The Boston Bruins have signed Erik Haula to a two-year contract according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, who reports that the deal will carry an average annual value of $2.375MM. The team has also signed Tomas Nosek to a two-year deal according to Darren Dreger of TSN. Nosek’s deal will carry an AAV of $1.75MM.
Haula, 30, seemed like a good bet to return to the Nashville Predators after the team lost Calle Jarnkrok in the expansion draft. Instead, while the Predators did retain Mikael Granlund, they lost Haula to the Bruins where he can bring some scoring punch to the bottom-six. For just $2.375MM, a slight raise on what he earned last season, Haula doesn’t even need to approach his career-highs of 29 goals and 55 points to be an effective player for Boston. If he can be solid defensively and sit right around that 30-40 point range, the team will be that much better for it.
Interestingly enough, Nosek was teammates with Haula when he set those career-highs with the Vegas Golden Knights. Both selected in the expansion draft, it was in Vegas that Nosek became a full-time NHL player, suiting up 240 times over the past four seasons. Even in limited minutes, he adds a little bit of offense, and in 2020-21 he was on a scoring pace that would have shattered his previous numbers if it were a full season. 18 points in 38 games may not sound like much, but when it comes with positional flexibility, penalty-killing prowess and a 6’3″ frame, it equals a pretty valuable bottom-six option.
How the Bruins lines shake out with all the newcomers—the team also signed Nick Foligno—isn’t clear, but there’s certainly a lot of NHL depth to work with. The team has 14 forwards already on one-way contracts with no one earning more than Patrice Bergeron‘s $6.875MM.
Who??!
Some more very un-sexy moves from Sweeney, but sometimes they must be done. I like Haula as a 2nd/3rd winger, and I guess if they are only paying Nosek $1.75 million then he can eat some pointless minutes as 3rd/4th center.
Huh. Interesting. But that brings them to just $9 mm in cap space left, with Krejci and Rask to sign. Especially since Haula and Nosek are both left wingers, I’m thinking that DeBrusk’s days are very numbered.
And really, other than re-signing Krejci and Rask, there aren’t any sexy moves left for Sweeney to make. The top lines are set, the top defense pairings are set.
We’ll at least Donny gave it his best shot …. Can’t blame him for not going too 4 years for Suter (Sweeney still dealing from the Belski/Backes deals), nor is Donny to blame when Alex Gonzalez TURNS down the B’s higher offer … BUT really? Minus 2 D in Lauzon & Tinordi, 3 F in Ritchie, Kuraly & Kaase (potential only). Replaced by: Forbet on D and Haula, Nosek upfront? That looks more like a negative swap just for the sake of making a swap ….
Alec Martinez?
Yeah something is missing here. Definitely seems like DeBrusk is on his way out with the Haula signing unless he moves over to RW. Not sure where this leaves Frederic too. Too many LWs on the team now. Maybe this is the thought?
Marchy-Bergy-Pasta
Hall-Krejci-Smith
Haula-Coyle-DeBrusk
Nosek-Lazar-Wagner
Haula adds complimentary scoring and size. Nosek really just adds size. This also might mean Rask’s and Krejci’s deals are gonna be cheap. The window is really only a couple years now to win. Would love to see another upgrade at RW and a top pair Dmen but you can’t get everything I suppose. Honestly not bad… not sure it’s good enough for a title but not a bad group at all. Those Reilly and Forbort signings are just a bit too rich and this is where you want to have that $1-$2mil back per year. We’ll see what happens.