The Boston Bruins have re-signed pending unrestricted free agent Billy Sweezey to a one-year, two-way contract. The deal will carry a cap hit of $850K in the NHL. Sweezey has spent the last five seasons in the AHL. He joined the Providence Bruins in 2024 and serves as an alternate captain for the club.
Sweezey has racked up 17 points, 84 penalty minutes, and a career-high plus-21 in 69 games this season. His single goal on the season gave Sweezey three consecutive seasons with only one score – a pattern he repeated in the first three seasons of his career at Yale University. Sweezey has continued to offer the chippy, defensive style that he took on way back with the USHL’s Chicago Steel in 2015.
Sweezey signed his first pro contract with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in 2020, after racking up 29 points and 159 penalty minutes in 127 games at Yale. He only reached four assists in 22 games in the AHL’s shortened 2020-21 season. He left the Penguins and signed a deal with the Cleveland Monsters in the following summer. A move to Ohio proved to bring much more action, pushing Sweezey to 11 points and 114 penalty minutes in 70 games of his first season in Cleveland.
His 2021-22 performance was such a pleasant surprise that the Columbus Blue Jackets signed Sweezey to a two-way NHL contract in March 2022. The Blue Jackets vindicated that deal roughly one year later, when Sweezey made his NHL debut on February 26, 2023. He would go on to play in nine games with Columbus marked by one assist, nine penalty minutes, and a minus three. Sweezey has since spent the last three seasons in a full-time, AHL role – though the Boston Bruins kept him on an NHL contract when they signed him out of free agency. Sweezey has already recorded 27 points and 151 penalty minutes in 133 games with the Providence Bruins and will stay on a two-way NHL deal next season.