Despite signing a two-year, $1.63MM extension with the team this summer, Michael DiPietro’s tenure in the Boston Bruins organization appears to be numbered. In his recent rendition of 32 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said, “I have no doubt teams will be looking hard at [him]. There will be teams this week curious to see what the Bruins do.”
The news isn’t surprising, as reports in mid-June indicated that teams were interested in signing DiPietro last offseason before the Bruins worked out an extension with him on the eve of free agency. Still, Boston has not indicated that they’ll want to carry three netminders on the roster for the bulk of the 2025-26 campaign, and DiPietro is unlikely to move past Jeremy Swayman or Joonas Korpisalo on the depth chart barring injury.
It wasn’t all that long ago that DiPietro was an impressive prospect coming out of the Canadian Major Junior system. Throughout his four-year career with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, DiPietro managed a 98-53-13 record in 174 games with a .913 SV% and 2.52 GAA, while backstopping the Spitfires to a Memorial Cup Championship in 2017. DiPietro was selected 64th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2017 NHL Draft.
The native of Windsor, Ontario, struggled to advance in the Canucks system, although he had strong seasons with the Utica Comets and Abbotsford Canucks in the AHL. Vancouver pulled the plug on DiPietro’s tenure with the organization fairly quickly, including him in a package to the Bruins for Jack Studnicka earlier on in the 2022-23 campaign.
As alluded to, DiPietro has come into his own with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. Particularly last season, DiPietro earned a 26-8-7 record in 40 games with a .927 SV% and 2.05 GAA, with four shutouts. The season was impressive enough for DiPietro to earn the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award as the league’s top netminder and AHL First All-Star Team honors.
Similar to Arturs Silovs’ meteoric rise through the AHL last season, and subsequent trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins this past offseason, any team with a need at the backup goalie position would be interested in giving DiPietro an opportunity at the NHL level. Unfortunately, that market is fairly limited, as most teams have filled their backup position through some form or another throughout the offseason.
Still, the Calgary Flames, Columbus Blue Jackets, Edmonton Oilers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Vegas Golden Knights may all have lukewarm interest at the very least. Further, if an unfortunate injury arises to another goaltender as the preseason wraps up, that would create another void that DiPietro could conceivably fill.
Bruins would be smart to trade him. There will be competition on the waiver wire for him so why not trade a pick to guarantee you get him, if you’re another team? Edmonton, Pittsburgh and Vegas should all take a chance on him.
Makes no sense in Pittsburgh. We’d have to waive silovs if they wanted to add him. There’s no real gain.
I think it would present an opportunity for them to have three goalies on the roster, especially with the Blomqvist injury. Or they could waive Tristan Jarry again, like they did last year. I don’t think claiming DiPietro would have any impact on Silovs.
I suppose, but they aren’t going to give up an asset for another goalie. They already did for silovs and they have murashov coming at some point.
Tampa may glance at Michael DiPietro but he’s not the prototypical they tend to look for as he is only 6’1” in height. Tampa prefers goalies with substantial size. More importantly, in Tampa’s current system between the NHL & AHL he would be their 4th or 5th goalie choice behind Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jonas Johansson, Brandon Halverson and quite possibly Harrison Meneghin. Don’t really see Tampa in on the DiPietro pickup.
DiPietro has never succeeded at the NHL level. Hockey (and specifically Boston) is littered with goalies who were lights-out at the AHL level then got shellacked (or never even given the chance) at the NHL level (For examples from Boston’s recent past, see also: Bussi, Brandon and Keyser, Kyle.)
Kyle Keyser?
Kyle Keyser’s AHL stats for Providence Bruins are garbage. Barely a .900 save percentage, one playoff game (took the loss with a below .900 save percentage in that game) spread over 4+ seasons, and a combined 29-27-13 record. Tell us more stories Mr. Kimmel.
DiPietro’s played exactly 125 minutes of NHL hockey. He hasn’t had the *chance* to succeed OR fail at the NHL level. Honestly, I’d keep him as Swayman’s backup and send Korpisalo down, and if someone grabbed him off waivers, I’d find a way to keep on living.
I agree should keep him and waive Korpisalo, and even if nobody claims Korpisalo the Bruins would actually gain cap space
Flyers should trade for him and waive Ersson
Every year there’s a goalie like this who everybody swears won’t clear waivers. It was just a season or two ago people said the same about Bussi from Boston.
All of the teams listed have their own version of DiPietro either on the roster or in the minors who have had AHL success but a limited NHL track record. The Flames already have two. The only teams I can see looking seriously at DiPietro are Toronto if they don’t think Woll is coming back anytime soon and Tampa Bay if Vasilevskiy is out.