Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien saw his club add to its blue line prior to Wednesday’s trade deadline. He just doesn’t know exactly what his plan is now moving forward.
Things have to play out for Julien and the B’s after Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli acquired defenseman Andrej Meszaros from the Philadelphia Flyers and claimed defenseman Corey Potter off waivers from the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday. Neither player is a huge get for the Bruins, but they do add depth, which can be incredibly valuable down the stretch and into the playoffs.
“Depth is depth,” Julien said Thursday after his team’s morning skate ahead of its game with the Washington Capitals. “No, (Chiarelli) did a good job. Again, you have to realize that you didn’t lose anybody, you know, we like our players here. So it’s just about adding some depth and that he did.”
The interesting thing will be to see how Julien uses those new D-men, particularly Meszaros. The 28-year-old won’t be in the lineup Thursday night against the Caps, as Julien would rather ease him into things. Julien doesn’t anticipate that on-boarding process will take long, despite the differences in defensive philosophies and systems between the Flyers and Bruins.
“I don’t know, I think we’ll have to wait and see,” Julien said. “We have some practice times and stuff like that. I don’t think it will take him that long. They just play a different type of game and every once in a while when players come in they have to adjust a little bit. So we’ve been working on some of that stuff in our practices as you saw yesterday. So I think he’ll catch on fairly quickly.”
If Meszaros can catch on quickly and stay healthy, he may end up being a nice little pick-up for Boston. He’s got size with a 6-foot-2, 223-pound frame, and he’s got the ability to play with the puck on his stick. If Meszaros can make a positive impact, then Julien and the Bruins obviously have some decisions to make. Boston had just six defensemen on its NHL roster prior to the deadline, and the addition of Meszaros and Potter will leave someone out of the mix. Who will end up in the press box as opposed to on the ice is yet another decision that can’t be made at this time.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Julien conceded. “All this stuff happened yesterday and I haven’t sat down and made any types of scenarios. But we need to see him practice a little bit and skate with us and we’ll see. At one point you’re going to see him in our line up and a lot of it will depend on players play. All of them.”
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