Boston Bruins: Does Peter Chiarelli Need To Shore Up The Farm System?

As was stressed here a fairly short time ago, the Boston Bruins’ NHL roster is stable enough that, under normal conditions, everyone should be left where they are.

There should be no need to openly discuss making a trade until around early February anymore than there is any sense in singing Christmas carols until Black Friday.

However, with Daniel Paille injured in one game and Zdeno Chara exiting the next one prematurely, the Bruins’ circumstances are a tad extraordinary in at least one respect. With one offensive and one defensive regular each potentially out of action―perhaps for a week, give or take―the ostensible brittleness of Boston’s minor league system could suddenly come to light.

That would likely call for a radical remedy much sooner than anything that Claude Julien has to work with at TD Garden.

Ask anybody who frequents Providence Bruins home games or just follows the entire organization with a consistently keen eye. They will indubitably say that there is not much in the way of fast and easy reinforcement in case the injury bug strikes.

Of those who were in action for the P-Bruins on Sunday against the Connecticut Whale, only two have seen any action with the parent club this season or the year prior. Those would be forward Zach Hamill and defenseman Matt Bartkowski.

Should Paille and Chara prove unable to resume action by Tuesday’s home date with the Los Angeles Kings, this all but automatically means elevating Hamill and Bartkowski to serve as the spare striker and blueliner, respectively.

Beneath that, the only other Providence skaters with any meaningful NHL experience are Trent Whitfield, Josh Hennessy, Jamie Arniel and Colby Cohen.

Whitfield has been repeatedly plagued by protracted injuries since his last NHL appearance in the 2010 playoffs. Hennessy, little by little, has logged 20 games with the Ottawa Senators, his last one being on Dec. 21, 2009 against none other than Boston.

Cohen filled in for the Colorado Avalanche three times early last season before his rights were imported to Boston in exchange for Matt Hunwick. The deal involving Hunwick and Cohen occurred shortly after Arniel’s one and only regular-season game with the big Bruins on Nov. 28 of last season.

And after leading Providence in scoring last season,

In the crease, there is the estimable workhorse, Anton Khudobin, who is the only AHL goaltender to have already made at least 600 saves this season. But his lean NHL resume consists of six outings with the Minnesota Wild.

Beyond that, the selection on the farm that is the Dunkin Donuts Center is confined strictly to AHL mainstays―such as Andrew Bodnarchuk, Kirk MacDonald and Jamie Tardif―and either unripe rookies like Carter Camper and Kevan Miller or professional sophomores who are not nearly ready for The Show.

Last spring, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli made an AHL coaching change in the midst of watching his top team garner the Stanley Cup. Providence was on the heels of its first instance of back-to-back Calder Cup playoff no-shows in its two decades of existence and Hamill, the seventh overall choice in the 2007 NHL draft, was stuck in a developmental rut under Rob Murray.

Since removing Murray in favor of former assistant and one-time Washington Capitals skipper Bruce Cassidy, Hamill has easily gotten off to his best start in four AHL seasons. In addition, he has done more than fill a simple void on the Boston bench during his momentary promotions.

With that being said, Hamill’s productivity has tapered off of late, with one goal and one assist in his last 10 games. And the P-Bruins as a whole could be looking at a dismal campaign on a par with their historically vinegary 1997-98 season, when they won only 19 out of 80 games in a pre-shootout era.

Providence is second-to-last in the 30-team AHL standings and four of its 10 wins have come by way of the shootout.

The chief explanation is an abysmal lack of consistency on the part of many returning veterans and promising freshmen.

Arniel leads the P-Bruins with 67 shots on goal, but has put only one of those in the net. Cohen, who had a reliable point shot at Boston University, has not scored since Jan. 9 of last season.

Tough guy Lane MacDermid appeared primed for a breakout year, but has disappointed thus far with only two goals and seven points, although he is one of only two active P-Bruins with a positive rating at plus-one.

Hennessy, Tardif and many others have been injured at various points through the first two-plus months of the season and Tardif is tied with Barkowski for the team’s worst rating at minus-11.

In retrospect, maybe Chiarelli went only halfway when he should have gone all the way in overhauling the Providence coaching office. Instead of keeping, let alone promoting Cassidy, a remnant on Murray’s administration, he should have introduced two fresh faces.

There is not much he can do on that front for at least the balance of this season. For the sake of the P-Bruins’ dignity and posture on the AHL landscape, Chiarelli and his allies can only hope for a dignified turnaround.

More critically, however, Chiarelli may want to consider the parent club’s insurance policy in case there are more, and possibly worse, instances of multiple key injuries at a time. The cases of Paille and/or Chara may prove to be negligible before the coming week is even over.

But even at that rate, a few AHL trades are worth mulling over so as to potentially reel in a few bodies that could reliably step up and supplement anyone who might be sidelined later this season. That goes for all three facets from the center line to the blue line to (maybe) the goal line.