While everyone continues to wait to see what happens with Zdeno Chara, we know from Cam Neely's comments last week that the Bruins still want to "explore our back end a little bit."
Neely left the door open for a Chara return, as he and Don Sweeney have done all along, and also said the team does want to see what it has in young defensemen like Jakub Zboril, Urho Vaakanainen and Jeremy Lauzon.
But when asked about jumping back into free agency now that everyone knows when the new season will start, Neely immediately mentioned the blue line as an area they might still address through free agency.
Now we get word of one name they might have their eye on. David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports that the Bruins are one of the teams that has shown interest in unrestricted free agent Ben Hutton.
Hutton, a 27-year-old left shot who played three seasons at the University of Maine from 2012-15, spent last year with the Los Angeles Kings after playing four seasons with the Vancouver Canucks.
While the Kings were dreadful, Hutton actually had a pretty solid bounce-back season. After struggling a bit in a top-pairing role with Vancouver in 2018-19 (22:21 time on ice per game), Hutton reverted to a more comfortable bottom-four role with the Kings (18:16 per game) and played well, ranking third on the team in Corsi-for percentage (55.5% while starting more shifts in the defensive zone than offensive zone) and fourth on the team in Evolving-Hockey's goals above replacement (6.7) and expected goals above replacement (8.7) -- all of which were career-best marks.
To help contextualize those numbers, Hutton would have been fourth among Bruins defensemen in expected goals above replacement last season, behind Charlie McAvoy, Torey Krug and Matt Grzelcyk.
Hutton doesn't contribute a ton in terms of points (36 in the last two seasons combined), but he is a good skater who can move the puck and get involved in the offensive end, he has a little bit of power-play experience, and he has also been a regular penalty-killer.
Based on the last couple years, it seems like if a team signs Hutton to be their fourth or fifth defenseman (which is pretty much where he would slot in on the Bruins), they'll probably be pretty happy with him. Asking him to be anything more than that wouldn't be wise, though.
As with anything in free agency, whether Hutton is worth signing could come down to the cost. After making $2.8 million in each of the previous two seasons, Hutton settled for a one-year, $1.5 million deal last offseason. He is likely hoping for and expecting a raise, but this close to the season and with so many other free agents still available too, he may have trouble finding it.
According to @bruinscapspace, the Bruins are projected to have about $3.6 million in cap space when the season starts. If they don't end up re-signing Chara, signing Hutton for what he made last year or a little more than that could prove to be a smart move.
