Are the 2015 Boston Bruins Stanley Cup Contenders?

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

Over the last couple of months (or more) many of us have spent time looking at stats, watching Hockey Rumor websites… in an attempt to figure out who the Bruins could acquire to bolster their offense, while at the same time ignoring the weaknesses on defense. A defense that is relatively the same, (minus Johnny Boychuk), that failed in last years Playoff against Montreal.

I admit I was one of those people that looked up player stats, followed the rumors… until today. Reality finally set in that regardless of whoever Peter Chiarelli may acquire he and we would be fooling ourselves if we actually believed acquiring anyone (who would fit within our salary cap), whether it be on offense or on defense, not likely both, would propel this team to another Stanley Cup Championship.

Peter isn’t bringing in Jarome Iginla (again), he isn’t bringing in Shea Weber or anything even close to those kinds of players. So with that I’ve finally come to the conclusion that instead of acquiring some other teams left-overs they should, instead, sell pieces off (either at the trade Deadline or in the Offseason).

Given the Bruins cap constraints going forward, the contract status’s (Milan Lucic) and or age of some players (Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg) one of the above listed players, along with others, must be moved. Unless they move a large contract they won’t have the ability to re-sign all of their Free Agents for next season. I am not prepared to say goodbye to players like: Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton, Carl Soderberg among others.

The emphasis needs to shift from worrying about today and strictly moved to building the next championship team, IE the Future. And I would contend that given Chara and Seidenberg’s age, decline in play, that they should be moved while they still have value.

The choice of hanging onto the older player(s) over let’s say trading the younger Lucic would fall under the same category of moving Boychuk over Seidenberg… It would make the team worse as Peter admitted to at the time of the trade.

PC played with fire when he made that trade and he got burnt. If he continues to hang onto the older, expensive players at the cost of younger, better skating players, he and the team will continue to suffer. The B’s may not be in this position if PC had gotten more from the Seguin trade or if he hadn’t have handed out so many large contracts.

I am all about the future of this team now and I can tell you that there are no more Tyler Seguin’s or young Zdeno Chara’s walking through that door. And because of that the Bruins management has to seriously consider selling off pieces to acquire them. Anything short of selling off some of their larger contracts will negatively impact their future, as it has their present.

I wish Peter good luck; I think he’s going to need it. Go B’s!