Boston Bruins Keep Building Depth With Chiasson
The PTO camp invite has long been a forward the B's have been interested in
The Boston Bruins shored up their forward depth by extending a training camp invite to a player they have long been interested in over his NHL career. The B’s signed former Boston University standout Alex Chiasson to a PTO (Professional Tryout Agreement) that means the 32-year-old will get a chance to potentially earn a contract during NHL camp with the Black and Gold set to begin next month.
The 6-foot-4 Chiasson had six goals and nine points in 20 games for the Detroit Red Wings last season while bouncing between the NHL and the AHL, and has played 651 NHL games for Dallas, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Washington and Detroit over the course of his 11-year NHL career. He’s never really been a consistent top-6 forward during his career but has made a living out of becoming a solid bottom-6 forward that’s a certified power play weapon. Over the last handful of NHL seasons, a whopping 30 of the 61 goals that he’s scored have been on the man advantage.
That means Chiasson could be really backup insurance for Boston if free agent signee (and fellow power play weapon) James van Riemsdyk missing time with injuries, as he’s done in missing between 15-20 games per season for the last handful of years due to injuries.
For Boston, though, it means finally bringing in a player in Chiasson that the Boston Bruins have been interested in since they tried to make him one of the trade pieces from Dallas in the Tyler Seguin trade back in 2013. They ended up settling on AHL journeyman winger Matt Fraser instead, who ended up playing in 38 games for the Black and Gold before finishing his NHL career in Edmonton.
So things have come full circle for the Bruins and Chiasson, and perhaps now is the right time for him to help out the Boston Bruins through a big-time transitional season where they are going to need contributions from everybody up and down the lineup. It remains to be seen if the Boston Bruins have any other potential PTO candidates out there in the weeds, though it doesn’t feel like there’s a large need at the defensemen or goaltender position unless something unforeseen happens with the roster.
Perhaps somebody like Paul Stastny or Derek Stepan might make sense if the B’s want to take a look at another veteran center with some defense upside, but they also truly have a full deck of center candidates currently with Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic, Morgan Geekie, Patrick Brown, Jesper Boqvist, Johnny Beecher, Marc McLaughlin and even Georgii Merkulov all competing for spots down the middle once training camp opens.
And now they’ve got a little more NHL depth on the wing that will push young players like Fabian Lysell, Merkulov, Jakub Lauko and Oskar Steen to be at their best if they want to win NHL jobs.
Now on to the PWH Morning Skate links:
*NHL Network analyst Mike Rupp thinks Mark Scheifele to the Boston Bruins in trade makes a ton of sense.
*Speaking of the Winnipeg Jets, they are stuck in the middle right now organizationally and have a middle-of-the-road prospect group. Ho-hum. (The Athletic)
*The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed Brandon Hagel to a big-time contract extension that may be what somebody like Jake DeBrusk is looking at if he wants to keep going with the Boston Bruins. (Tampa Bay Times)
*Is Ole a country song? Say it ain’t so. (NHL.com)
*Speaking of Hagel, that’s also going to have ramifications with somebody like Elias Pettersson in Vancouver as well. (Canuck’s Army)
*Jakob Chychrun is settled in his Ottawa home and ready to take his new-ish Senators team to the next level. (Ottawa Sun)
*For something completely different: Jayson Tatum is hard at work preparing for next season. (Boston.com)
Chiasson has never topped 38pt in his NHL career. He's also a career minus player. What kind of "depth" are the B's planning to build with such a player? Sweeney and Neely must go. Their incompetence in the face of our two elite centers eventual retirement verges on the criminal.
And borderline "signings" aren't going to move the needle one iota.