According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Boston Bruins have placed depth forward John Beecher on waivers. If he clears by this time tomorrow, the Bruins can safely reassign him to the AHL’s Providence Bruins.
The expectation is that the Bruins were making a transaction with Beecher today. Boston may need another defenseman on the active roster with Charlie McAvoy’s status up in the air. To that end, Steve Conroy of The Boston Herald relayed a note from Bruins head coach Marco Sturm setting the expectation that something would happen with Beecher this afternoon.
Unfortunately, regarding McAvoy, there is some cause for concern. Conor Ryan of The Boston Globe reported earlier that Boston’s medical staff is still evaluating McAvoy, and that surgery hadn’t been ruled out yet.
Potentially falling to six healthy defenseman on the active roster, and coupled with Matej Blumel and Riley Tufte’s recall this morning, Beecher came the odd-man out of the Bruins’ lineup to fill in the hole on defense.
Beecher had become the odd man out, realistically, before today. The former first-round pick has been dealing with an upper-body injury of late, but has only appeared in six of Boston’s games on the season, tallying one goal. Additionally, he’s seen his ATOI drop by an entire minute compared to last season.
His lack of offense has been a consistent theme for some time now. Despite being a later first-round selection, Beecher has never scored more than 11 points in any single NHL season, and 23 in an AHL campaign. He has shown flashes of quality play in the faceoff dot and on the defensive side of the puck, though not enough to overlook his offensive staleness.
Even if he makes it through waivers unscathed, Beecher’s time in the Bruins organization may be coming to a close. The 24-year-old center, who’s earning a $900K salary at the NHL level this year, is set to become a restricted free agent next offseason and may become a non-tender candidate.
The Blackhawks should claim him, since Foligno is injured and Beecher is still young and a former 1st rounder
Being a “former 1st rounder” doesn’t mean sh*t if you can’t play the game. Beecher is good at the dot and he’s physical, but he’s never scored so much as double figures in goals: not in college, not in the minors.
I had to go back and look up his college numbers because I thought he was projected to be the next super star center for Bruins when he was drafted by them. They sure wasted a pick on him and I feel like they haven’t drafted anybody who will be really good in last ten years.