The Boston Bruins have found their defenseman, signing John Moore to a five-year, $13.75MM contract according to Frank Seravalli of TSN. Moore is coming off a three-year $5MM contract and was an unrestricted free agent for the first time.
Boston had been after a defenseman for some time, trying to give themselves some depth and balance on the blue line. While this does help the depth of their group, it’s not clear what role Moore will carve out for himself. As a left-handed defenseman, he slots in behind Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug and would be battling with the recently re-signed Matt Grzelcyk for playing time. That is of course unless someone moves over, but the early speculation immediately went to Krug’s future with the club. Moore can carry the puck has a good shot and could be a useful piece for the Bruins powerplay, a role that Krug currently occupies.
The 27-year old Moore has certainly not has as much success offensively as Krug, but recently topped 20 minutes a night with the New Jersey Devils and will offer the Bruins some long-term stability on the left side. His five-year deal is much longer than we at PHR expected when ranking him 21st on our Top 50 UFA List, but the $2.75MM AAV is close to our $2.83MM estimate. It’s a reasonable cap hit for a player of his quality, and doesn’t pose a lot of risk at such a relatively low cap hit. Even if Moore fails to live up to expectations, it can’t cripple the Bruins’ salary structure. Moore becomes the only Boston defenseman signed past the 2019-20 season, giving them plenty of options on how to build the blue line going forward.
Nice signing by the Bruins. the one thing I like about this team is they don’t sit back and wait to get their guy.
Yeah I figured we’d see something from them once Tavares was off the board.
Anyone know much about this guy? What can we expect to see from him?
He’s a great puck mover and skater. Struggles physically and can’t stop cycles and takes some penalties, but he’s a solid OT threat and 2nd pairing guy. He should shoot more
Great. Thanks.
Why? This isn’t a need. Whose ice time is he taking? Chara, Krug, McAvoy, Carlo, Miller, Grzlyk, McQuaid. And Vaakanainen, Zboril, Lauzon all coming.
This is type of move that I thinks spells the end for Torey Krug and one of Miller or Mquaid.
John Moore is trash. Really bummed out by the length of this deal
Good bye Torey Krug. It was great while it lasted.