The Boston Bruins are continuing to garner more and more interest for their former Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender Linus Ullmark, giving them a chance to be picky about the return. That could exclude much of the league from acquiring the star netminder, with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman sharing on The Jeff Marek Show that he doesn’t believe teams like the Vancouver Canucks or Montreal Canadiens have the assets to acquire Ullmark. Friedman added that the Carolina Hurricanes could be one of the few teams rich enough for the deal, especially if they involve forward Martin Necas.
Necas has been a recent addition to trade rumors, with Friedman recently sharing that the Hurricanes “prefer” to trade the pending restricted-free-agent rather than re-sign him and that they were eyeing top prospects in return. Necas, the 12th-overall pick in 2017, posted a career-high 28 goals and 71 points in 82 games last season. He succeeded it with a much more modest 53 points this year, though he still managed 24 goals. Necas has totaled 243 points across 362 career games, working his way into a regular role in Carolina’s top-six after growing pains early in his career. At just 25, Necas represents one of the best young scorers on the open market and should be poised for a long-term deal with a yearly price tag of around $7.5MM.
Adding young, secondary scoring is a big priority for the Bruins entering this off-season, giving relief to the more surprising pieces of their top-six, like Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie. On top of his offense, Necas could also support the team’s center depth, after recording a career-high 417 faceoffs last sesaon. He won 45.1 percent of those draws, bringing his career total to 41.5 percent at the faceoff dot. That’s certainly not strong enough to warrant an everyday role at center, but it could be a welcome boost for a Bruins lineup that still hasn’t reloaded their depth chart after Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired. Ullmark could be a small price to check off two big boxes for Boston.
But shaping a trade package around Necas and Ullmark will be tricky. There isn’t
much precedent for swapping top-end goalies and forwards, though each of Frederik Andersen, Robin Lehner, Cory Schneider, and Semyon Varlamov were traded for first-round picks at some point in their careers. Two of those trades didn’t involve any other pieces, while the other two added a second-round pick onto the pile. That’s a bleak valuation of top goalies on the trade market, made more challenging by Necas’ RFA status making him a much more controllable asset than the 2025-UFA Ullmark. Those factors could put Carolina in a good position to ask for even more Ullmark in a swap, especially as interest in Necas grows across the league.
The Hurricanes would confidently round out their lineup with Ullmark’s addition, while moving out a winger set to command a good deal of cap space. That’d be a fantastic win-win for interim general manager Eric Tulsky, who’s in his first tenure as an NHL GM after Don Waddell left Carolina for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Carolina is also facing contract negotiations with Jake Guentzel, Teuvo Teravainen, Brett Pesce, and Brady Skjei this summer – surely pushing them to want an answer on Necas sooner rather than later.
Photos courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.
Carolina: “We want more”
Boston trades Ullmark to LA.
The team he blocked a trade to three months ago? link to prohockeyrumors.com
He blocked it because it was during the middle of the school year and didn’t want to move his kids midway through the year.
Ullmark & Zacha to Kings for PLD, Spence & Lizotte.
What are your thoughts on moving Kali in the deal
Necas seems like a perfect fit for Boston. Does LA have something similar?
Czechia are World Champs thanks to Pasta, Zacha, and Necas. So it makes sense that Boston wouldn’t mind setting up a “Czechia West” situation (although none of them really play LW, so they wouldn’t all end up on the same line.)
The only question for BOS I would say is Necas is not a true C, he’s better playing RW. So BOS fans, do you move Frederic to line 3 and call Coyle your #2 center?
They should trade for Necas and sign Elias Lindholm then see what they can get for either H. Lindholm or Zacha is rather they trade Coyle but that’s me
Canes needs:
First line left wing, second line center (right-handed shot). Dumping Trocheck was a disaster.
Defense is set (Slavin/Burns, Nikishin/Chatty, Orlov/Morrow). Rod’s gonna have to play the top three more.
Cant trade for a goalie without dumping Anderson.
Nikishin still has one more year on his KHL contract and Chatfield is a UFA.
Andersen to Detroit for a 6th
Husso gets waived
Ullmark +Boqvist for Necas, that’s a little more for Necas
I’d rather waive Necas. Andersen .914 career playoff save percentage. Ullmark is .887 with Bruins.
Can someone explain something to me? If Necas isn’t much of a center and is more suited to the wing and is going to need a decently expensive contract is he that much of an improvement over just extending Debrusk and trading Ullmark somewhere else? I feel like the Bruins should only be targeting guys who could potentially be 2nd line centers. I get Necas is definitely better than Debrusk and is younger but it just feels like replacing Debrusk with a slightly better wing player when the need center.
As a Bruins fan you should already know that answer DeBrusk is the biggest waste of talent out there ylthe kids nothing more then a softazz crybaby smartest thing Sweeney ever said was we are not going to resign him or any of are free agents
The thing is I’ve heard Necas is a disappointment too. I just don’t want to trade Ullmark for a wing to replace Debrusk when we need a faceoff capable second line center.
That’s y they sign Elias Lindholm as for Ullmark they seem to be high on Bussi, Keyser, DiPietro well still having the kid they signed from ND as a college free agent as well as and we all know how good goalie Bob is he’s been able to turn a lot of trash into some quality players
Ryan Bischel is the goalie from Notre Dame
I’m sure some secondary pieces might need to be added but yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Why are the Canucks being mentioned as not having enough assets to acquire Ullmark…? Since when is that a thing?
We have 2 solid goalies next year, I really don’t see the need for that
Seems like the Canes can always repackage draft capital, so don’t know why the Canucks are out of it.