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Bruins lose Jeremy Lazuon; Taylor Hall deal to come? |
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From the Twitter leaks to the actual official announcements of the 30 players selected by the Seattle Kraken in Wednesday’s expansion draft, it was an interesting day across the board for the National Hockey League.
With the newest members of the Kraken being announced alphabetically by team in each division, the selection from the Bruins kicked off the festivities, and with it, Jeremey Lauzon to Seattle.
The loss of Lauzon is a big hit to what is already a thin Bruins blueline.
"With Jeremy just coming into his own, despite some injuries — wishing him well with Seattle. Disappointing that you’re going to lose him. We all felt that we were going to lose a good player in this exercise, and we did,” said Sweeney.
Of the Bruins most attractive options available to the Kraken, the Bruins likely wanted to keep Lauzon the most. But with the reported asking price of a 1st and 3rd round pick for Seattle to keep their hands off certain players, electing to take this route was wise.
With or without Lauzon, general manager Don Sweeney had plans of beefing up his blueline, especially on the left-side. The loss of Lauzon to Seattle only makes that need more pressing.
Lauzon would have been a left-shot defenseman that could slide up and down the lineup and log key minutes on the penalty kill, just as he did in 2020-21. Lauzon spent much of his time last season paired with Charlie McAvoy, logging key minutes against some of the league’s top lines.
It was a season of up and downs for Lauzon, growing pains indeed.
Behind Matt Grzelcyk on the left side of the Bruins defense is John Moore, —who is coming off injury—a young and inexperienced Urho Vaakanainen and the unproven Jakub Zboril.
The Bruins have been linked to veterans such as Keith Yandle and Ryan Suter, both of whom have recently been bought out by their respective teams.
“Ideally, you’d want an all-situational minutes player, that certainly has been all of those pressure points and, as you mentioned, the penalty kill. Maybe they can handle the power play,” said Sweeney. “With the loss of Jeremy, there’s a penalty killing component there. Johnny Moore helped; we’ll obviously address some of that from a depth perspective. But we have to go and add to our group, so we have to address that.”
While the Bruins took a hit on their blueline, the news up front is much more promising as the Bruins and Taylor Hall are reportedly closing in on a four-year contract that will come with an annual cap hit of around $6M per season.
“We made significant progress on Taylor, so I hope that we will find a finish line. Looking forward to hopefully having him back as a big part of what we’re trying to do, this year and moving forward,” said Sweeney.
From his first day as a Bruin following the trade from Buffalo and throughout the offseason, it was clear that Hall wanted to stay in Boston, and the Bruins wanted Hall.
This latest development comes to no surprise, and then feeling all along has been that had it not been for the expansion draft and the complications signing Hall prior to would have caused, a deal would already have been official.
The signing of Hall helps address part of the Bruins secondary scoring puzzle, one that could look more complete if the Bruins are able to resign David Krejci.
The unrestricted free agent has yet to make a decision on his playing future, but hopefully this Hall news pushes him in the right direction.
"I have been in touch with David, and I’m going to respect all of his privacy and decisions in this point in time. Has not given further indication, as you referenced before he’s got some things he wants to address,” said Sweeney. “Then he’ll let us know. But yes, I have been in regular communication with David, and there’s no timeline to make decisions.”
The NHL’s roster freeze is lifted at 1:00 PM Thursday, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if the Hall contract was made official shortly thereafter.
Boston Bruins Blogger • 
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