After Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy indicated earlier this week that John Moore had undergone surgery, the nature of the procedure and recovery time weren’t specified. That has now been revealed as the team announced that the defenseman elected to undergo hip arthroscopy and labral repair with an expected recovery time of five to six months.
The 30-year-old has been limited to just five games this season due to the injury and his time as a healthy scratch. Moore simply hasn’t fit in with Boston since signing with them in 2018, notching just 18 points over 90 games in his three seasons with the team. That’s hardly the type of return they were hoping for when they handed him a five-year, $13.75MM contract.
One small silver lining for Boston is that Moore’s $2.75MM AAV is now eligible to be placed on LTIR. It’s a move that they don’t need to make now as they can currently add someone making just over $4.4MM per CapFriendly so transferring Moore to LTIR now wouldn’t accomplish anything. However, if they make a deal that brings in someone making close to $4.4MM, they could then transfer Moore to LTIR, giving them the flexibility to make another acquisition of someone making under his $2.75MM AAV.
On the other hand, this announcement makes any potential offseason buyout trickier as Moore won’t be fully recovered by the time the buyout window opens up in July. Players need to be healthy in order to be bought out so if this was an avenue that GM Don Sweeney was intending to pursue, he will have to wait. The Bruins do have the potential for a second buyout window later in the summer with multiple arbitration-eligible restricted free agents and by then, Moore will be within the recovery window where a buyout could become possible.
Nice signing Mike