Bruins restricted free agent winger David Pastrnak is the most prominent of the 14 remaining restricted free agents. Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe reports that Boston is offering the 21-year-old $6MM on a long-term deal with Pastrnak getting to choose whether it’s for six years or seven.
The $6MM AAV is notably below that of winger Brad Marchand’s $6.125MM that he received on his extension last September. Boston has more than enough cap room to fit a deal like that in as they currently sit with a little over $10MM in cap space at the moment per CapFriendly. It has been reported that the team would like to keep his cap hit below Marchand’s despite some of the big money contracts and extensions that have been handed out to players in restricted free agency so far this offseason.
While it doesn’t appear that there has been much progress on talks lately, GM Don Sweeney remains hopeful that an agreement is reached by training camp and believes it’s critical that Pastrnak is signed by then:
“We will find a landing spot. There are deadlines that exist, but I believe it’s a disservice to the player and the team to miss training camp, to be late for training camp, and to start the season. I don’t think anyone recovers the money. I don’t think anybody recovers the lost service time — team or player. It’s been proven. The team gets off to a slow start. It’s just completely disruptive. So my feeling has been all along, we are going to negotiate in complete good faith.”
Pastrnak is coming off a career year that saw him post 34 goals and 36 assists in 75 games; his point total of 70 eclipsing the total of his first two NHL seasons combined (53 in 97 contests). He followed that up with a good playoff effort as well, collecting four points (2-2-4) in six games while logging more than 21 minutes a night.
If Pastrnak doesn’t want to accept the offer on the table and Boston insists on keeping the AAV below Marchand’s, it will be interesting to see if they look at reducing the term on the deal. A bridge contract would allow them to get Pastrnak signed at a lower rate than is currently on the table while giving the winger arbitration rights at the end of it and staying within his RFA years. Doing so may not be an ideal option for either side but it could represent enough of a compromise if the wheels continue to spin on long-term discussions. Sweeney put an end to any speculation of a possible trade earlier this month when he stated that the Bruins will not be moving their rising star.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
This is a scary game the bruins are playing I know he’s only had one really good yr but come on his only 21 sign him already
Agree. Not sure if the B’s are just getting cheap again now that Chirelli is gone or they really don’t want to pay him more than the little ball of hate but Marchand is a big boy, so he’ll understand the timing of the two deals. Plus Krejci makes even more and he hasn’t been as productive as Pastrnak.
The hockey cliche is “strength up the middle” because it’s nicer than “wingers are a dime a dozen.”
Goalies are the most important thing, but there are lots of good ones. Centers and D men is where good teams put their money.
$6 million is already above where the Bruins would want to be, they can’t pay a dime more. They really can’t.
Once again, the Bruins are going to short change a scorer and let him get away. The market is the market, and the B’s should be willing, and more importantly have the cap room to pay market for this talented young player. At this point, if i were Pastrnak, I would sign as short a deal as possible(1 year if possible) and look forward to leaving Boston as an unrestricted free agent. He deserves his payday. imagine what the pathetic B’s offense would have done last year without him.
I thought that maybe just maybe when Chiarelli was canned, that the front office would improve. It has only gotten worse.