As Eriksson surges, so too does the conundrum facing the Bruins
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COMMENTARY
The Boston Bruins need to trade Loui Eriksson.
The Boston Bruins need to hitch themselves to Loui Eriksson for the long term.
Somewhere in the middle of those two conceivabilities lies the conundrum facing Bruins general manager Don Sweeney and president Cam Neely, watching their integral free-agent-to-be winger en route to his best season in a Boston uniform.
Eriksson is part of the future either way for a team in a certain purgatory despite its second-place standing in the Atlantic Division. But it’s up to the Bruins now to decide it that future includes Eriksson himself, or the package he could bring back in return before the NHL trading deadline on Feb. 29.
On Tuesday night, in a game that the Bruins played so lethargically, one could be forgiven assuming it took place at Boston’s Home of Horrors (12-14-3), Eriksson scored the winning goal only 33 seconds into overtime to give his team a 2-1 win over the lowly Blue Jackets (23-28-7) in Columbus, Ohio. The forward has scored in all four games of the Bruins’ current, 3-1 road trip, and is now tied with David Krejci for second on the team with 45 points, only three in back of Patrice Bergeron, who returned to the ice Tuesday and scored his 22nd goal of the season in the first period.
“I’m finding ways to score goals and it’s always nice to have that feeling and just have to keep building on that,’’ Eriksson said. “I’m trying to play a little bit more in front again and it seems like the puck’s finding me and I’ll have to keep doing that.’’
It’s the sixth 20-goal season for the 30-year-old Eriksson in 10 NHL seasons, his second in three seasons with the Bruins. Perhaps in any other city, the player might get his due as a top-3 forward on a team in competition for a perennial playoff spot. But Eriksson’s direct Boston lineage begins at Phil Kessel and oozes into Tyler Sequin and Dougie Hamilton. It ends with him remaining as the lone piece of a seven-year-old deal that once reaped celebrated assets, only to peter out with the possibility that Eriksson finds rich reward elsewhere on the free agent market this summer.
Thank you, Kessel.
For nothing.
Eriksson’s impending free agency has put Sweeney and Neely in the unenviable position of either sitting pat in mediocrity, or running the risk of surrendering a piece of the team’s core. Despite their playoff-positioning, the Bruins aren’t very good. Nor are they a player or two away from being very good, even as they watch Brad Marchand, Tuukka Rask, Bergeron, and Krejci soar in the primes of their careers. The defense remains a sordid mess, one that only Ponce de Leon could rectify by inviting the aging and overmatched Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg over to his place for a fountain-based dinner. If you caught Rask in an honest moment, he’d probably describe the current constitution of the defensive corps as something with an “F.’’ And we don’t mean in his native Finnish tongue.
Stanley Cups have gone to more improbable squads, as we were reminded over the weekend watching the Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes celebrate their 10-year anniversary. How would these Bruins justify trading the two-way threat that Eriksson delivers and argue that it wasn’t a white flag move to prepare for the future?
Never mind the fact that the message would probably fall just fine on the right sets of ears, those who understand this team’s situation and dimming prospects for next year and beyond, it wouldn’t play as well with Bruins players, who watched last summer’s gutting of the roster with eyes behind their heads. Gone are Hamilton, Milan Lucic, and Johnny Boychuk, dealt for little immediate impact, which one would have to assume would be the same with Eriksson.
Such a trade would signal a full rebuilding mode on the horizon. But isn’t that really what the Bruins are already in?
Which leaves them only two options; sign or trade. Option 3, letting the season play out and then seeing what the demand turn out to be come July 1 just isn’t feasible. Unless you want to play the “I Had Tyler Seguin and Turned Him Into Nothing In Only Three Short Years’’ game.
According to Sportsnet Canada, Eriksson, who currently makes $4.5 million per year, is reportedly seeking a long-term deal that pays a yearly salary from the high $5-million to the high $6-million range. Defenseman Torey Krug highlights the list of restricted free agents the Bruins will have to address (or, in the case of Brett Connolly, not) in the offseason, while Chris Kelly’s $3 million will come off the books in 2016-17. The Bruins had reportedly had primary contract extensions with Eriksson and his agents, but so far nothing has come of them.
Despite rumblings that deadline deals won’t net ransoms like they did a year ago (Antoine Vermette, anyone?) the desperation of teams in the hunt at the Canadian holiday hardly fails to surprise. There’s always the possibility Sweeney could add, giving the Bruins some semblance of expiring contract defensive help while holding onto to Eriksson, contract or not. But it’s not like the Young Defenseman Fairy is out there somewhere. Unless his name is Peter Chiarelli, and the Edmonton Oilers really don’t have those guys to give either.
“I’d like to keep Loui, period. Just like the guys that have left us I would have loved to have kept,’’ head coach Claude Julien said earlier this month. “So those are things that, as a coach, I’d like to have Looch. I’d like to have Hamilton, other guys, sure. But we couldn’t keep them for different reasons.’’
Let that be an omen, if you will.
The Bruins may not need to trade Loui Eriksson.
But they will.
Contact Eric Wilbur at: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @GlobeEricWilbur and Facebook www.facebook.com/GlobeEricWilbur
Potential trade targets for the Bruins
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