The Boston Bruins have signed forward Alex Chiasson to a professional tryout agreement, per a team announcement. Chiasson will attend the Bruins’ training camp in hopes of earning an NHL deal in Boston or elsewhere and extending his career.
The 11-year NHL veteran has become somewhat of a cult legend for converting on PTOs. This is now the fifth one of his career and his third straight one – although last season’s with the Arizona Coyotes did not result in a contract. That led to him sitting out for the beginning of the 2022-23 campaign before signing an AHL pact with the Grand Rapids Griffins. After scoring 20 points in 29 games there, he signed a one-year, $750K deal at the trade deadline with the Detroit Red Wings to aid in their playoff push. Back in the NHL, Chiasson still looked like he deserved a spot in the lineup with six goals and nine points in 20 games.
Before that, Chiasson had a strong 2021-22 season with the Vancouver Canucks, finishing eighth on the team in goals with 13 in 67 games. That season came after a three-year stint with the Edmonton Oilers, during which he scored a career-high 22 goals and 38 points in 73 games during the 2018-19 campaign. Overall, the 32-year-old now has over 650 games of NHL experience across stints with seven teams, including a Stanley Cup win in a depth role with the Washington Capitals in 2018.
Chiasson will look to increase that figure to eight and convert on yet another PTO in Boston. The team could certainly use a cheap goal-scoring option for their bottom six, and while he doesn’t offer much in terms of youth, he does offer significantly more scoring upside than someone like A.J. Greer and could give the team more options to construct their third and fourth lines as well as the second power-play unit.
Interestingly, Bruins independent reporter Joe Haggerty notes this is a sort of full-circle move for the Bruins. They’d aggressively pursued Chiasson when he was a member of the Dallas Stars back in 2013 when he had just seven NHL games under his belt, hoping to get him as part of the massive Tyler Seguin trade that eventually transpired between the two parties.
The Bruins roster looks like they will finish between 28th and 32nd in team scoring. They will lose alot of one goal games.
Good luck with that prediction.