I am sure that you've already heard the news since it happened on Friday but I thought I'd wrap up the Bruins' moves from this weekend since many of us (myself included) were in a Fourth of July/long holiday weekend haze. The Bruins and right wing Jarome Iginla agreed to a one-year deal worth $6 million while Nathan Horton signed a seven-year deal in Columbus, Andrew Ference is off to Edmonton for four seasons, backup goaltender Anton Khudobin is now a Carolina Hurricane for at least the next season and Aaron Johnson signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Rangers.
We don't have to rehash all the drama with Iginla a few months ago but you have to admit that it is pretty funny that he ended up in Boston after getting swept by the Bruins in the Eastern Conference Finals in June. It's all about timing and despite the fact that he's slowing down (he turned 36 last week), he has a good chance to end up on Boston's top line with Milan Lucic and David Krejci now that Horton is officially gone.
Iginla's resume speaks for itself, there is a reason that he'll be in the Hockey Hall of Fame after he retires: he has the third most goals of active players (530) with 576 assists and he's +48 for his career which is great when you consider all the poor teams he played on in Calgary. He has 165 power play goals and 206 power play assists with 13 shorthanded goals and nine shorthanded assists.
The former Flames captain put up seven 30-goal seasons, two 40-goal seasons and two 50-goal seasons with a career-high 52 in 2001-02. Showing how well rounded he is, Iginla has six 30-assist seasons, two 40-assists seasons and two 50-assist seasons with a career-high 55 in 2006-07. He's never had 100 points in a season (who does anymore in the NHL?) but he's come close with 94, 96 and 98 in 2007-08.
You can't expect Iginla to still be the player he was in his prime since he showed signs of age between Calgary (9 goals, 13 assists in 31 games) and Pittsburgh (5 goals, 6 assists in 13 games) last season. Still, he missed four games in the regular season but he played in all 82 for five seasons in a row (2007-08 to 2011-12). It's also easy to forget since he had a goose egg (0 goals, 0 assists) in the Bruins' sweep of the Penguins but before that, he notched four goals and eight assists in 11 games. In 69 career NHL playoff games, he has posted 32 goals and 29 assists.
My guess is that with a full training camp, no worries around the trade deadline over if he'll get dealt and a regular season with the B's, he should be a nice fit at a very reasonable price and the fans will totally forget about all the old drama provided that he plays well. It'll be strange to see Horton and Ference in other jerseys next season. I'm happy that they both got long-term deals since they are good guys that gave everything they had to the Black and Gold. Losing Khudobin was a little surprising but I'm confident the Bruins can find a comparable backup for Tuukka Rask in 2013-14.
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