How Big Will Boston Bruins' Brilliant Martin Jones Bet Pay Off?

The Boston Bruins didn’t get a lot of positive press during a difficult summer in which the club hemorrhaged talent and made unconventional choices with its first-round selections at the 2015 draft. But in at least one area, the team’s new management made a fantastic gamble trading Martin Jones to the San Jose Sharks and effectively betting against that team’s success.

Let’s go back to how that bet came about.

Jones was initially acquired from the Los Angeles Kings as part of the return on pending unrestricted free agent Milan Lucic, here detailed by TSN’s Bob McKenzie:

The Lucic deal represented a solid haul for Boston, which managed to get an NHL-ready defence prospect in Miller, a pretty good first-round pick and of course Jones. It’s arguable that the Bruins would have been better off re-signing Lucic. But once the decision was made to move on, they collected a—slides sunglasses on—Kings’ ransom.

The arrival of Jones initially caused confusion because he was widely regarded as being ready for a No. 1 goaltending gig somewhere, and the Bruins already had Tuukka Rask signed long term. That confusion was cleared up when Boston flipped Jones to San Jose in exchange for the Sharks’ first-round pick:

The second tweet there comes from ESPN’s Craig Custance and includes the important fact that there isn’t any lottery protection on the pick San Jose gave up in the deal. That fact is what makes this such an interesting trade for the Bruins.

If San Jose has a relatively successful season, Boston will collect a draft pick somewhere between No. 15 and No. 25 overall. If that’s what happens, the Bruins will have done pretty well. Jones, after all, is an undrafted 25-year-old who had played all of 34 NHL games at the time of the trade. In the year before he was dealt, he went 4-5-2 and posted a lousy 0.906 save percentage for the uber-defensive Kings. Getting a mid-first-round pick for that player is good work.

But what makes the trade really interesting is the possibility of a big payoff, and the extent of a payoff depends upon the performance of Jones.

San Jose, after all, is no lock for the playoffs. The Sharks finished 22nd in the NHL last season, which earned them the No. 9 overall pick in the 2015 Draft. They took Timo Meier, a big QMJHL winger coming off a 44-goal/90-point season. Meier currently has 25 points in 16 games after being returned to the junior ranks.

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

That performance came with Antti Niemi holding the starting job. Niemi’s 0.914 save percentage was nothing to write home about, but put him in a tie for 20th among the 30 goalies that played the most games last season. That’s good enough for a strong team to win games, but not good enough to elevate a weak team to the postseason.

It’s not at all certain that Jones can improve upon that performance. He got off to a red-hot start this season going 4-0-0 with a 0.982 save percentage out of the gate. But he’s cooled considerably since, alternating between stronger and weaker performances. His record since those first four games is a modest 5-5-0, and his save percentage is an unpleasant 0.893.

That doesn’t mean Jones is a bust.

We’re talking about short spans of time here, and arbitrarily excluding those first four games isn’t fair to the player. The key point though is that this could easily still go either way. Jones has a 9-5-0 record over the season so far and a 0.918 save percentage. If he can keep that kind of performance up all year, the Sharks will be just fine and Boston will have to settle for a middling pick.

However if Jones’ slide continues—perhaps to the point where he finishes the year close to the 0.906 save percentage he put up last year—the Sharks will be in real trouble. Backup goalie Alex Stalock doesn’t inspire confidence. He played poorly in 2014-15 and is off to a 1-3-0 start and 0.894 save percentage this year. In all likelihood, San Jose will go exactly as far as Jones can take them.

If he can’t improve on Niemi’s work, the Sharks will likely finish out of the playoffs once again. That’s where the changes the NHL has recently made to its draft lottery become interesting. A little over a year ago, the league announced a change in format:

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Three draws will be held: the 1st Lottery draw will determine the Club selecting first overall, the 2nd Lottery draw will determine the Club selecting second overall and the 3rd Lottery draw will determine the club selecting third overall … The allocation of odds for the 1st Lottery draw will be the same as outlined above for the 2015 NHL Draft Lottery. The odds for the remaining teams will increase on a proportionate basis for the 2nd Lottery draw, based on which Club wins the 1st Lottery draw, and again for the 3rd Lottery draw, based on which Club wins the 2nd Lottery draw.

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If the Sharks finish where they did last year, Boston will have a 5.0 percent shot at the first overall pick. Assuming the last place team wins the lottery, the Bruins will then have a 6.25 percent chance at the second overall pick. Assuming again that the lowest-ranked team wins that lottery, those odds will increase to a little over 7.5 percent for the third overall pick.

The league’s new three-lottery format actually increases the value of first-round picks significantly. Under the old system, there was a negligible chance of a team outside the bottom five to dramatically improve its draft status. Now any team that finishes outside the playoffs has a nontrivial chance of winning a top-three selection.

At worst, Boston got fair value back in the trade for Jones. But with some poor play from the goaltender and a little bit of help from the NHL lottery balls, the Bruins could find themselves in possession of a truly outstanding return.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.