Jonathan Aspirot was certainly a feel-good story for the Bruins this season, going from a journeyman minor leaguer to a fixture on the top defense pairing alongside Charlie McAvoy. However, Kevin Paul Dupont of The Boston Globe argues that Boston’s top priority this summer should be upgrading McAvoy’s partner on the left side. Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov, and Mason Lohrei have all been attempted with varying degrees of success to the point where Aspirot was given a chance and made the most of it. But with the Bruins looking to build on their return to the playoffs, adding a player who could help McAvoy find another gear would certainly help their fortunes considerably.
Elsewhere in the East:
- Still with the Bruins, com’s Conor Ryan examined some potential cap casualties should the team decide to make some bigger swings that they can’t fit into their roughly $16MM of cap room this summer. Chief among those is goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, who has two years left on his deal with Boston responsible for $3MM of his cap hit. With Michael DiPietro winning AHL MVP this season, he could plausibly become Jeremy Swayman’s backup next season, allowing them to move Korpisalo to open up a bit of cap space. With several teams likely looking to shake things up between the pipes, there could be a market for his services.
- Facing elimination tonight, the Sabres should have one of their top blueliners available. Owen Power was banged up late on Thursday but head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters today including Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic (Twitter link) that the defenseman should be good to go. In his first taste of playoff action at the NHL level, the 23-year-old has five assists through 11 games and is averaging 20:44 per game of ice time, down just a tad from his season ATOI of 21:39. Ruff wouldn’t comment on any potential lineup changes for Buffalo for tonight’s game.
- Earlier this week, Penguins prospect Jordan Charron announced that he was committing to UMass-Amherst. However, it appears he won’t be making the jump to the college ranks right away. His former GOJHL team, the Ayr Centennials, noted (Twitter link) that the commitment is for 2027-28, meaning that he’ll stay with OHL Soo for one more year. The winger was a fifth-round pick last year and moved to the OHL level this season. He had a solid first year with the Greyhounds, notching 25 goals and 22 assists in 66 games and finished up on a tryout in the minors with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. However, since he didn’t play a game on that agreement, he retains his NCAA eligibility.
Did the critics ever apologize to Neely and Sweeney for their moves?
I can’t get many other Bruin fans to say they were wrong – as last spring I said look at their overall 10 yrs and tell me a better GM who built contenders for yrs until last yr.
The only team that still has a GM that was there – Vegas (McCrimmon was ast GM to start.
All other contenders were built by purposely tanking for a 3-8 yr period to gather all those top 5 and top 10 picks
Boston had zero top 12 picks during Sweeney’s tenure until last spring draft
Eh, I’m a Bruins fan, but I never was one of those screaming at Boston management. It’s no different from any other fanbase that doesn’t win the Cup; the GMs are bums, the coaches are bums, the players are slackers, and any season that doesn’t end with a Cup win is a waste of time.
As a Bruins fan, I honestly think the right side of the defense is a far bigger issue. After McAvoy, there isn’t another top 4 d-man on the right side. Have to upgrade from Peeke & Jokiharju.
Eh, they have bigger problems than defense altogether. Korpisalo doesn’t *suck*, but he’s not good either. They still need a legitimate #1 center, they need to either resign Arvidsson or replace him, and they need more firepower at forward.
Apologize for what? Neely and Sweeney never restocked the centre cupboard when the obvious Bergeron @ Krecji retirements loomed.
What happened this year was as false as what happened last year- they weren’t as bad as they were in 24-25, and they’re not as good as they were in 25-26.
This off-season and the next few are very interesting for those 2- the prospect cupboard isn’t very good, there is enough good players/ systems to keep the team from bottoming out barring injuries. Getting better is going to be very hard- they need to nail draft picks in the lower rounds, something they’ve been good enough at if you like 3rd and 4th liners. Now they need to get some, well actually a lot, of skill and speed into this lineup.
It will be quite a sleight of hand if they pull this off- they haven’t before, they’ve always reinforced an existing lineup.
There is a few interesting offseasons coming up for them…