Offseason checklist for the Boston Bruins

The market for second contracts for young goalies without a lot of NHL experience has shot up in recent years. Carter Hart received three years at $3.979M after just 101 games. Jake Oettinger received three years at $4M after only 77 regular season games (plus a strong showing in the 2022 playoffs). Spencer Knight received three years with a $4.5M AAV after only 36 games played. It’s also worth pointing out that Swayman’s career numbers are better than what any of these three had at the time they signed their bridge contracts.

Those three contracts should give Sweeney a good idea of what Swayman will cost on his next contract. Can Boston afford that? Not as things currently stand.

As a result, there are some decisions to be made. When determining who to trim from the roster to create cap space for, is it worth doing it to maintain an elite tandem with Ullmark, even though it would cost around $10M for both of them? Considering that top goaltending can help overcome some offensive challenges, there’s certainly a case to be made that doing so would be wise.

But if the answer to that question is no, then the question becomes who do they move? It’d be hard to move on from Ullmark, the likely Vezina Trophy winner. He’ll turn 30 next month, so is he their goalie of the future? Or should Swayman, who has three years of control left, be the one to keep? Both would command strong interest but losing one of them would certainly hurt their short-term fortunes. The amount of cap space could also be limited since a decent backup would cost at least $2M, likely more. Considering the goaltending market typically shakes out quickly, the Bruins will need to decide which path they plan to take.

Get Center Help

This season, Boston had strong depth down the middle led by veterans Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, who returned to the NHL after spending a season back home. Bergeron finished third in the team in scoring and Krejci fifth, a nice return on a combined base cap hit of $3.5M. Of course, there were $4.5M in bonuses, all of which were easily met, and with the Bruins spending the season over the cap, that triggered the carryover penalty. Both veterans are set to become unrestricted free agents once again this summer and while there’s little concern that they’ll sign elsewhere, it remains to be seen if one or both are willing to return for another year.

If both decide to give it another go, they’re likely to sign similarly structured contracts to the ones they played on, allowing Boston to kick some of the cost over to 2024-25. However, it’d only be kicking the problem down the road, as organizationally, they need to add at least one long-term middleman. Pavel Zacha had a career year this season and could slide back to center, but when he was with the New Jersey Devils, he struggled to produce, so it’s hardly a guarantee he’ll be able to back up his 57-point campaign. Charlie Coyle is a capable secondary center, but not a true top-liner at this stage of his career, so he shouldn’t be the solution on the top line either.

If the Bruins want to look outside the organization, it will be tricky to land a replacement with their inability to afford a market-value contract.  There aren’t any true top options in free agency and if they want to look to the trade market (perhaps to Winnipeg for one of their middlemen), they don’t have much in the way of top picks at their disposal.  Their first available first-round pick is in 2025 while their next second-rounder is in 2026. Prospect-wise, their pool isn’t the strongest thanks to moving out several good draft picks to help keep them in contention.

It won’t be easy to acquire one and it will be hard to afford it in their cap structure, but there is a definite need down the middle they need to address this summer—whether it’s bringing back their long-term veterans or looking elsewhere. One way or another, Sweeney is going to have to try and find a way to accomplish this.

Move a Blueliner

One way that Boston can try to create some cap space is to move a defenseman or two. As things stand, they have nearly $31M committed to seven rearguards for next season. No other team has that much money committed to their back end. By the time you add in Ullmark’s $5MM AAV and Swayman’s likely number near that amount, it looks like the Bruins could have half of next year’s cap committed to non-forwards.  That would certainly be a risky proposition.

Beyond Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm, it’s plausible that any of their other defensemen could be in play. Mike Reilly is someone they’d certainly want to move after he spent most of the year at AHL Providence although they’ll likely have to incentivize a team to take him or take a similarly-sized contract back which wouldn’t help their cap situation. He has one year left at $3M. Derek Forbort is another pending UFA who can still hold his own on the third pairing but $3M for someone in that slot is on the pricey side given their cap situation.  Even moving Jakub Zboril, another 2024 UFA, for someone making the league minimum, would free up a little over $300K.

As for the other pending UFA out of this group, Matt Grzelcyk is one to watch for. He was a top-four piece not long ago but has dropped into more of a depth role and found himself on the bench at times in the playoffs. He’s still a capable blueliner but again, he’s on the pricey side for the role he was in down the stretch. The expected departure of Dmitry Orlov could put him back on the second pairing but it still wouldn’t be surprising to see Sweeney try to find him a new home.

Brandon Carlo is another regular that hasn’t been mentioned. With four years left at $4.1M, his contract is certainly reasonable for a second-pairing defender although he’s not exactly the type of blueliner that’s going to jump in the play and contribute much offensively. In an ideal world, Boston would probably want to keep him but if they find themselves having to trade for a center, Carlo would be one of their more asked-about trade chips in such a scenario so moving him can’t be ruled out either.

For now, the Bruins have the costliest defense in the NHL. It seems unlikely that will still be the case in October when the 2023-24 campaign gets underway.