When the Boston Bruins lost Patrice Bergeron to retirement, a large hole was left in the organization. As the perfect top-line center, he constantly gave the opposition’s best players trouble. Year after year, his two-way play would earn him a majority of Selke votes.
Fast forward to this off-season, while facing a second year without their former captain, the Bruins thought they had his replacement. No one else is Bergeron, but former Calgary Flames centerman Elias Lindholm is another player who has been praised for his two-way play. In fact, when Bergeron won the Selke in 2022, Lindholm was runner-up with the Calgary Flames.
Things have not gone according to plan early in the first season of a new seven-year deal for Lindholm. The Bruins find themselves in a rough stretch going 3-6-1 in their last 10, dropping them to the first wildcard spot.
With the Bruins barely holding off other young playoff-hungry teams like the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings, they’ll need Lindholm to get over a rough stretch of his own.
Since joining the Bruins, Lindholm has only 21 points in 45 games — a 38-point pace. That would be the lowest full-season pace of his career since his rookie year in 2013-14. While making north of $7 million AAV, that pace won’t cut it.
It was only a few years ago that Lindholm enjoyed the best season of his career with Calgary, the player the Bruins hoped they were getting. Since being separated from the electric line with Matthew Tkachuck and Johnny Gaudreau, however, Lindholm hasn’t been near that 42-goal, 82-point production.
Unlike his two linemates, the Flames got something in return for Lindholm before he left the team. In a trade with the Vancouver Canucks last season, GM Craig Conroy traded Elias Lindholm for Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo, a 2024 first-round pick (Matvei Gridin), and a 2024 conditional pick that stayed a fourth rounder and was subsequently traded.
The Flames fared well in that trade, as Brzustewicz is off to a phenomenal start to his pro career. Prospect Gridin has scored 24 goals and 49 points in 37 games in his first year in the QMJHL. Jurmo has come to play in North America, seeing AHL and ECHL time so far this year.
If Kuzmenko can get out of the funk he’s been in this year since scoring 25 points in his first 29 games with the Flames and bump his value for this year’s NHL trade deadline, Conroy could get an A-plus trade rating.
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