The Boston Bruins have reportedly set up a meeting with Ilya Kovalchuk and is looking for a way to help his team get over the hump next season. One way that might happen is through trade, and today on WGR 550 in Buffalo, Darren Dreger of TSN spoke about how Bruins’ GM Don Sweeney has gotten several calls about center David Krejci:
I know that there are teams calling on David Krejci as well. The Bruins would like to move [David] Backes. I think they’re again a little reluctant to consider trading David Krejci, but every player has a price tag. I think we need to look at Don Sweeney, the GM of the Bruins, as being perhaps a team and a GM that could be very active in the days ahead.
Reluctance to the idea of trading Krejci shouldn’t come as a surprise, given his continued production and stabilizing presence down the middle for the Bruins. Though the team certainly has some young forwards ready to take on bigger roles, the duo of Krejci and Patrice Bergeron at center allows the team to match up well against nearly anyone in the Eastern Conference. Krejci is coming off a season in which he recorded 44 points in just 64 games, and was excellent for the Bruins in the playoffs once again.
His contract though does cause some concern, and likely keeps Sweeney on the phone a little longer than he would normally stay. Though Krejci is an excellent player for the team still, he’s now 32 years old and is still under contract for three more seasons at a $7.25MM cap hit. While the actual salary drops a bit next season, he would be an extremely expensive asset if his play were to decline at all over the next few seasons. Trading him now, if teams are offering legitimate packages, may actually be a good idea.
Still, Krejci has a full no-movement clause for this season and a partial no-trade clause moving forward. He generally holds his future in his own hands, and has never made any indication that he would want to be moved out of Boston. With the Bruins not extremely interested in moving him, it seems like a very small chance that he’ll be playing on another team come the start of the 2018-19 season.
The fact that they want to trade Backes also doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The physical forward fought through injury this season but was relatively effective when he played, registering 33 points in 57 games. Still, he struggled in the playoffs and is now a 34-year old injury risk that doesn’t have a clear spot in the lineup. He currently carries a $6MM cap hit with three years remaining on his current contract, and it seems unlikely that he’ll ever return to the 30-goal, 60-point player he was in St. Louis. A trade may have to wait a year though, as Backes also holds a no-movement clause for the next year before seeing it drop to an eight-team trade list in the summer of 2019. At that point the salary also drops, and after paying him a signing bonus on July 1st, 2019 Backes will be owed just $5MM total over the last two seasons of his contract. If you were to acquire him right now, that number is $14MM for the last three years.
The Bruins find themselves without a first-round pick in this year’s draft thanks to the trade to acquire Rick Nash, one that Sweeney likely wishes he could take back given the power forward’s disappearance down the stretch and in the playoffs. Instead, the team would have to use other assets to acquire the talent that they want for next season, be that through trade or free agency.
Keep krejci, move backes