Bruins dealt more uncertainty on injury front

A nightmare on Long Island for the Bruins was even worse than the 5-1 final score indicated Saturday night, as the Bruins suffered yet another loss on the personnel front, this time with Pavel Zacha ruled out of action early into the loss.

And to make matters worse, Zacha's departure also failed to come with any sort of reassuring word from the B's.

“I just know it’s a lower-body [injury]," Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said following Saturday's loss. "Don’t have any firm update. Whether it’s day-to-day or week-to-week, I don’t have an update.”

MORE ON THE BRUINS...

- Struggles continue with ugly loss to Islanders

- B's owe it to themselves to make call on Jake DeBrusk

- Jake DeBrusk would like to get an extension done

With the Bruins truly off on Sunday as the team traveled from Long Island to Toronto ahead a Monday night tilt with the Maple Leafs, the focus now turns to Monday's morning skate in Toronto. On Monday morning, Zacha's presence alone will tell you a bit when it comes to availability, be it for that night or even Tuesday in Boston against the Oilers. An absence, however, and there's only more wonder (panic) when it comes to what's next for the Bruins.

The Bruins have been without center Matt Poitras after he underwent season-ending surgery last month, and they are currently without their top lefty defenseman Hampus Lindholm on a week-to-week basis. And the truth is that these Bruins aren't built to withstand more injuries, but especially more injuries when it comes to high-impact talents.

With Zacha done for the night early into Saturday's loss, Montgomery's line blender went into overdrive in the top six, as David Pastrnak played at least five minutes of five-on-five time with Charlie Coyle, Brad Marchand, Danton Heinen, and Morgan Geekie by the night's end.

Zacha, who has been Boston's No. 2 center behind Coyle all year long from a usage standpoint, has put up 12 goals and 36 points in 58 games this season.

For a team tied for the top spot in their division 60 games into the season, the 2024 Bruins have a ton of needs.

The natural problem for Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, however, is that his team does not have a ton of capital to address those needs. In what's been an an unofficial 'bridge' year —a bridge year that's certainly exceeded expectations one may have had back in July, of course — the Bruins are currently paying the bill due from years and years of 'win now' moves. From the cap overages that wrecked the Bruins' cap ceiling to a lack of draft picks, the Bruins simply are what they are.

This may been truer than ever, to be honest. Especially when you look at the Black and Gold's play since returning from the NHL All-Star break (a 3-3-5 record, good for a .500 point percentage, tied for 18th-best in the NHL), as well as their cap space situation that almost guarantees a 'money in, money out' kind of deadline from the Bruins.

That's never stopped Sweeney & Co. from tinkering before, and you can almost expect the same this time around. (Sweeney has never completely sat out a trade deadline in his eight deadlines on the job.)

But where should the Bruins turn when it comes to upgrading this year's roster?

Given that the Bruins lost two franchise pillars to retirement last year in Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, what the Bruins have gotten out of the center position this season hasn't been too shabby. Charlie Coyle is in the midst of a career year (Coyle's 21 goals this year have tied his previous career high, and he's just seven points away from matching his career-high of 56 set in 2016-17), and Pavel Zacha has posted a respectable 12 goals and 36 points through 56 games.

It's not the ideal top-six center group, of course, but it's also been far from the worst, with Coyle ranking 29th and Zacha ranking 56th among scoring by centers this season.

But like any good team with the hopes of being great, another productive center can only help.

There's already been some major shuffling on the center market — top prize Elias Lindholm went to Vancouver and the Canadiens traded Sean Monahan to the Jets shortly thereafter — but there's still some talent to be moved between now and Mar. 8. The top option is probably the Ducks' Adam Henrique (16 goals and 38 points, along with a 53.1 percent success rate at the dot, in 57 games this season), while other notables include the Blue Jackets' Jack Roslovic (17 points in 34 games), Seattle's Alex Wennberg (23 points in 58 games), and Washington's Nic Dowd (16 points in 45 games).

The Bruins could also try to make a potential long-term play of sorts (similar to their summer 2022 move for Zacha) and acquire a player like Buffalo's Casey Mittelstadt or the Flyers' Morgan Frost.

For the Bruins, scoring has not been as much of a problem as you may think. The Bruins begin Wednesday ranked 10th in goals per game (3.32), while their power play ranks ninth (23.2 percent). The Bruins also have three of the game's top 48 forwards in goals scored, and eight in the top 200. But so, so much of that product comes from their top dogs on both the left side (Brad Marchand) and right side (David Pastrnak), and the Bruins could stand to add another dependable scoring threat.

Because the actual problem the B's have when it comes to their options behind Marchand and Pastrnak is that they're all a bit too streaky. Guys like Jake DeBrusk, James van Riemsdyk, and even Trent Frederic have been extremely hot or extremely cold this year, and it's a bit of a guessing game in terms of what you're gonna get from those guys on a weekly basis.

On the wings, this year's market is headlined by the Penguins' Jake Guentzel. He's likely out of the Black and Gold's price range, however, so perhaps it's best to focus on some of the market's mid-tier options. That list includes the Sens' Vladimir Tarasenko (a 2019 Cup winner with 44 goals in 97 career playoff games), Kraken winger Jordan Eberle (55 goals over the last three seasons), the Ducks' Frank Vatrano (a career-high 26 goals this year), and Sharks winger Anthony Duclair.

Jim Montgomery's Bruins had an 'identity' type of fourth line when they dropped the puck on the 2023-24 season, with Milan Lucic to the left of Johnny Beecher and Jakub Lauko. And, to be honest, it looked like it was going to be a gigantic pain in the ass for the opposition. But since Lucic got himself in some legal trouble and by all means kicked off the team, the line has struggled to have much of an identity at all. In fact, Beecher's been down in Providence for the last month plus (largely due to Boston's salary cap issues), and Lauko has struggled to earn consistent ice time.

And if the Bruins are hunting for some fourth-line help this deadline (and I honestly think it might be a bigger need than some realize), it should of the Lucic-type, with an emphasis on some muscle, physicality, and a little bit of nasty. Of course, the league isn't exactly pumping out 6-foot-4, 220-pound wingers who can put a defenseman through the glass, so that quest may be one of the more challenging ones for Sweeney between now and Mar. 8.

One player that comes to mind is the Coyotes' Liam O'Brien. Not only does O'Brien make league minimum, which is up the B's alley, but he's also recorded the third-most fighting majors in the NHL this season (eight), and has recorded 135 hits in 50 games. If the Bruins want more of a Garnet Hathaway-esque fourth-line wing, the Wild's Brandon Duhaime is another potential name of interest. The 26-year-old Duhaime, who is making $1.1 million and is a pending UFA, has recorded 492 hits over the last three seasons (20th-most among NHL forwards over that span).

For some, this isn't even a true need for this club given their other issues. But there's simply been too many instances of the Bruins being the nail and not the hammer, or not being able to muster the appropriate response to another team taking some liberties on their top talents. This was something that the team corrected last year, and it should be corrected once again.

There's been a ton of talk about the Bruins needing a high-end center. And rightfully so. But if you ask me, the Bruins also need another high-end defenseman, particularly on the left side, just as bad as they need a center.

Looking at the Bruins' left-side depth chart, they have Hampus Lindholm locked up for the foreseeable future, but they also two pending unrestricted free agents facing an uncertain future with the Bruins (Matt Grzelcyk and Derek Forbort), and Mason Lohrei is a true first-year pro and is going to go through some natural growing pains as he adjusts to the pro game. When you look at the overall picture, perhaps it's in the Bruins' best interest to attack that now before they're beat to the punch and watch as someone else acquires-and-extends a player the Bruins view as a legitimate need.

In this instance, I'm of course talking about the Flames' Noah Hanifin. A pending unrestricted free agent, the Massachusetts-born Hanifin has been linked to the Bruins since before his name was called at the 2015 NHL Draft. Those rumblings are louder than ever, too, with some front office people around the NHL believing that Hanifin is going to join the B's this summer. But that's always subject to change, especially if another contender pulls the trigger and acquires Hanifin at the trade deadline and sell him on their franchise on the way to a long-term, big-money extension.

The price of acquiring a player like Hanifin would certainly be steep (especially if the Bruins feel they can add him for nothin' but cash this summer), but it's hard not to salivate over the potential of a top-four defense group featuring Hanifin, Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, and Brandon Carlo all locked up on long-term deals.

The Bruins can never have enough defensemen. I mean, there's a good chance Sweeney himself would admit as much given the almost bizarre way they've run through defensemen in pretty much every postseason under his watch.

It's also been three straight deadlines with a blue liner added to the mix for the Bruins — they added Mike Reilly in 2021, Hampus Lindholm and Josh Brown in 2022, and Dmitry Orlov last year — and you can argue that this year's team needs another defender as much, if not more, than those teams did.

Some potentially notable names there: Anaheim's Ilya Lyubushkin, Washington's Joel Edmundson, and Philadelphia's Nick Seeler. All three are physical, big-bodied defensemen that may fit the Bruins' needs as a team that wants to have stronger, tighter net-front coverage and more shot-blocking threats.

Most years, a team tied for first place in their division selling at the deadline would be grounds for termination for that team's general manager. But for the Bruins, a team several lacking assets, it may be the perfect move.

Up front, the Bruins have four pending unrestricted free agents between Jake DeBrusk, James van Riemsdyk, Danton Heinen, and Anthony Richard. Focusing in on DeBrusk, if the Bruins have not made progress on a potential extension (or if they don't want to extend DeBrusk), it would make sense for the B's to see what's out there. Especially if Guentzel goes for a haul and in turn jacks up the price on a player such as DeBrusk for those who missed out on him. And if someone is willing to pay a lot for 'JVR', a player who is unlikely to fit into the Bruins' plans beyond this season, that's a call you have to take.

On the backend, the Bruins have four pending UFAs with Matt Grzelcyk, Derek Forbort, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Parker Wotherspoon. And similar to how you view the situation up front, any player who does not factor into Boston's plans beyond this season should be 'available' if it means improving the B's future without severely compromising their present.

If this is indeed a bridge year, and the Bruins are honest with themselves that they're not a true Cup contender (that's not to say that they're bad, just that they need some good fortune to go on a deep run), you can make a great argument that they should treat it as such when it comes to their pending free agents if teams are interested.

In what would be a true first for Sweeney, maybe the Bruins decide to simply sit this deadline out and roll with what they have on their roster and in their pipeline. There's plenty of logical sense within that given the aforementioned lack of both assets and cap space, as well as their recent play.

If this were to happen, the Bruins would essentially have to embrace the idea of showcasing their younger players in the event of injuries or inconsistencies. You've already seen that Mason Lohrei back in the picture (and in a top-four role) with Hampus Lindholm on the shelf, and it would have to be executed with the likes of Georgii Merkulov and Fabian Lysell up front should the B's lose a forward or two. That's not always the worst. Just ask David Krejci, who got thrown into big-time minutes in 2008 as a result of injuries, and simply never looked back.

Click here for 98.5 The Sports Hub’s complete coverage of the Bruins. 

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Yell at him on Twitter/X: @_TyAnderson.