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It felt like only a matter of time until the Bruins made a move to clear up their logjam on defense, and now they have. On Tuesday morning, the team announced it has traded Adam McQuaid to the Rangers for defenseman Steven Kampfer, a fourth-round pick and a conditional seventh-round pick.
McQuaid spent nine years with the Bruins and made his bones as a tough third-pairing defender who was beloved in the locker room, in part because of his willingness to stand up for his teammates on the ice.
However, the soon-to-be-32-year-old veteran has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career and had likely been bumped down to eighth defenseman status after the Bruins acquired John Moore this offseason. Zdeno Chara, Charlie McAvoy, Torey Krug, Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk and Kevan Miller were all pretty firmly ahead of McQuaid on the depth chart already.
McQuaid carries a cap hit of $2.75 million into the season, so the deal frees up a little more than $2 million in cap space for the Bruins.
Kampfer, who spent the first year and a half of his career in Boston from 2010-12, will likely occupy the same place on the depth chart (or perhaps be even lower), but he comes with the flexibility of a two-way contract that allows him to be sent down to Providence without having his salary count against the cap.
The soon-to-be-30-year-old Kampfer has essentially been a depth defenseman throughout his career, most recently with the Rangers and before that with the Panthers and Wild.