What has been a rather underwhelming start to the 2020 offseason for the Bruins just got a whole lot worse on Tuesday evening.
In a team statement, Boston announced that David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy all underwent surgical procedures back in September — with Boston's top-two wingers now in line to miss the start of the 2020-21 season.
The Bruins' statement read:
Brad Marchand underwent a sports hernia repair, performed by Dr. Brian Busconi and Dr. Demetrius Litwin at the UMass Memorial Medical Center, on September 14. The surgery was successful, rehabilitation has gone well, and he is on target to make a full recovery in approximately four months from the date of procedure.
David Pastrnak underwent a right hip arthroscopy and labral repair, performed by Dr. Bryan Kelly at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, on September 16. The surgery was successful, rehabilitation has gone well, and he is on target to make a full recovery in approximately five months from the date of procedure.
Charlie McAvoy underwent a right knee arthroscopy, performed by Dr. Peter Asnis at Massachusetts General Hospital, on September 8. The surgery was successful, and he has been cleared to resume normal offseason activities and will be fully available for the start of next season.
Woooooof.
BSJ Analysis:
Well, I'm not going to drop any revelations here when I say that this is a brutal hit for the Bruins, who could open the 2020-21 season without two-thirds of their top line and the reigning Rocket Richard Trophy winner.
While McAvoy's procedure shouldn't hamper him moving forward (players regularly have clean-up procedures on ailing joints during the offseason), the Bruins all of the sudden have two major holes to fill on an offense that already relied heavily on Pastrnak and Marchand when it came to generating both 5v5 and power-play production.
Marchand and Pastrnak, who accounted for 46 of Boston's 137 5v5 goals scored during the 2019-20 season, are currently expected to return in mid-January and mid-February, respectively. If the NHL's current plan of starting the new season on Jan. 1 holds firm, it would mean that Boston could be without Marchand for over two weeks, and Pastrnak for six weeks.
Fair to say, Boston doesn't have a lot of fall-back options when it comes to finding suitable solutions to replace the production lost with Marchand and Pastrnak out of the lineup. Bruce Cassidy and Jay Pandolfo will also likely have their work cut out for them on the power play — given that now three of their five top playmakers on the man advantage will either be out of commission or playing elsewhere (Torey Krug) at the start of a new campaign.
Even with Krug's departure in free agency, replacing him with Matt Grzelcyk on that PP1 unit stood as a solid contingency plan, given that the B's new power-play QB would still be feeding the puck down into the likes of Marchand and Pastrnak around Grade-A ice. Now, the onus will likely be on players like Charlie Coyle, David Krejci, Craig Smith and Jake DeBrusk to account for some of that lost offense during 5v4 play.
As for the regular 5v5 lineup, Patrice Bergeron is going to have his work cut out for him when it comes to driving that top line without Pastrnak and Marchand in the fold, with Smith standing as a likely candidate for a top-line promotion, with Anders Bjork and Jack Studnicka also serving as intriguing options.
Tuesday's news does raise a few eyebrows when it comes to Boston's rather lax showing so far this offseason when it comes to the free-agent market.
Yes, the Smith signing is a great value pickup and his addition should help both in the short term (top line?) and long term, but given the bargain values some of these UFAs are being signed to in a flat-cap market (Tyler Toffoli - $4.25 million AAV), you'd think Boston would be much more active when it comes to adding another weapon or two up front, considering they've known for some time that Marchand and Pastrnak were going to be on the shelf. There are still some scoring wingers up for grabs (Evgenii Dadonov, Mike Hoffman, Anthony Duclair, Andreas Athanasiou, Mikael Granlund, Dominik Kahun), with Boston perhaps waiting for more of these AAV values to drop in a stagnant market.
Of course, Boston could be bailed out if the NHL does opt to push the start of the 2020-21 season (or ... just the 2021 season?) back from its current beginning date of Jan. 1. For a league that relies heavily on gate revenue, the league could opt to start even a month or more later if the current COVID-19 environment carries on into the winter and prevents the easing of restrictions such as arena attendance or more.
But regardless of deadlines or hypothetical scenarios, the bottom line is that it's awfully tough to paint much of a positive picture out of Tuesday's news — with Boston now expected to enter a new campaign shorthanded on star power -- and more importantly, proven offensive production.