The picture of the 2023-24 Bruins — at least what they’ll almost certainly look like to begin the season — is nearly complete.
The Bruins got their answer on the future of Patrice Bergeron (and they hated it, though they certainly understood it), and the Bruins officially re-signed Trent Frederic to a two-year deal and accepted the arbitration award for Jeremy Swayman after what felt like lengthy and expected arbitration-related delays with both players.
That’s juuuust about everything Don Sweeney & Co. had left to handle when it came to their on-ice roster.
But, technically speaking here, the Bruins’ signings of Frederic and Swayman have officially put them over the salary cap for the start of the new season. (Trading Taylor Hall to the Blackhawks for pennies on the dollar and still finding themselves over the cap after a bargain-bin bonanza of a free-agency dip? Oh, boy, what a nightmare that everybody should’ve seen coming based on their bonus-laden contracts and then their headfirst dive into the LTIR pool at the trade deadline.)
Feb 28, 2023; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Flames left wing Milan Lucic (17) and Bruins defenseman Derek Forbort (28) fight for position in front of goaltender Linus Ullmark (35) during the second period at Scotiabank Saddledome. (Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports)
One name frequently brought up or mentioned when discussing the buyout was Derek Forbort. Now, Forbort’s $3 million salary made him ineligible for the second buyout window, but it was a sound theory once you got beyond that obvious barrier. Especially if you looked at it from a ‘maximizing your dollar’ standpoint.
In a hard-capped league, and after minimal cap increases over the last two years, $3 million needs to go a long way for a cap-crunched team like the Bruins. And Forbort has his limitations. He’s not mobile enough to skate opposite Brandon Carlo on a potential second pairing, and Forbort’s start to his Boston career opposite Charlie McAvoy proved that going to him in a top-pairing role is a bridge too far. So, in essence, the Bruins are paying $3 million for a player who can only really play (at least by design and when at full health) on their third pairing. That, in 2023 and with their heads almost bonking off the cap ceiling, is a bit much.
But the Bruins also feel that Forbort brings considerable value to their team, particularly when it comes to the harder, uglier minutes. Boston’s go-to penalty-killing defenseman since he came to town in 2021, Forbort does a lot of the dirty work that the Bruins would prefer to keep some of their upper-echelon away from if they can help it. (Look at it this way: If someone is going to break their finger or get hobbled for five weeks because of a blocked shot like Forbort did last year, the Bruins would prefer that it’s Forbort over a McAvoy or a Lindholm. And Forbort is willing to absorb that pain. There is something to be said for that when it comes to his value and it’s trickle-up effect on the club.)
But the question is do the Bruins believe they could get that same value — or comparable, even — for cheaper and does that make them take a look at what else is out there?
Nov 29, 2022; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins defenseman Derek Forbort (28) watches the play during the second period against the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden. (Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports)
As it stands right now, the current NHL free agent market features seven defensemen who appeared in at least 45 games a season ago. Six of those seven defensemen are left-shooting options, too. And as training camp draws closer and closer, those guys are going to be looking for homes more than anything else. (Anton Stralman was a great example of this.) Of that group, ex-Ducks defenseman Simon Benoit seems to be the ‘closest’ to Forbort in terms of usage and deployment, though Forbort’s results were noticeably better. The Bruins also have in-house options such as Jakub Zboril if it’s about simply ditching the money and rolling with what you have.
And given the gridlock that is the 2023 trade market, any move involving Forbort would almost certainly be a salary dump and nothing more. That’s assuming that the Bruins could dump the salary without having to attach extra assets, be it picks or prospects. The Bruins would prefer not to do that, making that kind of trade seemingly unlikely.
Forbort is also in possession of a three-team no-trade list.
Mar 19, 2023; Buffalo, New York, USA; Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk (48) makes a pass during the third period against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center. (Timothy T. Ludwig/USA TODAY Sports)
Another player whose name came up in rumors earlier this summer: Matt Grzelcyk.
Entering the final year of his contract with the club, and in and out of the lineup throughout Boston’s first-round series against Florida, it almost seemed natural that the Bruins would see what kind of market was out there for Grzelcyk. After all, there’s no point in keeping that money on the books if you’re not going to play the player when the playoffs come around (still a critically-downplayed mistake made by Jim Montgomery in the playoffs, but alas).
But speaking with reporters back in July, Sweeney downplayed any notion that the Bruins were actually interested in dealing Grzelcyk, and even spun the rumors back the media’s way.
“I didn’t start any rumors, so, you want to ask me where they came from? You want to look in the mirror? Maybe you guys started them,” Sweeney said when asked about Grzelcyk’s name popping up in rumors. “Is it hypothetical that they’re having conversations about players [in] our lineup? There’s no question that I’m never going to be discussing whether or not a team has called me. That’s just the job. It doesn’t matter who it is. That’s disrespectful to a player from my point of view, being a former player.
“We know that Matt can play with Charlie McAvoy in a top player role and play really well. We split around the lineup. How we were composing our lineup, how we made some decisions in the moment. Yeah, he was in and out a lot. [Dmitry] Orlov was a really good player and I wish him luck in Carolina, but Matt is a hockey player, and we feel, as I referenced earlier, he plays a big part of a lot of success in the regular season and he will be a lot of success going forward and is very comfortable within our lineup.”
With the way teams weaponized their cap space, it’s entirely possible (and even likely) that the potential Grzelcyk return wasn’t worth the hole it would’ve created on Boston’s blue line.
Grzelcyk is coming off a 2022-23 year that included career-best marks in assists (22), points (26), and plus-minus (plus-46). And what you had to like about his campaign is that Grzelcyk remained an effective defender when skating with and without McAvoy to his right.
Oct 12, 2022; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark (35) celebrates with Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman (1) after their game against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena. (Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports)
Since we’re talking about everything the Bruins aren’t going to do between now and the start of the season, at least in the name of creating cap space, it doesn’t feel like the Bruins have any grand plans of abandoning the Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman one-two punch in net.
Now, if you listen to The Sports Hub Underground (tell your friends!), you’ve known this to be the case for a while now. Nobody blew the Bruins’ doors off with an offer for Ullmark, and my understanding of the situation is that their best potential trade partner when it came to maximizing value required a corresponding trade that never came to be and allegedly involved a team on Ullmark’s no-trade list. Once that sandcastle got washed away, there was never a trade that truly meant sense for the Bruins when it came to parting ways with the reigning Vezina Trophy winner.
Also — and I simply cannot stress this point enough — the Bruins are not in a position to simply give away a goaltender as good as Linus Ullmark. It’s organizational malpractice at its very best, and Ullmark is simply worth more wins over the course of an 82-game season than any player the Bruins would’ve spent his $5 million on retaining or adding. And yes, that includes Wayne Gretzky, I mean Tyler Bertuzzi.
And with Patrice Bergeron (and almost certainly David Krejci) out of the picture for the Bruins, the B’s are likely going to lean on that one-two punch in net to grind out some uglier victories in 2023-24.
“We feel very comfortable [with both goalies] and want to take another step,” Sweeney said back in July. “We want to see both of them take another step, that’s God’s honest truth. Our hockey club, you know, peace of mind for 82 games was pretty darn consistent. And you know what? We just didn’t do what we wanted to do and hope to do that in the playoffs. And we have to learn and grow.”
SUNRISE, FL – APRIL 28: Jim Montgomery talks to Brandon Carlo #25 of the Boston Bruins during a break in action during the game against the Florida Panthers in Game Six of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)
So, if nobody is truly on the move, where do the Bruins go to get under the cap?
Again, the most likely scenario involves simply skating with one spare forward and one spare defenseman compared to the one spare forward and two spare defensemen complexion the team has frequently rolled out under both Bruce Cassidy and Jim Montgomery. That’ll make for a thrilling training camp with so many players vying for bottom-six roles, as well as defensemen like Reilly Walsh and Ian Mitchell looking to break through as full-time NHLers.
But it’ll also be interesting to see if the Bruins make some calculated gambles when it comes to managing that daily cap to maximize their roster and cap flexibility.
With training camp behind them and the team set to embark on the regular season last fall, the Bruins decided to waive Nick Foligno and Mike Reilly. Both players were making a bit too much money to get claimed, the Bruins (accurately) assessed, and both were waived down to Providence. Neither player reported down to the AHL and were instead ‘back’ up with the Bruins for opening night. The paper transactions with each player, however, allowed the Bruins to pinch pennies here and there.
Could that be something the Bruins try with a Forbort, for example? Or are the Bruins ‘comfortable’ rolling with a roster that’s currently projected to begin the year with just over $400,000 in cap space assuming that they do indeed go with the roster construct they have to in order to have multiple reserve options in the event of trouble?
It’s a juggling act that’s only just beginning for Sweeney & Co., but with a fallout that honestly has to feel like a ‘best case scenario’ given the doomsday that appeared inevitable just three months ago.
