ll do more of these before the time comes for lists to actually be submitted. There are lots of factors -- Ritchie’s surprising season and DeBrusk’s struggles among them -- that could influence a change, so individual performances will be worth watching the rest of the way.