Bruins complete trade with Blackhawks

The offseason hasn't officially started, but the Bruins and Blackhawks decided to get an early start of things Friday, with a minor swap on the backend.

In a trade that will bring defenseman Victor Soderstrom to Boston, the Bruins have sent Ryan Mast and a 2025 seventh-round pick to the Blackhawks. The deal comes after a 2024-25 season that saw Soderstrom play outside of North America, with nine goals and 37 points in 49 games for Brynas IF (Sweden).

Prior to joining the SHL this past season, the 24-year-old Soderstrom skated in the Coyotes organization, and had nine goals and 32 points in 62 games for AHL Tuscon during the 2023-24 season.

A first-round pick (No. 11 overall) from the 2019 NHL Draft, Soderstrom totaled one goal and 11 points in 53 games for the Coyotes over four seasons of work, and only decided to leave the NHL for Sweden after the Coyotes announced that they were moving out of Arizona and to Utah. It was unclear as to why this was the case, but Soderstrom was brutally honest about how he had absolutely no interest in playing for the Utah Hockey Club.

Utah would later trade him to the Blackhawks, and though it proved to be impossible for Soderstrom to leave the SHL and get to Chicago before the end of the season, he did make it clear that he wanted to return to the NHL.

“I told Utah that I wouldn’t [sign] there even if they wanted me to, so the solution was to come home here and start over a little and find the joy in playing hockey again,” Soderstrom explained in an interview following the trade. “I’ve had a great year and got to play on a really good team. Every game has been really fun and I’ve tried to get better every day."

Boston's trading of Mast, meanwhile, comes after the 6-foot-5 defender posted five assists in 37 games for AHL Providence last season. The decision to move on the 2021 sixth-round pick after just 91 pro games between the AHL and ECHL comes with the idea of getting Mast a fresh start with a new organization with more room for development and a pathway to actual minutes, a league source confirmed to 98.5 The Sports Hub.

Soderstrom's opportunity with Boston will be an interesting development to watch here, as the Bruins have a definite need on the right side of their defense. It's hard to imagine that the Bruins are going to call it an offseason at that position after acquiring just Soderstrom (nor should they), but how they view his ceiling and potential NHL impact could play a role in what level of addition they make at the right side when free agency begins next month, especially with a relatively thin market on the right side.