Back in 2019, the Senators thought they were adding a core piece of the future when they picked up defenseman Erik Brannstrom from Vegas as part of the Mark Stone trade. While he has worked his way into a regular role, he hasn’t been anywhere near as impactful as they were hoping for.
With the team looking to shake things up in Steve Staios’ first summer as GM, it appears as if Brannstrom is one of the players whose future with the team is in some question. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the Sens aren’t sure if they will tender him his required qualifying offer this summer.
It’s a similar situation to the one they found themselves in a year ago, albeit with a higher price tag this time around. At that time, the qualifying offer was tendered with an agreement pretty much done in principle, finalized on July 1 with a contract that more than doubled his salary to $2M for 2023-24. That figure is now the qualifying offer, while he will have arbitration rights, as well.
Brannstrom played in a career-best 76 games this season, picking up three goals and 17 assists. He was primarily limited to playing on the third pairing, while interim head coach Jacques Martin elected to deploy him as a winger on the fourth line briefly as well.
Those numbers alone might not look great for arbitration purposes but with 69 points in 266 career NHL contests, the longer track record would bolster his case in a hearing.
At the moment, Ottawa already has over $27M committed to six defensemen for next season, per CapFriendly, with Jake Sanderson’s new contract kicking in this summer. Should they be allocating at least another $2M (and likely more to avoid a hearing) to that position, or would they be better off using that money elsewhere?
Having said that, if they elect to move a blueliner — Jakob Chychrun has been in trade speculation dating back to the trade deadline — then it might be more justifiable to try to give Brannstrom one more chance.
As things stand, they have a little over $12M in room for next season with a handful of roster spots to fill. Pending RFA center Shane Pinto figures to take a good chunk of that, so if Staios wants to try to add an impact piece to his roster, it would be difficult to do so and keep Brannstrom on the roster without making some sort of other change first.
Accordingly, this is a decision that could come down to the wire on the June 30 qualifying offer deadline.
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