The center position is inarguably the spot most in need of an upgrade this summer if we’re talking about the Boston Bruins. It’s also clearly not something that the Black and Gold are hiding from with $20 plus million of salary cap space ready to be spent next month.
“There are some things we need to address. And I need to address from the standpoint of free agency and or internal growth, I think [Charlie] Coyle, [Pavel] Zacha, a bunch of guys were able to step forward,” said Don Sweeney of a Bruins team that averaged just 2.38 goals per game during the playoffs. “They were cast as a little bit of misfits in that regard. We didn't see it that way.
“I think they stepped forward and several other guys did too. I have to be able to find some players that can come in and provide secondary scoring for us and key opportune times.”
There are already plenty of candidates out there, whether it’s Carolina forward Martin Necas, free agent pivots Elias Lindholm or Chandler Stephenson, or even young center Cole Perfetti with the Winnipeg Jets. They all come with strengths and weaknesses, of course, like every player around the NHL.
Necas has played mostly right wing during a productive run with the Hurricanes, so there’s a real question if he would even be a top-6 center at all in Boston. The 29-year-old Lindholm fits the bill in a lot of ways when it comes to playing the kind of two-way center that Boston needs, but he’s also coming off a really down year with just 15 goals and 44 points in 75 games along with a minus-14 rating.
Stephenson has been a solid player, but he doesn’t really “wow” anybody after a number of winning, highly successful workmanlike campaigns in Vegas and Washington with two Cups on his resume.
Perfetti is just 22 years old and is coming off his best NHL season (19 goals, 38 points) to date, but there’s still obviously a ton of questions about his ceiling at the NHL level just a few years into his career.
The bottom line, good news for the B’s is that there are no shortage of names that will be available.
There is one other talented center that continues to be whispered about as being available this summer: Trevor Zegras.
The insanely talented Anaheim Ducks center is coming off a down season with six goals and 15 points along with a minus-1 rating in 31 games, but his offensive gifts have been undeniable since he entered the league after a brief stint at Boston University. At 23 years old, he’s already on the NHL map because of the electric hands and dazzling offensive skills that have made him a hero with young up-and-coming hockey players everywhere.
MICHIGANS EVERYWHERE! Zegras hits this Michigan by letting it ramp up the toe! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/XRSK7PAavV
— Pavel Barber (@HeyBarber) December 24, 2023
But Zegras is also a very unfinished product at the NHL level at this point after averaging 23 goals and 63 points in the previous two full seasons while also racking up an aggregate minus-45 during that time for an admittedly poor Ducks contingent. His defensive game is certainly lacking at the center position, and he hasn’t been able to translate his phenomenal hockey technique into being one of the league’s dominant players after being the ninth overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft.
There are some very clear pros to landing a player like Zegras with the built-in comfort level in Boston after spending time at BU, and with the ticket buying draw simply knowing he could do something eye-popping with the puck each and every night he takes the ice. Zegras’ popularity with young hockey fans, in particular, is of tremendous value wherever in the NHL he goes in the short term.
There’s also cost certainty as he’s signed for two more years, and a pretty reasonable $5.75 million cap hit before again becoming a restricted free agent that could command a big payday if he takes a positive step in his career.
The fact that the B’s and Ducks have been frequent trade partners in recent seasons doesn’t hurt either, so it may be easier to execute a deal for Zegras than some of the other center candidates listed in the article above.
The bottom line, though, with Zegras is that he’s a player that the Bruins should avoid at all costs considering all factors involved.
There’s little doubt the Ducks would be looking for a top trade package that would cost a top prospect, perhaps Fabian Lysell, and a theoretical first-round pick that they could acquire from the New Jersey Devils in a Linus Ullmark trade.
But it’s not about the cost as much as it’s about a player who hasn’t really developed his game beyond where he was when he entered the league, or augmented a skill set that has made him a hockey household name before he truly earned it with consistent play on the ice. There’s a danger that Zegras has been individually successful based on the way he’s played to this point in his career and doesn’t believe he needs to change or evolve into a more complete hockey player.
Some of that may be behind his availability on the trade market despite being a fan favorite around the league. Zegras is well aware of the trade rumors and addressed it at the end of the Ducks season.
"It's hard not to see...definitely sucks," said Zegras. "I think you can always control what you can control."
Certainly, he could help the Bruins from an offensive production standpoint and could effectively replace the outgoing offensive number of a similarly talented player like Jake DeBrusk should move elsewhere during free agency.
But there’s a real question as to whether a player like Zegras would help the Bruins at all come playoff time against heavy, nasty, physical teams like the Florida Panthers when “hard skill” needs to be present much more than the toe-drag highlight reel stuff. This is something that game-breaking offensive players like David Pastrnak have had to learn and evolve over time during the Stanley Cup playoffs after things come a lot easier offensively during the regular season.
We have no idea how Zegras would react to the playoff ringer because he doesn’t have any Stanley Cup playoff experience on his resume while toiling for some very subpar Ducks teams over the last four seasons. But the guess is that playing against a team like Florida in a postseason situation would be a rude awakening for a skill, finesse player like Zegras, and he would struggle to even be as effective as Coyle and Zacha were in top-6 center roles during the playoffs this past season.
That sentiment about Zegras is likely a big reason why his name is out there as a potential trade target, but he makes a lot more sense headed to a non-playoff team building from the ground up. That is most definitely not a Boston Bruins hockey club that’s about one successful offseason away from setting themselves up for a legit Stanley Cup contender window for a long time to come.