Resetting the B’s defense after Jeremy Lauzon’s move to Seattle

Author Ty Anderson

July 22nd, 2021 3:41 AM

Over two years of preparation finally came together Wednesday night in Seattle, as Kraken general manager Ron Francis assembled his squad with the NHL’s second expansion draft in four years.

Making 30 picks, Francis & Co. led the night off with their selection of Bruins defenseman Jeremy Lauzon. (For the record, that wasn’t ceremonious or anything. It was just the order in which the Kraken and league decided to do things this time around, beginning in the Atlantic Division and in alphabetical order, putting Lauzon ahead of the legendary William Borgen.)

It was the direction many expected the Kraken to go in when it came to their Boston options. I had my own rankings that I thought made sense for Seattle given the market’s options, but I put the odds on Lauzon and Connor Clifton at 45 percent each, and gave the remaining 10 percent to Nick Ritchie in a Sunday radio hit with Matt McCarthy and Sean Sylver, in case you were wondering who that was sounding horrible on the air for a few minutes.

But it’s still a move that’ll come with some considerable fallout for the Boston defense.

• Kraken go with Lauzon’s size, upside over Clifton

  Share

  Looking at this as a simple Lauzon vs. Clifton debate, the Kraken opted to go with size and potential long-term upside when they chose Lauzon over Clifton. Ultimately, I think Clifton made more sense as the rare right-shot defenseman with multiple years left on his current deal, but Lauzon has two inches on Clifton by always-tricky hockey measurements, is younger, and cheaper. This was a theme of the Kraken's drafting strategy. This wasn't the Golden Knights going for something real out of the gate. There's clearly more long-term building in mind with Seattle's picks, and we'll have to wait and see what side deals (if any) determined their thinking behind that approach, especially with so many legitimate pieces available for Francis.
  
  And perhaps the Kraken believe that Lauzon has more top-four potential to be discovered whereas Clifton may be what he is, a third-pairing defender with fill-in potential, at 26 years old. They are also more willing to live through Lauzon's growing pains as they explore that ceiling, too, which is something the win-now Bruins wanted to do but ultimately had to rein in at times.
  
  But what's interesting about the Kraken choosing Lauzon over Clifton is that of the 10 NHL defensemen they selected on Wednesday night, eight of them are left shots. That group is headlined by ex-Flames captain Mark Giordano, and with Jamie Oleksiak, Vince Dunn, and the 6-foot-5 Carson Soucy behind him. That kind of logjam will almost certainly require Lauzon to move over to his off side, which is something he's done in the past, but if that's their plan, why not just grab the righty?

• How Lauzon’s loss impacts B’s plans to bolster top-four group

  Share

  Bringing this back to Boston, Lauzon's departure does create quite the dilemma for the Bruins.
  
  The Bruins have been open about their need for another left-shot, top-four defenseman. They've already been linked to veteran Ryan Suter, the Coyotes' hopes for an Oliver Ekman-Larsson trade are still there, and this year's free agent class is headlined by Alec Martinez, a two-time Cup winner who had a monster postseason effort for the Golden Knights this summer.
  
  In addition to being capable of playing a solid 20 minutes per night, Boston is believed to be looking for someone with a puck-moving element to their game in that search. It's what Brandon Carlo wants to his left on the B's second pairing, too.
  
  Now, where Lauzon factors into this is that he was undoubtedly the Bruins' fallback option in the event that their search was unsuccessful (a very real possibility in a shallow market of dudes about to get paid). While they have the super-paced Matt Grzelcyk-Charlie McAvoy pairing in their back pocket, the Bruins weren't afraid to put Lauzon with McAvoy and drop Grzelcyk down to Carlo's pairing for a better balance. The results weren't horrible, either, as McAvoy proved capable of carrying Lauzon.
  
  The B's options there with him out of the picture are a bit scarier, with John Moore and Jakub Zboril the most experienced (and next best) options behind Grzelcyk on the Boston depth chart. Hip issues limited Moore to just five games in 2021 (and he's played just 29 games over the last two seasons), while Zboril fell out of frame entirely following the Mike Reilly pickup. Reilly, of course, could still be in the Bruins' plans despite his status as a pending unrestricted free agent after a career-high 27 assists. But if the Bruins retain Reilly and do not add to their left side, that's a still a net loss on that side of the blue line.
  
  One option for the Bruins if all else fails: A Clifton-Carlo pairing, which was actually the Black and Gold's seventh-most common pairing at five-on-five last year, with over 115 minutes of action together.

• Vaakanainen Time?

  Share

  And with Lauzon out of the picture — and with Kevan Miller retired, and Reilly and Jarred Tinordi both unrestricted free agents — you have to wonder if we're about to see Play The Kids 2.0, but this time with Urho Vaakanainen. It's been four years since the Bruins drafted Vaakanainen with the No. 18 overall pick in 2017 (he's actually the team's highest pick since Charlie McAvoy went No. 14 overall in 2016), and we've seen the Finnish blue liner for just 16 total NHL games, including eight last year.
  
  Defensemen naturally take longer to develop and the Bruins have had a logjam on the left side in recent seasons (Lauzon and Zboril can attest to both of those issues with the Big B's), but you can't but feel as if the door is open for Vaak and that the Bruins are simply begging him to walk through it. And if he doesn't walk through it, it's going to begin to shut. I don't think the Bruins have the time to wait around and find out like they did with an empty-arena, every-other-night 2021 schedule. Especially if they're serious about giving this core one final (they really mean it this time, I think) shot at a Cup.
  
  At the very least, Vaakanainen should (read as: needs to) provide legitimate competition for both Zboril and Moore in this year's training camp. Especially with his game being closer to what the Bruins just lost with Lauzon's move to Seattle.
• Bruins officially need more snarl on backend

  Share

  I think the constant need for size and physicality is often overblown. If only because the very definition has become so muddled over the years. But the Bruins absolutely need an extra infusion of what you'd consider the components of a 'tough' blue line in 2021-22 with Lauzon off to Seattle (and with Kevan Miller announcing his retirement earlier this month).
  
  And if you've noticed a trend in recent seasons, it's size on the backend. The Lightning's 'smallest' defenseman was Ryan McDonagh, the Canadiens had their own Redwood trees back there, and clogging an opponent's navigation through the offensive zone has become an understandable focal point with pure chaos and pairing radiuses that'll simply blow your mind.
  
  Lauzon and Miller were just two of Boston's three Opening Night defensemen 6-foot-1 or taller (Carlo was the other). Moore is 6-foot-2 but again he played just five games, and while that number jumped to five with the in-season additions of Reilly and Tinordi, the Bruins are currently slated to begin the 2021-22 season with just two defenseman over 6-foot-1 (with Moore being one of them), and just three over 200 pounds. If the recent trend is indeed the trend, the B's are out of style.
  
  Here's another stat that's a bit alarming for the Bruins: The B's had 549 total hits from their defense in 2021. Lauzon accounted for 98 of them. Miller had another 64. That’s 29.5 of total hits from backend now out of the picture. The Boston defense also finished with 404 blocks as a unit in 2021. Lauzon collected 53 of them (second-most on the team), and Miller added 37. That’s 22.3 percent of the team's total blocks from the backend. That's a significant loss. Especially when you look at who you're asking to pick up the slack from a pure physicality standpoint if this is the core of the defense that begins the 2021-22 year in Boston.
  
  Lauzon and Miller also took on some heavy D-zone assignment for the Bruins, and Lauzon averaged 15 and a half defensive zone starts per 60 minutes in 2021, which was second to only Florida defenseman MacKenzie Weegar among a group of 158 NHL defensemen with at least 700 all-situation minutes played this past season.
  
  Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy would prefer not to have to run Carlo into the ground with defensive-zone starts (especially with the way Carlo has absorbed absolutely devastating hits along the boards over the last four years), and same for McAvoy unless the game is in a true closeout situation. In essence, the Bruins need someone who can truly handle the grind of hard D-zone minutes, and Lauzon's departure only confirmed this as a legitimate 'must' for the B's this offseason.
  
  A name you've definitely heard me mention in the past, either on the air on on here, is Jani Hakanpaa. A 6-foot-5 defenseman who split his 2021 between Anaheim and Carolina, Hakanpaa’s 215 hits were second-most among all NHL defensemen (only Florida’s Radko Gudas had more, with 250), and his 83 blocks were the 38th-most among defensemen. The 29-year-old is also coming off a deal that paid him $750,000 in 2021, so a modest raise is certainly within Boston's price range.
  
  He's not the only option, of course. But he's just one name on a list that may have jumped up a couple lines on the Bruins' summertime to-do following the loss of Lauzon.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.

Sign me up for the 98.5 The Sports Hub email newsletter!

Get the latest Boston sports news and analysis, plus exclusive on-demand content and special giveaways from Boston's Home for Sports, 98.5 The Sports Hub.

First Name *

Last Name

Email *

Subscribe

By clicking "Subscribe" I agree to the website's terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I understand I can unsubscribe at any time.

Author Ty Anderson

Category:

• Bruins
• News
• Ty Anderson

Tags:

2021 bruins offseason,boston bruins,brandon carlo,charlie mcavoy,Connor Clifton,jakub zboril,Jeremy Lauzon,matt grzelcyk,seattle kraken,Urho Vaakanainen