What will the Bruins do with Pavel Zacha?

One effect of the NHL’s exploding salary cap over the past two summers has been a downturn in excitement in unrestricted free agency on July 1, as more teams have more money available to sign their top players to new contracts.

Fresh off the most productive season of his career (65 points in 78 games), Boston Bruins center Pavel Zacha stands to cash in if he makes it to July 1 as a productive player at a premium position who will have just recently turned 30 when free agency opens.

Given that the Bruins have plenty of depth at the center position, could it make sense for Boston to get a haul of assets in return for Zacha in a trade before the Czech center commands a considerable raise from his current salary cap hit of $4.75 million?

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss the state of Zacha’s impending free agency and possible status as a desirable trade target.

Tyler Yaremchuk: And then the name on the top of the board, the only one to score 30 out of the group, is Pavel Zacha. That’s a fascinating situation because Boston obviously has dreams of being competitive, and I do think they will be competitive for the bulk of this season, but what’s fascinating about that for me is if Zacha’s sitting there going like, ‘Well I’m going to be the belle of the ball on July 1, I’m not signing anything until I get to free agency…’ And Boston’s maybe not willing to go there in season, could you see a world where Boston, they will have a tough decision to make with Zacha this season at some point, right?

David Pagnotta: Yeah, and it may result in them just holding on to him if they’re in the playoff race. Just holding on to him as their own rental, so to speak. This guy’s asking for big bucks. I don’t know what the formal ask is, it’s I believe more than double what he’s making right now at least, depending on term of the overall contract… The numbers are going to keep going up, and the Bruins, obviously they’re not overly comfortable with where they’re at right now with Zacha in terms of what that deal looks like. They’ve got depth at the center position. They have Minten there. They have Elias Lindholm there. They have, eventually Jimmy Hagens will lock in at that position… They do have some depth in that position, and that’s kind of what they’ve been utilizing in terms of negotiations… I think you’re right. I think he recognizes, or certainly his representatives do, that he could cash in pretty significantly in the open market, especially if he puts up similar numbers to how he’s performed the last couple of years. He’s been dangled, or at least discussed, in other trade talks as Boston looks to improve overall.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…