The Boston Bruins bolstered their blue line Tuesday morning ahead of next week’s NHL trade deadline.
The B’s acquired defenseman Nick Holden from the New York Rangers in exchange for Rob O’Gara and a 2018 third-round pick, the team announced.
Holden, 30, has appeared in 55 games for the Blueshirts this season. He’s tallied three goals and nine assists and is a minus-3 with a struggling Rangers club. He ranks fifth on the Rangers in ice time (18:58 per game) and has been one of the team’s top penalty killers.
One of Holden’s best assets is his size. The left-handed shot D-man stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 214 pounds. The 3-9-12 totals, however, are a sharp decline from last season, the best of his career. Holden logged 11 goals and added 23 assists. Part of that dropoff stems from a reduction in power-play time. Holden has just a few minutes on the power play this season after logging nearly 50 minutes on the man advantage last season, scoring three power-play goals and adding an assist.
And here’s a chart that basically says Holden has played a lot of minutes against good competition, which might also explain the dip in production.
So there’s that.
O’Gara was used sparingly by the Bruins in his two-plus seasons with the Bruins. He appeared in 11 NHL games over the last two seasons, and the 24-year-old defenseman scored two goals and added six assists in 43 games with the Providence Bruins.
