Winners and Losers in Boychuk Trade

Boychuk and Kyle Okposo  (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Most Boston Bruin fans were not a fan of the Johnny Boychuk trade from day one. Most fans weren’t even a fan of it in theory. But now that the initial shock has worn off, where have the pieces fallen? Well, let’s just say that now most Bruins fans really, really, really, don’t like the Johnny Boychuk trade.

In the four games that the New York Islanders have played one of their newest assets, Boychuk, has been one of their most productive. His six points rank fourth on the team with two goals and four assists and he holds a +5 rating. His two goals by the way came on the power play. With their overtime win over San Jose Thursday night the Isles are also an undefeated 4-0-0 as of now.

Its been a very productive start to the season for Mr. Boychuk. Odds are those kinds of numbers will trail off but I’m sure the Bruins would love some of that production since they’ve only managed 10 goals in the six games they've played. An offensive outburst saw the B's score four in a losing effort to Montreal on Thursday but so far that has been the exception, not the rule. They were only able to put away six goals in the previous five games before last night. Team stats aside let’s compare Boychuk to the rest of the Boston defensemen, combined. In total from Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg, Adam McQuaid, Dougie Hamilton, Torey Krug, Kevin Miller, and Matt Bartkowski we’ve seen them total up one goal, and two assists, with only Krug and Miller carrying a plus rating. Before Thursday night's game in Montreal the seven defensemen clung only to one lone assist from Adam McQuaid.

Does the addition of Boychuk to the Boston back end immediately end their offensive struggles? Probably not but watching him have such success while the Bruins can't seem to find the back of the net is hard to watch all the while wondering what might have been. Not to mention they have basically handcuffed themselves to playing Chara 25 minutes a night with McQuaid, who isn’t used to playing those kinds of minutes, and Seidenberg who is coming back from a major injury, close behind the Captain in the Time On Ice category. They needed another quality veteran player who could play 20 minutes a night effectively who they could count on night in and night out and they sent him packing for draft picks.

Maybe those draft picks package up and go somewhere else and the Bruins get somebody to fill the hole that Boychuk left. Maybe Miller and Bartkowski really step up to the plate over the next 50 some odd games and by the time the trade deadline hits we’ll be saying Johnny Who? Maybe nothing will happen and the team will spiral down the standings into oblivion and we can all catch up on our off season golf lessons in April instead of June. However it works out let’s just hope the Bruins front office realizes that shipping a player off to make the numbers on the bottom line look better isn’t always the best way to help the team win

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