Jeremy Roenick blasts Panthers for Bolland signing

By Cory Buck | Jul 2, 2014

Jan 26, 2014; New York City, NY, USA; NHL former player Jeremy Roenick skates with youngsters on a miniature rink before the Stadium Series hockey game between the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports /

Jeremy Roenick took to the air waves as he so often does this time of year, as well as just about any other time of the year. Basically if you have a microphone and an audience, Roenick will likely be dogging you for some air time. The more, the better for us as Roenick had some interesting things to say about the Florida Panthers signing center Dave Bolland to a 5-year deal worth $27.5 million.

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“I mean, if Dave Bolland can make $5.5 million, I’m going back to the gym for a couple of months,” Roenick said in an interview on Team 1040, per Chris Nichols, “cuz I can score more points than Dave Bolland with two months of working out at 44 years old than Dave Bolland will score in a year.”

Roenick loves to refer to himself as a potential force in the NHL to this day, as we can see, but he makes some good points. Bolland scored 12 points in 23 games last season and his career high is 47 with a Chicago Blackhawks team that made the Conference Finals one year before their first Stanley Cup win. The two championship teams Dave Bolland played for was the main reason Roenick cited for the inflated contract.

“You know, it’s … amazing what a Stanley Cup will get you. It really is. Dave Bolland on Chicago Blackhawks is a third line player,” he said. “Dave Bolland on Florida might be a first line player.”

That is at the crux of the main criticism of the Bolland deal. No one is saying Dave Bolland is a bad player, he’s a fine hockey player who can do a lot of different things and play key minutes, but he’s also never played a full 82 game season (he hit 81 once) and a five-year deal is plenty risky for a guy who might only play half the games the rest of his team does throughout that term.

Bolland’s time as a Chicago Blackhawk is a bigger reason for his payday than anything he’s accomplished as an individual player. Maybe that will work out for Florida, but probably it won’t. If the Panthers see Bolland play most of those games, they’ll only be slightly overpaying him rather than having made a huge mistake on July 1, 2014.

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