The Boston Bruins were linked to Arizona Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun in a few trade rumors over the last couple months, but they ultimately decided to make a deal with the Washington Capitals to acquire defenseman Dmitry Orlov and bottom-six forward Garnet Hathaway last week.
ESPN's Greg Wyshynski reported Tuesday that one of the stumbling blocks in a potential Chychrun-to-Boston deal was salary retention.
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The Bruins have been tight against the salary cap all season, and they did not have enough cap room to add Chychrun's $ 4.6 million cap hit outright. They would have needed the Coyotes to take a contract back and/or retain some of Chychrun's salary.
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The Coyotes, according to reports, are not looking to take on a ton of salary right now.
"Team president Xavier Gutierrez has made it clear that the Coyotes are going to run lean during these rebuild years for the franchise — on the ice and off of it," longtime Coyotes reporter Craig Morgan wrote last week.
Boston Bruins
The Bruins found a team in the Capitals both willing to take on a contract (Craig Smith and his $ 3.1 million cap hit) and retain salary. The Capitals retained 50 percent of Orlov's salary, while the Minnesota Wild retained an additional 25 percent of his salary as part of the three-team trade. This 75 percent salary retention brought down Orlov's cap hit from $ 5.1 million to $ 1.275 million.
Orlov and Hathaway made their Bruins debuts last Saturday in Vancouver when Boston defeated the Canucks 3-1.