Bruins finalize three more signings ahead of free agency

After a three-signing Sunday, the Bruins kicked off their Monday with another three-pack of signings, this time with forward Johnny Beecher, defenseman Henri Jokiharju, and goaltender Michael DiPietro all signed to new deals.

Beginning with the most expensive, the Bruins decided not to take their chances with a thin free-agent group on the backend and instead re-upped Jokiharju to a three-year, $9 million contract ($3 million cap hit).

Acquired from Buffalo at the 2025 trade deadline in what's probably best described as an exploratory move with low stakes for a tanking Bruins team, Jokiharju posted four assists in an 18-game run with Boston after the deadline.

In addition to his four helpers, the right-shooting Jokiharju was credited with 15 hits and 22 blocked shots, and posted a plus-7 rating. That plus-7 rating was actually the second-best among all Bruins post-deadline, too, trailing only frequent pairing partner Nikita Zadorov and his plus-12 rating.

As noted, the Bruins often deployed a Zadorov-Jokiharju pairing to close out their regular season, with the duo together for over 273 minutes of five-on-five play. The Bruins outscored opponents 12-5 during that 273-minute sample, and were on the ice for just 1.1 goals against per 60, which was the lowest per-60 out of any Boston defensive pairing that logged at least 200 minutes last year.

The Bruins' decision to sign Jokiharju, again, almost certainly comes back to what's a thin market when it comes to right-shot defenders. That market is absolutely headlined by two-time Stanley Cup champion Aaron Ekblad, of course, but has a downright severe tapering off as a result of Neal Pionk re-signing in Winnipeg earlier this year and Dante Fabbro's extension in Columbus.

Jokiharju, a first-round pick of the Blackhawks back in 2017, has totaled 19 goals and 97 points in 407 NHL games between Chicago, Buffalo, and Boston.

Beecher, meanwhile, will get at least one more shot to make an impact in Boston, this time by way of a one-year deal worth $900,000.

In action for a career-high 78 games this past season, the 2019 first-round pick had a career-high 11 points for the Black and Gold, which on the surface seems solid for a guy with his kind of deployment. But Beecher struggled to do much of anything positive after the first month of the season, which was headlined by Boston's fourth line scoring, with Beecher having posted six points in nine games to begin the year before posting five in the 69 games that followed.

A speedy penalty killer, Beecher also hurt his own on-ice value to the Bruins with what was a brutal close to the season from a penalty standpoint, with eight minors over the final 27 games of the regular season.

Overall, Beecher has posted 10 goals and 21 points, along with 197 hits and 105 blocked shots, in 130 NHL games over the last two years. 

DiPietro, meanwhile, resisted the urge to see what opportunities his hot market could've provided him as a Group 6 free agent and has instead stuck with the Bruins on a two-year deal that comes with an affordable $812,500 cap hit.

To keep the 25-year-old DiPietro around, the Bruins did make this new contract an NHL deal (another way of saying it's a one-way deal), meaning that the 2024-25 AHL All-Star and Aldege "Baz" Bastien Memorial Award (top AHL goaltender) winner will make the same money in both the NHL and AHL.

In his nearly three years in the B's organization, and beyond the accolades, DiPietro's body of work was one that got better and better, with a 45-17-7 record, along with a .924 save percentage and 2.24 goals against average for the P-Bruins. The 26-year-old also posted three wins and a .928 save percentage in seven playoff games with Providence this past spring.

It will be interesting to see what this signing means for current Bruins backup Joonas Korpisalo. On the hook for three more years and at $3 million per season, Korpisalo was open about his frustrating lack of playing time during the 2024-25 season, and the Bruins could look at DiPietro as a netminder who could've them a similar level of play while also saving them over $2.1 million.

Korpisalo does possess some trade protection, however, so it's not as if the Bruins would be able to simply dump him on somebody without any issues.

But given DiPietro's aforementioned market this summer, as well as his success in the AHL to this point, it may prove tricky to sneak DiPietro down to Providence through waivers in training camp, which the Bruins will have to do if they do not move Korpisalo and do not run with a three-goaltender NHL roster.