Boston Bruins, all in on veterans, add Olympic U.S. men’s hockey captain Brian Gionta
Veteran forward Brian Gionta remained unsigned this season so he could captain the U.S. men’s ice hockey team in the Olympics. Now he’ll return to the NHL as a depth piece for the Boston Bruins.
The Boston Bruins’ roster just keeps getting older.
After trading multiple pieces to the New York Rangers to acquire 33-year-old winger Rick Nash on Sunday, the Bruins announced they’ve signed Team USA captain and 39-year-old right wing Brian Gionta to a one-year, $700,000 contract:
Bruins sign Brian Gionta to one-year, one-way contract through 2017-18 season worth $700,000: https://t.co/Ui8jBkESFW
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) February 25, 2018
Twitter was abuzz with jokes about the Bruins’ new roster additions, which felt like a parade of blast-from-the-past names:
When you load up for the playoffs by acquiring Rick Nash and Brian Gionta pic.twitter.com/NZwjYldmRV
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) February 25, 2018
After adding Rick Nash and Brian Gionta, the Bruins are ready to win the 2009 Stanley Cup.
— Conor McKenna (@mckennaconor) February 25, 2018
In his last NHL season with the Buffalo Sabres, Gionta scored 15 goals and 20 assists in 82 games.
In the U.S. men’s hockey team’s disappointing showing in the Olympics, Gionta led the team in shots on goal, with 16, but had no points and a minus-4 rating in five games before the Czech Republic ended Team USA’s run in the quarterfinals.
No doubt Gionta is disappointed to have foregone most of the 2017-18 NHL season only to come home from Pyeongchang with no hardware. But because he signed with the Bruins prior to Monday’s trade deadline, he’ll now have a chance to hoist bigger piece of metal: the Stanley Cup.
In his 15-year career, the two-time All-Star forward has 289 goals and 299 assists in 1,006 games. But now he’ll be competing with the likes of David Backes, Riley Nash and Anders Bjork for playing time on the third or fourth line.
Not likely to take anyone’s spot, Gionta is more likely an insurance policy for the Bruins as they enter the home stretch. Nothing would enrage the Boston fan base as much as an early exit from the playoffs because the team had failed to plan for contingencies.
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As of Sunday afternoon, the Bruins are in third place in the Eastern Conference.