The narrative that goes with the Boston Bruins’ trading Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders is that the team simply had no choice; there were cap issues, and as a result the player’s out. It’s a narrative that’s been repeated in a lot of places, and it's one that Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli implied in the aftermath of the deal.
“This was really hard to do,” he said in a press conference broadcast on the team’s official site. “There’s an element of business to it, an element of hockey, and we tried to get ahead of it a little bit. He was upset, I was upset; I’m still upset.”
The reality, of course, is that the Bruins did have a choice. As CapGeek explains in its indispensable guide to long-term injured reserve, Boston has the choice between putting $4.0 million man Marc Savard on long-term injured reserve before the start of the season or stashing him there after opening day.
There are some cap benefits to putting him there later, but Boston had the option to stick him on LTIR now, which would have allowed them to comply with ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Boston Bruins’ Highly Suspect Johnny Boychuk Trade May Prove Costly
October 4th, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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