The Bruins have another deadline on the way

The Bruins already have their 'critical dates' for the 2024 offseason in front of them.

But there is another deadline in front of Don Sweeney's club, and in the immediate future, regarding one of their goaltending prospects. In fact, the Bruins have until 5 p.m. on June 1 to sign Reid Dyck to his entry-level contract before they risk losing Dyck's exclusive signing rights.

Dyck is the only 'sign or lose' player on the Bruins' list for the 2024 offseason, according to CapFriendly.

Drafted in the sixth round (No. 183 overall) in 2022, Dyck is coming off a 2023-24 campaign that featured a 25-7-2 record, along with a .911 save percentage and 2.70 goals against average, in 35 games for the Swift Current Broncos of the WHL. Dyck's .911 save percentage ranked fifth among all WHL goaltenders, while his 2.70 goals against average was the seventh-best in the league.

The 6-foot-4 Dyck, who hails from Manitoba, has spent four years with Swift Current, and truly broke through this past season, with junior career bests across the board.

Dyck would make nine playoff appearances and then joined the P-Bruins on an amateur tryout agreement to close out his season, and though he did not get into any action for Providence, that seemingly bodes well for a potential signing with the B's organization.

And though there's tremendous uncertainty in Boston as it relates to the Black and Gold's one-two punch of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark running in back for a fourth straight season, there should be an opening for Dyck somewhere in the pipeline. That seems especially true given the expected shift within Boston's minor-league ranks, from the pending free agent status of Kyle Keyser and a likely promotion up to the NHL for either Brandon Bussi or Michael DiPietro.

The Bruins also signed Notre Dame standout Ryan Bischel to a contract earlier this spring, though that was a minors-only contract, making him a likely candidate for additional seasoning in the ECHL.

For what it's worth, the Bruins have signed the last three goaltenders drafted they've drafted before Dyck, beginning with first-round pick Malcolm Subban in 2012, continuing with third-round pick Dan Vladar in 2015, and fourth-round selection Jeremy Swayman in 2017. Lars Volden, a sixth-round pick by the Bruins in 2011, was the last Bruins netminder to be drafted by the club but not signed to a deal.

Make no mistake about it, the Bruins will have options when it comes to Linus Ullmark this summer.

Bruins general manager Don Sweeney knows as much — and in a rare move given how he tends to conduct business through the media (he doesn't) — has said as much.

"Those things will take care of themselves," Sweeney said at management's break-up day when discussing the uncertain future of Ullmark amid trade rumors and a massive payday awaiting restricted free agent goaltender Jeremy Swayman. "No conversation I'm going to have with a player in terms of what we're trying to do, until we have to have a conversation, is really going to go public. I hope you all respect that because ultimately that's as a player, a former player, I would hope would happen.

"We're gonna find a landing spot with Swayman, and if we can make the math work, we're going to have the best tandem. If we can't, we're going to explore [options], and for Linus, he may come to us and change his mind, that may occur as well. Right now we're very happy to have signed Linus, and in a perfect world, we would keep the tandem because I think it's damn good. But we're going to explore opportunities. My phone's going to ring, I'm going to make calls. That's just what the job requires."

And based on initial reporting, those calls have happened and will continue to happen in what's sure to be an absolutely insanely busy for the Bruins.

Beginning with what's already happened, word from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman indicated that the Bruins had received a call from the Hurricanes regarding Ullmark's availability earlier this year.

“I do believe the Bruins and the Hurricanes talked about an Ullmark deal,” Friedman said last week on the '32 Thoughts' podcast. “Now, number one, it has to be recognized that Ullmark would have to be able to go there, and I don’t know where Carolina is or is not on his list. But I do believe it’s something these two teams talked about."

Friedman's timeline here indicates that the sides talked about the deal at the 2024 NHL trade deadline. What's interesting about that timeline is that it was during what was a four-month absence for the Hurricanes' Frederik Andersen due to blood clots that put his NHL career in jeopardy. Andersen would ultimately return to the Canes at the trade deadline, and finished his regular season on an 8-1-0 run with a .951 save percentage.

Andersen did not keep that up in the postseason, however, and posted an .895 save percentage in 10 playoff games for the Hurricanes, which was the third-worst among goalies with at least five appearances in the 2024 postseason.

At first glance, the Hurricanes seem relatively set in goal assuming that Andersen is indeed fully healthy moving forward. And the 34-year-old Andersen is a pretty solid 'budget' option, all things considered, as he's entering the final year of a contract that comes with a $3.4 million cap hit. The Hurricanes also have standout rookie Pyotr Kochetkov (23 wins and a .911 save percentage in 40 starts last year) behind Andersen, and at $2 million.

But with the team still unable to get over the hump, sometimes due to goaltending instability, the Hurricanes could be looking for what they view as a potential upgrade in the 2023 Vezina winner and 6-foot-5 Ullmark.

Ullmark could also represent the chance for the Hurricanes to get an NHL-caliber return for restricted free agent and potential Carolina castoff Martin Necas. The belief around the league is that Necas views himself as something greater than the role he's been given in Carolina, and that he would like to play somewhere he can play center (the Hurricanes have used Necas as a wing for the majority of his Carolina run). And given the complicated cap puzzle in front of interim general manager Eric Tulsky, it's possible that Necas is on the outs no matter what.

One of the fastest skaters in the entire NHL, Necas is coming off a 2023-24 campaign that featured 24 goals and 53 points in 77 games, and a postseason run that included four goals and nine points in 11 games. Necas, who was the No. 12 overall pick in 2017, also hails from Czechia, giving him a natural connection with David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha. The trio all skated on the Czechia roster that just won the 2024 World Championships in Czechia, too.

And north of the border, there's talk of the Senators taking another run at acquiring Ullmark.

"[Steve] Staios and the club’s hockey operations department are expected to make another pitch before the draft set for June 28-29 in Las Vegas," Senators insider Bruce Garrioch wrote last week. "The Senators, Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils were among several teams that made a push for the 30-year-old Ullmark before the deadline."

A natural problem for a team like the Senators may come back to Ullmark's no-trade list, with Ullmark both clear on the fact that he wants to stay with the Bruins and hyper-mindful of going to a potentially bad team.

“It’s very hard," Ullmark said of his no-trade list and waiving it for a team on the list. "I mean, like I said, we don’t really have all these luxuries to really tell like, ‘I don’t want to be at certain areas.’ And there might be other things as well throughout your career that let’s say, for example, you have one team that would be on the West Coast that is really, really bad and you have them on your trade list. But then all of a sudden, maybe three years later, they’re not [bad]. They might be a contender.

“You can just look at Edmonton or whatever and look at those teams that might have been really bad, but now are really good. You might want to waive at that point, but you can’t really think about that, you know, in advance [like] how are these teams going to be in three or four years? You can’t really look into your little [crystal] ball in the future and say, ‘Hey, this is what it’s going to be, I’m going to go there’ and whatever because it might go to shit as well.”

There are obvious workarounds to any limitations or concerns when it comes to moving Ullmark. As Sweeney said, perhaps Ullmark is willing to change his mind on a certain city or location he once passed on. It's also possible that a big-money extension with his next team could become a determining factor for Ullmark waiving his no-trade.

But what could the Bruins want or expect out of a deal with Ottawa?

"A league executive said Thursday he believes the Senators would likely have to offer defenceman Jakob Chychrun along with a first-round pick and another selection to acquire Ullmark," Garrioch wrote. "Even then, [Ullmark] has the hammer because he does have the modified no-trade clause."

If that's the trade on the table, the Bruins would likely say yes a thousand times over, and do whatever they possibly could to get Ullmark to say yes to waiving his no-trade. (Throw him another Polestar or seven, I don't know.)

Chychrun, like Ullmark, is entering the final year of his current contract (which comes with a $4.6 million cap hit), but would present the Bruins with the option to build out a long-term left-side defense featuring Chychrun, Mason Lohrei, and Hampus Lindholm all under team control for the foreseeable future. The Bruins were believed to be in the mix for Chychrun, who put up 14 goals and 41 points in 82 games this year, prior to his trade from Arizona to Ottawa.

As far as the first-round pick, it is worth noting that Ottawa possesses a 2024 first-round pick that originally belonged to Boston, but was traded to Detroit in 2023 for Tyler Bertuzzi and later flipped to Ottawa for Alex DeBrincat.