The most important two-plus weeks in the National Hockey League offseason are upon us. The trade season usually gets kickstarted at the draft, which takes place on Friday and Saturday in Dallas. Then comes the opening of free agency on July 1.
By July 2, we could have an idea whether the Bruins will still be one of the contenders in the Eastern Conference or if they’ll slide right back to the middle of the pack.
The B’s have three questions facing them.
1. Will they make a deal to bring in a bigger left-shot defenseman, one who actually would make the team better?
2. Will they nail down a veteran top-six right winger, whether it be Ilya Kovalchuk or Rick Nash?
3. Will they get backup goalie Anton Khudobin signed?
With teams like Carolina and Buffalo looking to make impact moves, the trade market is expected to heat up. The Canadiens may have kickstarted it Friday night when they traded wanna-be center Alex Galchenyuk to Arizona for Max Domi, who has not been able to build off a promising rookie season.
Business should pick up once all 31 GMs and their staffs are in Dallas this week. Whether that leads to the Bruins landing their defenseman remains to be seen. They went into last year’s draft in Chicago with the same need and came up empty.
The Bruins started last season with right-shot Kevan Miller playing on his weak side. Fortunately for them, Matt Grzelcyk developed into a good enough NHL defenseman by November, and the B’s enjoyed a regular season far better than anyone expected. The size drop-off after Zdeno Chara on the left side, however, was one of the things that caught up to them in the playoffs.
They would certainly love to get Carolina’s Noah Hanifin, the Norwood native on whom they had designs at the draft three years ago, and he is gettable. The Hurricanes are looking to shake things up and the B’s have the assets to get it done. But would Hanifin come at such a cost that the acquisition would not make the B’s appreciably better? That’s what Don Sweeney will have to figure out.
Would he be willing to part with Torey Krug? Would the ’Canes live without Jake DeBrusk — seemingly everyone’s ask — being part of the package? We could soon find out. Sweeney was able to take one variable out of the equation when he got some cost certainty on Grzelcyk, signing the restricted free agent to a two-year deal with an annual cap hit of $1.4 million. It’s a fair deal for both sides.
As for Kovalchuk/Nash, count me as someone who was very much in favor of re-signing Nash. Before he suffered the concussion that appeared to hinder his productivity in the playoffs, Nash was the spark he was expected to be. But Kovalchuk, believed to be looking for a three-year deal in the neighborhood of $6 million per year, could be a game-changer.
And while some around the league seemed surprised by the Bruins keen interest — perhaps because of the potential cost, or maybe because Sergei Samsonov is the team’s entire history of Russian stars — Boston would be as good a fit as any of the known suitors. Maybe the best. While Kovachuk would present options for the Bruins, dropping him on the second line as right winger to David Krejci would allow the 35-year-old to avoid top defense pairings who’d be utilized against the top line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. The Bruins would also give him the chance to win, which is reportedly the reason he’s returning to the NHL.
Lastly, but not leastly, there’s Khudobin. The goalie is just a week away from the open speaking period, during which he can have contact with other teams before July 1. While both player and team have said they want the relationship to continue, they haven’t been able to come to a deal. With no in-house replacement ready, it’s imperative the B’s sign Khudobin or another reliable backup. Without him helping Tuukka Rask through a sizable rough patch last year, the 2017-18 campaign could have imploded in November.
A lot of GMs would love to switch spots with Sweeney, but he’s got work to do.
SENATORS’ DOWNWARD SPIRAL GROWS UGLIER BY THE DAY
Judging by social media comments from some NHL wives, including two of former Ottawa Senators, the ugly situation between Erik Karlsson’s wife and Mike Hoffman’s significant other was no surprise to those on the inside.
A couple of questions, then. If it was such an poorly kept secret, why didn’t team management know about it until the end of the season, as was reported? And if they did know about it before then, why wasn’t it addressed before it had a chance to go public last week?
Not only were the things directed at Melinda Karlsson after the Karlsson’s child was stillborn nothing short of heinous — Hoffman and fiancee Monika Caryk, after initially punting on a chance to respond to the Ottawa Citizen, later denied the comments/threats were from her — but this is your best player, one of the best players in the league, that is having his family messed with.
Now GM Pierre Dorion is tasked with getting something for Hoffman, a player not in Karlsson’s class, but a productive one. He’s scored 20-plus goals in each of his four full seasons in Ottawa and would have been a decent trade chip, but now Dorion likely will get pennies on the dollar for a player — despite denials by Hoffman — who has to be considered toxic around the league.
In case you missed it, and it was hard to, the Citizen broke the story that Melinda Karlsson applied for an order of protection against Caryk, alleging an online campaign of harassment throughout last season that turned especially ugly after the couple’s child was stillborn in March — again, accusations that have been denied. In the aftermath of the story, Melinda Karlsson received some online support that was eye-opening.
“Oh man, if you only knew how unsurprising this actually is,” tweeted Marlee Hammond, wife of former Senators goaltender Andrew Hammond. “Horrible just horrible. And the worst part of this is how she just wanted to keep this private because she’s THAT nice of a person even when a person can be this cruel to her.”
From Julie Turris, wife of former Senator Kyle Turris: “This crossed the line from cyber bullying to something entirely different in April. Unfortunate that this private matter has become public. Incredibly proud of my girl for standing up for herself and her family, it took courage.”
Karlsson, too, seems likely to be on the move. He’s got one year left on his deal and it would seem unlikely that he would re-sign in Ottawa. Better to get what they can for him now.
While the Sens are destined for a protracted rebuild, they are not in the best shape for it. They have two first-round picks in the upcoming draft, which should help, but they are without a second and a third. In 2019, when they could be a high lottery pick, their first rounder will belong to Colorado thanks to the Matt Duchene deal. Oh, and Duchene is up after this year, too.
The Sens, who went to overtime of Game 7 in the Eastern Conference finals just two seasons ago, have had a brutal few months. In December at the Sens’ outdoor game festivities, owner Eugene Melnyk alienated fans by, among other things, threatening to move the team. At the scouting combine in Buffalo a couple of weeks ago, assistant GM Randy Lee was charged with second degree harassment after a hotel shuttle driver accused him of unwanted touching and lewd comments. And now the Karlsson-Hoffman soap dysfunction.
Surely the hockey fans of Ottawa long for the good old days when Guy Boucher’s torture-to-watch 1-3-1 system was the team’s biggest issue.
SECONDS COUNT
If the Bruins don’t make a deal to move into the first round of the draft, something Sweeney has admitted will be difficult, they won’t be making their first pick until No. 57 and won’t get anyone who’ll help them immediately there.
But while the B’s have had some notable whiffs in the first — passing on Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor and Brock Boeser in 2015 will haunt them for a while — the second round has been pretty good to them.
Here’s a quick top five since the turn of the century:
1. Patrice Bergeron (No. 45 in 2003)
His number one day will be in the Garden rafters and he should make it to the Hall of Fame.
2. David Krejci (No. 63 in 2004)
Injuries have slowed him a bit, but people tend to forget he was the No. 1 center on a Stanley Cup champion.
3. Milan Lucic (No. 50 in 2006)
A very important player on the 2011 Stanley Cup champs.
4. Brandon Carlo (No. 37 in 2015)
Should be a serviceable top-four defenseman for years to come.
5. Ryan Donato (No. 56 in 2014)
Has the tools to be a star.