The Bruins had the ultimate good news/bad news morning Thursday.
We’ll start with the best news for Boston: David Pastrnak signed a contract extension, a decision that should benefit the B’s for years to come. In the short term, however, the bad news is that Boston has a potentially big injury problem with forwards Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno out for the foreseeable future.
That bit of bad news led general manager Don Sweeney to take yet another swing for the fence, acquiring winger Tyler Bertuzzi from the Detroit Red Wings. Bertuzzi cost the Bruins a first-round pick despite being in his walk year, which speaks to the potential he has but also had bad Boston believed it needed to make the move.
“It definitely created a situation for us where we felt we had to fill a hole,” Sweeney said at a Thursday press conference. “We just don’t have a timeline at this point, and that’s what we have to protect. We have to bring in a player that we feel can really help us. You get to the playoffs, and if you’re healthy, those are still big ifs.”
At first glance, Bertuzzi’s 2022-23 production doesn’t jump off the page — at least not for the right reasons. He has just four goals in 29 games this season. Injuries have been the main culprit for his lack of production. Bertuzzi missed five weeks with a hand injury that needed surgery to repair, and he also missed some games with a lower body injury.
Bertuzzi’s 16:29 of ice time per game is the lowest since his rookie season, but he appears to be working his way back to a full workload. He logged 18 and 22 minutes in consecutive games last week. The 28-year-old played just 14:37 in his last game with the Red Wings, but that’s because he spent a portion of the first period in the penalty box after fighting Ottawa’s Artem Zub. So the hand apparently isn’t an issue.
The hope, of course, is that an upgrade in talent around him will help Bertuzzi get back to the form that made him a 30-goal scorer last season. He posted 30-32-62 totals in just 68 games with the Red Wings last season.
Bruins coach Jim Montgomery made his excitement clear.
“I think he’s an excellent hockey player,” Montgomery said Thursday. “I think he’s someone that understands how to win. He’s done it at the junior level, he was the MVP of a Calder Cup championship team in Grand Rapids. He’s a great complementary player. He goes to hard areas. He’s a great net-front guy, five-on-five, power play.”
Montgomery also praised Bertuzzi’s work as a “sandpaper” guy, pointing to various run-ins he’s had with Bruins winger Brad Marchand. The two sparked a near-line brawl (including the goalies) in 2018 and got reacquainted last season.
“We have a lot of guys that are really hard to play against, which makes it — we’re going to be a tough out in the playoffs because we’ve got players who go to the areas where you score goals in playoff time.”
As for how Montgomery deploys Bertuzzi, that’s still up in the air. The coach said he’ll definitely “tinker” with how he moves around Bertuzzi, who can play both wings. Bertuzzi won’t be available Thursday night against Buffalo, but the best early guess is that he lands on the Bruins’ third line in Hall’s spot once he does debut. The trio of Bertuzzi, Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederic will not be a fun draw for opponents. Given how the 6-foot-1 Bertuzzi is willing to go to the front of the net, he seems like a natural replacement for Foligno on the second power-play unit.
The injuries to Hall and Foligno could be real issues if they do keep the duo sidelined into the playoffs. If one or both can get healthy, though, adding them back to a mix that now includes Bertuzzi makes the Bruins an even tougher out.
