Bruins GM hints at retooling roster

Ty Anderson of 98.5 The Sports Hub is reporting that Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney is hinting that the Bruins will go into a retool this offseason. What that will be remains to be seen, but the longtime GM said, “Roster changes are likely coming.” 

Sweeney continually referenced Boston’s dire salary cap situation as well as integrating younger players into the lineup. His words are no surprise given that Boston has less than $5M in cap space entering the offseason and just seven of its current forwards signed to contracts for next year. Boston will also need to work out a new contract for backup goaltender Jeremy Swayman, who will be a restricted free agent this summer.

On top of needing to work out a deal with Swayman, Boston has many other key free agents who will likely need to move on given the Bruins' lack of cap space. Patrice Bergeron and David Krejčí are both unrestricted free agents who played on low cap hits last season and hit bonus clauses that will cause Boston to carry bonus overages of $4.5M into 2023-24. Trade-deadline acquisitions Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway are also all unrestricted free agents this summer and are likely to seek employment elsewhere. 

Given everything going on in Boston, the Bruins will have a very different-looking team than the one that lost in the first round to the Florida Panthers.