The Boston Bruins walked into the trade deadline in a bit of no-man’s-land. Unlike last season, the team doesn’t appear to be an obvious contender. Their 6-4-6 record between the all star break and March 7 did not help breed confidence in the front office that this Bruins team that has overperformed expectations this season was set to continue to do so. Therefore, going swinging for a Lindholm or Guentzel didn’t make much sense. Furthermore, the Bruins didn’t have many assets to sell. The value they would’ve gotten back for their UFA’s probably wasn’t worth shaking up the room. We may never know how close the deal to send Linus Ullmark to LA was, but given the reaction from the room following the deadline, a trade could have been catastrophic for the Bruins culture in the near term.
The Bruins walked out of the deadline adding Pat Maroon and Andrew Peeke. The former is currently on LTIR. The Bruins sacrificed AHLer Luke Toporowski and a conditional 6th round pick in 2026 that will only be transferred if Maroon plays in a playoff game this spring. On the other hand, the Andrew Peeke acquisition was quite interesting.
The Bruins sent Jakub Zboril and a 2027 3rd round pick to Columbus in exchange for Peeke’s rights and services. Of course, Zboril held no value to the Bruins at this point. He was stuck in the AHL and his contract expires this summer. Beyond that, whoever Columbus selects in the 3rd round of the 2027 NHL Entry Draft is also likely a freshman in high school right now and would likely not make their debut until at least 2030 if they make it at all. Such a low acquisition cost is representative of the value the rest of the market, including Columbus themselves, placed on Peeke.
The Floridian is in the first year of a three-year contract that holds a cap hit of $2.75 million. His current contract was signed in September of 2022, over a full season ago. At that time, Peeke was coming off his first full season with the Blue Jackets where he played all 82 games before representing the United States in the World Championships. Clearly, Columbus was excited about him. Last season, he played almost identical minutes in 80 games. But with the new additions of Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson, plus the improved health of Zach Werenski, Peeke got pushed to the press box, only playing 23 games leading up to Deadline Day.
There are some people, including myself, who question the Peeke acquisition. First off, there were some rumors, to what level their merit exists I am unsure, that Peeke may have been getting bought out at the end of the season anyway. The Blue Jackets had been rumored for some time now wanting to trade one of their weak links on the back end away, to which they couldn’t find any suitors. When the dust settled, the Blue Jackets elected to exchange Peeke for the next step up from future considerations.
There was a chance that Peeke could have been available come July. And if he was bought out from Columbus, he’d be available for a much more team-friendly deal. Additionally, I think that a comparable player to Peeke would be available on the market in July for significantly less than $2.75 million. Not only is Peeke a limited defensive defenseman, a player type that doesn’t demand a high salary, but he is a player who is temporarily unpopular and who carries the risk of not working out in Boston.
By electing to take his current contract on at the deadline, the Bruins were paying a price to both get his services now as well as mitigate the risk that he won’t be available come July (which I think was very real). It’s not the type of deal that I’d get bent out of shape over, but it feels like sub-optimal asset management.
Debut in Montreal
Fast forward to Thursday evening, and a bunch of Bruins are sick. On that list of Bruins is Matt Grzelcyk, opening up the spot for Peeke’s debut with the Bruins in Montreal. Debuting for a new team within days of being traded there carries a certain amount of pressure with it. Add on the element of a rivalry game at the Bell Centre, and you have yourself a surreal experience.
For Peeke, the objective for his night in Montreal was to keep it simple. If he could walk out of the arena without any major blunders, it was a success. And he did just that. He delivered a rather boring box score in his 17 minutes, featuring no goals on either side.
Following the game, the automated gamescore impact card was tweeted out. It had by far the most interactions and engagements of any of the graphics Thursday night, making its way onto my timeline as well.
I have written about my concerns of using data in single-game analysis before. As I said in October:
What game score excels at is taking (mostly) box score stats and brings them down to one number. But I think this veers away from what coaches, scouts, management, and analysts are really trying to do in player evaluation which is parse out who is contributing most to their on-ice results. To do that in a one-game unit using only NHL play-by-play data is nearly impossible.
I don’t think anyone watched the Bruins game on Thursday night and walked away thinking that Peeke was the best Bruin on the ice. Well…hopefully his family did! But objectively, it seems a bit silly. However, I am consistently worried about how we communicate analytics to more casual fans. While some people may understand the limitations of single-game stats and sees them more as fun facts than actual analysis, based on the interactions with the tweet, it would appear many casual people don’t. How we improve that communication isn’t going to be solved on this blog at this moment, but the topic was enough to trigger me to dig further into this game.
Digging a bit deeper into the game score metric, which brings traditional box score metrics plus on-ice shot metrics and syndicates them into one number, Peeke’s team-leading game score was derived almost entirely by his on-ice metrics on Thursday night.
Unblocked shot attempts were 14-4 in favor of the Bruins when Peeke was on the ice at even strength. Plus, the quality of shots was in the Bruins favor too, only yielding one missed attempt against from the highway area in front of the net. But from here, I want to gain additional context. What role did he play in these shot attempts? Where was the puck when he was starting his shifts on the fly? How did he do in the seconds in between shot attempts?
Due to the limitations of our data in the public sphere, this information needs to be acquired by looking back at that pesky film.
Additional Metrics
During games, I track the Bruins entries and exits. It started out as a little task to do during games and became a part of my brand. It also helps me be more informed during the game, but also shifts my bias a bit towards offensive transition than other aspects of the game. While I was watching Peeke live on Thursday night, I recall being a bit frustrated with his game. When the game was over, he failed 2 of 2 entry attempts and 5 of 5 exit attempts.
Early on in the first period, he had two failed exits in a row. To be fair to him, this was towards the end of his shift as he had been on the ice for almost a minute at that point. However, he also spent most of that shift in the defensive zone, wasting his energy while Montreal possessed the puck on the perimeter.
With a player like Peeke, there is a little bit of a chicken and egg issue. At times like these, he’s not in the best position to be able to exit the zone cleanly, but he also played a part in putting himself in that position spending most of his time taking jabs in the defensive zone.
When going back through the game, I also recorded Peeke’s role on the unblocked shot attempts the Bruins took while he was on the ice. He either could have been the shooter, primary shot assist, or secondary shot assist.
As we know from the NHL’s play-by-play data, Peeke took a pair of low-quality shots that missed the net. The only other unblocked shot attempt that Peeke had any involvement in was a secondary shot assist where Peeke received the puck at the point, moved it over to Wotherspoon whose shot was deflected by Frederic. 94% of the expected goals that Peeke was on the ice for, he played no role in.
For example, one of the best chances of the game was David Pastrnak’s breakaway attempt. Peeke doesn’t even show up in the picture. We accept this on-ice theory in larger sample sizes, but when trying to parse together impact in a small sample size, it seems a bit silly to give equal credit to all of those involved when we know it takes a long time for the base rates of involvement to even out.
For additional context of zone starts, I’m not sure what I was quite expecting now that I went through the process of tracking it. For defensemen, they will almost never start an on-the-fly shift from the defensive zone. Forwards are probably much more likely to have sensitivity to on-the-fly shifts as their teammates may switch off on transition back to the defensive zone. Still, I tracked it so I thought I would share.
The most dangerous shot attempt against while Peeke was on the ice, from expected goals standards at least, was off of the lone defensive zone start that his centerman lost. The puck was won back to the point, a Canadiens player shot it, and it was deflected high in the slot. The shot location was marked a fair bit closer to the net than reality.
Additional Commentary
After watching a full game back of Andrew Peeke with Boston, I do understand why the Bruins want to take a shot on him. His work in the defensive zone is quite admirable. I take notes on a shift-by-shift basis, and as I noted on his first shift, he’s a “hyper scanner.” He has a great awareness of what is going on. He boxes out well at the net and has the ability to break up plays. I particularly enjoyed this sequence late in the first period.
Ultimately, his centerman was caught high and out of position to defend. He recognizes this and takes up the maximum amount of space as possible in a more vulnerable position. Not only does he initially take away the most dangerous option, but he puts himself in a position to block the passing lane to that option from the net front player. As the play develops, he is able to move back towards the shooting lane. Following the shot, he shuts down any chance of a rebound, and Frederic is able to take possession of the puck and exit the zone cleanly for the Bruins.
In Columbus, if your sole strength is defending, you’re likely to get caved in. In Boston, a much better set of teammates can do the heavy lifting required to finish off the defensive effort by transitioning the puck out of the zone. Perhaps it is also worth noting that Wotherspoon had one of his better games this season. Was part of that Peeke creating space a security for him to excel? It’s possible.
Conclusion
I think the rather boring deadline put more attention on a depth acquisition than was warranted. In effect, there was much more excitement and doubt floating around the fan base. Personally, I still don’t believe this was an optimal move from an asset management standpoint. I think someone with a limited, defense-first game will always be available on the open market for cheap. Those positions are also a chance to bring in veteran guys who help the room. However, I understand why the Bruins feel that they can use and get the most out of this player. There’s a real chance he can succeed in a much better environment, and his contract could even look good next year or the following given the increase in the cap.