Over the past couple of seasons, the Boston Bruins haven’t made big trade deadline splashes for rentals. Their two significant acquisitions in 2021 and 2022, Taylor Hall and Hampus Lindholm, signed extensions with the team and remain in Boston today.
In his latest for The Athletic, Fluto Shinzawa explains how that will be a tricky trend to repeat this season with Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway, and Tyler Bertuzzi. Although general manager Don Sweeney has expressed an interest in re-signing all three, signing an extension with only one would require multiple cap-dump trades. Matt Grzelcyk, Derek Forbort, and Mike Reilly would likely all see their way out of Boston this offseason, with the team likely to fetch far below market value on trades for Grzelcyk and Forbort if backed into a salary cap hole. Per CapFriendly, Boston has just over $10.5MM in projected cap space for 2023-24, not including potential performance bonus penalties carrying over from Patrice Bergeron’s and David Krejci’s contracts this season.
Other items dotting the league rumor wire this morning:
- On last night’s edition of TSN’s Insider Trading, Chris Johnston noted that an ownership group led by The Hockey News owner Graeme Roustan, in conjunction with Canadian First Nations groups, has advanced past the first round of bidding to purchase the Ottawa Senators. Johnston reports that the group notably has an interest in developing the land around LeBreton Flats, realizing a long-time hope for a more centrally located arena in Ottawa.
- Also on Insider Trading, Johnston says that the NHLPA is likely dead set against increasing escrow payments next season to accommodate for a larger salary cap increase. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman noted earlier this week that such an exchange would be necessary to increase next year’s salary cap past the projected $1MM bump to an Upper Limit of $83.5MM.
It feels like Orlov/Hathaway/Bertuzzi have all received a halo effect from being Boston Bruins now & would do well to leverage that in any future talks. I don’t personally think Boston needs to re-sign any of them, especially at inflated rates. The NHL is full of guys who left Boston because other teams overpaid and who are now lesser players on lesser teams.
This y I think the B’s should be resting the big names and bringing up some AHL guys to see if they can get some value to add to trades this offseason with players with high cap hits like Reilly, Hall, and Griz instead of adding draft picks to dump contracts
Calling teams with cap space — do the Bruins a ‘solid’ & get a draft pick for your troubles; and Canucks mgmt — why the heck are you not in a position to do this after 8 years of losing?