Saturday was the day.  The day had finally come when Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli had  finally made room for the recent signings of Torey Krug and Reilly Smith by parting with one of his current roster players.  Who was it?  It wasn’t Adam Mcquaid, Brad Marchand, Matt Bartkowski, nor Chris Kelly.  Instead, it was Johnny Boychuk.

On Saturday the Boston Bruins traded Defenseman Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders for a couple of second round draft picks in 2015 and 2016 with a conditional third rounder in 2015.  While this move has been hard for many fans of the black and gold, it has been just as hard on the man who pulled the trigger.

“This is a tough trade.  We all like Johnny,” Chiarelli said during his press conference on Saturday.  “I spoke with him shortly after the trade was consummated.   He was upset.  I was upset.  I’m still upset.  He’s the one that’s moving.”

Obviously, now that the Bruins have gotten rid of one their top four defencemen, Chiarelli has a lot to be thinking about in the coming months, but apparently feels really good about his opening night roster.

“As far as the team, I feel really good about the team,”  Chiarelli said.  “I think there’s still areas we can tweak, and that’s my job over a shorter period of time.”

What does that mean?  It means that he will give the roster about 20 games to find their identity and see how good the actually is.  Which, in my opinion, will not be very good.

I think that this move was a horrible one because it just wasn’t necessary.  You had plenty of other tradeable players whose absence wouldn’t have made the team worse.  (Matt Bartkowski, Adam Mcquaid, or Chris Kelly)

The Bruins are a much better  team with Boychuk than without him.  Who’s going to play next to Zdeno Chara?  Dougie Hamilton?  Is he even ready to jump into a bigger role this year?  If not him, then who else?  Mcquaid’s unreliable because he’s usually injured for about half the year.  The Bruins really dug themselves into  a major hole here.

Really, how many Stanley Cup contenders trade one of their best defensemen right before the season?  To me, these are the early symptoms of a, dare I say it, bridge year.

Also, if they couldn’t get past the second round of the playoffs with him then how can they get past the second round (or even the first) without him?  There is plenty that can happen from now until the playoffs, but for now I don’t quite think that the Bruins a serious contender.