The Boston Bruins, and Chicago Blackhawks were two of six teams in the National Hockey League that needed to make moves to get under the salary cap by 4pm this Tuesday afternoon, or suffer the consequences of future penalties and forfeiting games to start the regular season.
New York Islanders Benefit From Blackhawks, Bruins Salary Moves
The Bruins traded defenseman Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders to get under the cap and create some flexibility on the roster. In return the Bruins got a 2015 second round draft pick, a 2016 second round draft pick, also a conditional third round draft pick in 2016. Boychuck, who was originally drafted in 2002 by the Colorado Avalanche, played in 317 games for the Bruins, while posting 19 goals, and 56 assists.
With the trade, the Bruins shed $3.36 million of Boychuck’s contract and now GM Peter Chiarelli has the wiggle room to explore options for a possible future trade, or to sign 34-year-old winger Simon Gagne, who is at the end of his pro tryout deal. The Bruins have offered Gagne to stay with the team to continue practicing but without a contract, it is highly doubtful the the aging forward will accept. Gagne has only played in 75 NHL regular season games in the past three seasons, due to many concussion issues.
This was the last year on Boychuck’s contract and while many people think this was not smart to move a very valuable piece of the defensive core, it was a smart business move for the Bruins in the future. Yes, the Bruins are going to miss his shut-down defensive capability and his accurate shot from the point, but they are also losing a very smart special teams player.
With this trade and the $4 million that is owed to forward Marc Savard, because of his “long-term injured reserve” status (which comes off the Bruins cap on October 8th), the Bruins would have potentially $4.3 million of cap space going into this year’s regular season. This will be the last season the Bruins will have to pay for Savard’s contract.
Chiarelli had to make this move because of what lies in store for the Bruins next summer, when players like forward Reilly Smith (restricted free-agent), forward Carl Soderberg (unrestricted free-agent), defenseman Torey Krug (restricted free-agent), and defenseman Dougie Hamilton (restricted free-agent) are all going to need to be resigned. Boychuk would have probably asked for a significant increase in pay that the Bruins may not have room for after this season, even if the reports are true of an increased cap next season.
The Chicago Blackhawks traded defenseman Nick Leddy, and 2010 second round goaltending prospect Kent Simpson to the New York Islanders for defenseman T.J. Brennan (Buffalo Sabres 2007 Draft Pick), defensive prospect Ville Pokka (Islanders 2012 Draft Pick), and the rights to goaltender Anders Nilsson (Islanders 2009 Draft Pick).
The Blackhawks have assigned Brennan and Pokka to the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League. Brennan must clear waivers before he repots to the Hawks AHL affiliate. Nilsson is currently playing in the Kontinental Hockey League with the Kazan Ak-Bars team.
Before this trade happened for the Hawks, GM Stan Bowman had to figure out how to work with being $1.2 million over the cap, mostly because of the addition of veteran forward Brad Richards, who signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the Hawks back on July 1, 2014. Richards played in 210 games in the last three seasons with the New York Rangers scoring 56 goals, while dishing out 95 assists.
With the Blackhawks and Bruins making salary dumps, the team that benefitted the most was in fact the New York Islanders. With players like John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen, Michael Grabner, and recently signed free-agent forwards Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolay Kulemin, as well as putting together a solid goaltending tandem with Jaroslav Halak and Chad Johnson in the crease, it all seemed like Islanders GM Garth Snow is on the right track to turn heads during the regular season.
Many have speculated that this team cannot move forward with its current core of defensemen, but adding Boychuck and Leddy has certainly made the team better on the back end. All this points to the Islanders and Snow wanting to do something special for the team and the fans for the last season at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, before moving the team to Brooklyn, New York to play at the Barclays Center to start the 2015-16 seaon
Both Boychuk (age 30) and Leddy (age 23) are in their final years of their contracts and it should be interesting to see if either will be willing to re-sign with the Islanders next summer, due to the fact that both players will be looking for upgrades in salary going into this coming summer’s free agency.
The four other teams in the NHL that need to get under the $69 million cap before Tuesday’s deadline are the Philadelphia Flyers ($5,461,429 over), the Tampa Bay Lightning ($1,877,927 over), the Washington Capitals ($1,209,295 over), and the New York Rangers ($434,667 over).
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