I don't know as much about JT Miller as my ursine brethren, so I will defer to their judgement on Miller.Hey Bruins fans, I come in peace. With the likelihood of both Bergeron and Krejici retiring at the end of this year, that leaves Boston with just Coyle as a top 6 C. The Canucks have Miller available, and there seems to be a fit for him in Boston. Not neccessarily this season, but future years if the plan is to continue to go for it. So I thought why doesn't Boston go all in this season while having cap to re-sign Miller long term?
Heres my proposal (with the premise Miller is willing to sign either a 8 year 7M extension or 7 x 7.75M extension with Boston):
To Boston:
JT Miller (50% retained)
To Vancouver:
Craig Smith
Nick Foligno
Fabian Lysell
2023 1st round pick
2025 2nd round pick
Sure a top prospect + a future 1st and 2nd are a lot to give up, but this gets Boston out of their cap issues (-$1,441,667) with just over 2M in cap space. I would imagine both Krejici and Bergeron hit their bonuses, so just under 2.5M penalty carries through for next season which makes retaining Miller even more possible.
Boston's lineup would be something like:
Marchand Bergeron Pastarnak
Hall Krejici Debrusk
Zacha Miller Coyle
Frederic Nosek Wagner
Lindholm McAvoy
Grzelyck Carlo
Reilly Forbort
Swayman
Ullmark
In the offseason, if Boston needs more cap space, i'm sure it would be relatively easy to find a team that needs Ullmark creating the cap space to re-sign Swayman and replacing Ullmark with a backup.
For the Canucks we shore up our prospect pool and get 2 vets we can hope to sell to the highest bidder with 50% ret at the TDL
As far as the center situation after this season is concerned... do the Bruins have a plan? Can we count on the Bruins to NOT botch the 2023 and 2025 picks we won't be sending to Vancouver in this trade? Asking for a friend.
I would be more inclined to see who gets the number one overall pick and try to pry it loose to draft Connor Bedard. He's a little on the smallish side, but it appears that he has some serious talent. The NYT ran a story about him last month and I was pretty impressed with what I read. I know getting Bedard is the longest of long shots, but consider this: the Bruins have historically drafted and developed defensemen and goaltending (defense) far better than forwards (offense). At least for as long as I've been watching. If the Bruins sacrificed on defense to get a cornerstone center, I think that replacing those losses would be far easier than finding a "diamond in the rough" to be our next Hall of Fame center. And even if Bedard is out of reach or not the prospect everyone thinks he is, shouldn't a serious push be made to get someone as "can't miss" at that position as possible? Part of me just feels like there is no sense of urgency with our front office and I have zero faith in them solving this problem in any competent way.
My two cents.