The New York Islanders acquired defenseman Robert Bortuzzo from the St. Louis Blues, according to announcements from each team. The Islanders are sending their 2024 seventh-round pick to St. Louis in return for the player.
This news isn’t entirely surprising given the recent announcement that Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock had been placed on injured reserve. Pulock’s injury left the Islanders thin on the right side of their blueline. With Pulock out, the Islanders were likely to have to slot Grant Hutton into a regular role on their blueline.
While the six-foot-three Hutton has been a nice find for the Islanders as an undrafted free agent signing from a few years ago, he has just 18 games of NHL experience and is not the kind of reliable veteran a team could see capably filling in some of Pulock’s minutes.
Pulock plays a minutes-eating role with the Islanders, enduring tough matchups against opposing teams’ top forwards. He also plays a critical role on the team’s penalty kill, a unit that has struggled so far this season but ranked inside the league’s top 10 last year. Although Bortuzzo is far from the defenseman Pulock is, he is a clear upgrade over Hutton in a seventh-defenseman role, and a far more reliable name for the club to install into its lineup in Pulock’s place.
Bortuzzo is a Stanley Cup champion and a veteran of over 500 NHL games. He’s played for the Blues for a decade and has generally occupied the seventh-defenseman role for the team.
He won’t offer much in the way of offensive value or puck-moving ability, but he offers above-average size standing six-foot-four, 216 pounds. Additionally, he’s an imposing physical presence and has racked up 491 career penalty minutes and over 1,000 career hits.
With this trade, the Islanders acquire a highly experienced defenseman for an eminently affordable price, someone who can more reliably handle some of the minutes vacated by Pulock than Hutton likely could. This trade also gives the Islanders a better seventh defenseman for when Pulock does return, assuming Pulock is able to re-enter the lineup after his mandated three-game absence.
The Islanders currently sit third in the Metropolitan Division with an 11-7-7 record. The Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, and New Jersey Devils are all teams likely to make a serious push for position as the season moves forward. For the Islanders to stand the best chance to stay afloat in a cutthroat division, defensive reinforcement was needed to cover for the injuries that have hit two important blueliners.
General manager Lou Lamoriello has provided that reinforcement with this trade, and only expended a seventh-round pick to do so. While some fans may have preferred the team target a younger blueliner who plays a style more in line with the expectations of a modern NHL defenseman, (meaning someone who has some skating ability and the capability to contribute to the transition game) it’s hard to argue with the acquisition of such an experienced defenseman like Bortuzzo at such a cheap price. And that’s made especially true since Bortuzzo carries just a $950k cap hit.
For St. Louis, this deal accomplishes a few things. Firstly, it provides an opportunity for Bortuzzo to get into games on a more regular basis than he’d done in St. Louis. He hasn’t played since November 18th and has dressed for just four games this season. As a pending unrestricted free agent, the more games Bortuzzo is a healthy scratch for the harder it will be for him to secure a suitable contract on the open market.
As a ten-year veteran who helped deliver the franchise its first Stanley Cup championship, it’s understandable that the Blues would want to do right by Bortuzzo first and foremost, especially if he wasn’t in head coach Craig Berube’s long-term plans.
Prior to this trade, the Blues had been carrying eight defensemen, with 23-year-old Tyler Tucker more likely than Bortuzzo to draw into the lineup in case of injuries. Now, they’re left with a more conventional unit of seven defensemen on their active roster, a number that offers the team an additional spot for which a forward can now be called up to fill. Being able to do a favor to a well-liked veteran while also adding a draft pick in the process is a tidy bit of business for Blues GM Doug Armstrong.
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