Bruins Extend Boychuk

Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk releases one of his monster slapshots from the blueline. The defender was signed to three year contract extension today.

So I'm guessing most of you are going to come here expecting some sort of post talking about how this is a great deal for the Bruins and that Boychuk is a top notch defender. Wrong. That is not at all what I'm going to say about this deal. Today, the Bruins signed Johnny Boychuk to a 3 year, $10.008M extension that will carry a cap hit of $3.36M. The deal was first reported by Bob McKenzie of TSN (Twitter link).

Now to what I think of the deal. I know a lot of people in the media believe this is a good deal for the Bruins, and also think that Boychuk is a great defenseman who can play against anyone's top lines and log tons of minutes. I disagree. Boychuk made the team in 2010 as the spare part basically. But we all know the story of that trainwreck season, there was injury after injury, constant inconsistent play, borderline NHL'ers getting significant ice time because there were so many players hurt, no significant trade to help the team in the immediate future (save for the Seidenberg steal), and to top it all off, the biggest choke job in the history of the NHL. Boychuk came up that year and won the hearts of many Bruins fans (and a few pink hats). His monster shot, gigantuan hits, and his solid defense made him appaear to be a diamond in the rough that Chiarelli found in a crap for crap trade with Colorado. But after 2010, his play dropped significantly. His offensive numbers dropped and his defense became horrendous. His hits were still there, but they weren't as timely as they were in 2010.

Many people praise Boychuk for his play against opposing teams' top lines and top scoring threats, as well as for his ability to log big minutes every night. Well no frigging duh, anyone who's paired with Zdeno Chara every night is going to look good. I can't count how many times I've seen Thomas and Rask save his ass on big 2 on 1 situations or even flat out breakaways because Boychuk was out of position or stepped up to make a hit at the worst possible time. He can still shoot, that's pretty clear, but his offensive numbers are not what you'd expect out of a guy who started his NHL career as a winger. This season he has 10 points. That's kind of horrendous considering what was expected of him offensively.

Personally, I wouldn't have signed Boychuk period. I would've waited out the season, make some calls at the deadline and see what you could get for him or Corvo, then, assuming there was no offer that made sense for the team, let Boychuk and Corvo play out the season and re-sign who played better. And if they both played, horrendous, let them both walk, slot Kampfer into one spot, and either make a trade, sign a D, or give Hamilton a shot and see what he can do in the 6 slot. Boychuk shouldn't have gotten the money he did. Chiarelli payed him like he was on the open market, and he isn't even good enough to make that kind of money on the open market. I would've offered maybe 1 or 2 years at $2.5M at the most, and if he asked for more, I would've shut down negotiations and let him earn his money.

I really hope Chiarelli knows what he's doing, because this was a crap deal in my view.