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Linus Ullmark Wins The Vezina Trophy

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Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark is the 2022-23 Vezina Trophy for the league’s top goaltender after he posted a .938 save percentage and a 1.89 goals-against average to go along with a 40-6-1 record. It is the first Vezina Trophy win for the 29-year-old and is his second bit of hardware as he also collected the Jennings award for being the goalie with the fewest goals scored against.

Ullmark’s 40 wins tied him for the most wins in the NHL this season and his .938 save percentage was the fifth-highest mark all-time amongst goalies that played at least 25 games. He led the Bruins to the President’s Trophy this season and was a big reason the club was as dominant as it was. Ullmark even tickled the twine this year scoring the first goalie goal in three seasons.

Despite the incredible season, there is no guarantee that Ullmark will be back next season for the Bruins. Boston is facing a very difficult cap crunch and have goaltender Jeremy Swayman lying in wait ready to take over the starting role. The Bruins may be forced to decide between the two of them depending on how their cap situation unfolds.

Patrice Bergeron Wins His Sixth Selke Trophy

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Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron has won his NHL record sixth Selke Trophy including his second straight. The Selke Trophy is awarded to the forward that best excels in the defensive aspect of the game as voted by the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association. Bergeron edged out Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner and New Jersey Devils center Nico Hischier.

Bergeron had another terrific season as he led the Bruins to the President’s Trophy as the best regular season team. He was terrific in all three zones of the ice putting up 27 goals and 31 assists in 78 games while dominating the face-off circle with a winning percentage of 61.1%. Away from the puck, Bergeron remained elite posting 38 takeaways on the season as well as blocking 54 shots. He continued to kill penalties, man the powerplay and post dominant possession numbers at 5v5. Bergeron also hit a big milestone this year as he recorded the 1000th point of his career.

A surefire first-ballot hall of famer, Bergeron has stated that he plans to take some time away this summer to decide whether he wants to return for a 20th NHL season in Boston. Bergeron considered retirement last summer but elected to sign a one-year deal with the Bruins to continue playing. Should he opt to return next year he will likely sign a similar one-year deal and go year-to-year going forward.

Connor McDavid Wins 2023 Ted Lindsay Award

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Connor McDavid has been named the recipient of the Ted Lindsay Award for the most outstanding player as voted on by the NHLPA. The award is unsurprising, given that McDavid ran away as the leader in almost every offensive category this season. McDavid posted 64 goals and 89 assists in 82 games this season as he led the league in goals, assists, and points. McDavid edged out Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak and San Jose Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson to win the award, the fourth of his young career.

More to come…

Bruins Expected To Begin Contract Talks With Tyler Bertuzzi

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In what is a very unsurprising piece of news David Pagnotta of the NHL Network is reporting that the Boston Bruins are expected to begin extension talks with pending unrestricted free agent forward Tyler Bertuzzi. The Bruins have made two trades this afternoon with the big one being the move to shed Taylor Hall and his $6MM cap hit to the Chicago Blackhawks. Pagnotta adds that there have been no recent talks between the two sides which indicates that these would be preliminary extension talks.

Bertuzzi is just a few days from hitting the open market and would be one of the most coveted free agents should he reach it. The 28-year-old came over in a trade deadline move from the Detroit Red Wings and fit in with the Bruins nicely posting four goals and 12 assists in 21 games after the trade. His playoff numbers were even better as he had five goals and five assists in just seven games, guaranteeing himself a nice payday for the foreseeable future.

The one knock on Bertuzzi has been his inability to stay healthy, he has missed time in each of his seven NHL seasons including the pandemic-shorted 2020-21 season where he dressed in just nine games. Despite this, teams will no doubt line up to try and secure Bertuzzi’s services and it appears the Bruins would like to lock him up before he goes to market.

It’s an interesting strategy for the Bruins if this is in fact the path they choose to go down with trading Hall to sign Bertuzzi. Hall struggled last season, but has just two years left on his deal and was a candidate to bounce back next season, Bertuzzi on the other hand will likely get a contract that carries him well into his mid-30’s and could become an albatross in just a few seasons. It should be interesting to see if Boston indeed signs Bertuzzi or if they elect to use Hall’s cap savings to fill out the depth in their lineup.

Boston, New Jersey Complete Minor Trade

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The Boston Bruins announced that they have made their second trade of the day as they have sent forward Shane Bowers to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for defenseman Reilly Walsh. The news comes on the heels of the Taylor Hall trade that the Bruins completed earlier this afternoon. Boston has a great deal of salary cap maneuvering to complete as they hope to retain much of the core that won the President’s Trophy this season.

The trade sees the swap of a couple of 2017 draft picks who have both played just one game in the NHL in their respective careers. Bowers was a late first-round pick by the Ottawa Senators and was dealt a few months later as part of the ill-fated Matt Duchene three-team trade that also saw Kyle Turris go to Nashville, and Bowers end up with the Colorado Avalanche. Bowers spent five seasons in the AHL with the Colorado Eagles before he was traded to Boston this past February for Keith Kincaid. He’s never been regarded as much of an offensive player as his career high in the AHL came in 2018-19 when he put up 27 points in 48 games. He was always a stretch to be selected in the first round and at 23 years old it appears he will likely be a career minor leaguer barring a turnaround in his play. This past year in 57 games split between the Eagles and Providence Bowers put up just 21 points.

Walsh on the other hand was a third-round selection by the Devils and has spent his entire professional career in their organization. He’s been a very solid offensive defenseman in the AHL putting up 23 goals and 76 assists in 174 career games. Walsh could potentially compete for a spot as the Bruins seventh defender depending on how their salary cap maneuvering plays out, but at this point it looks like an AHL shuffling of the furniture for both teams.

One must wonder what Bruins general manager has in store for his group. With his second trade of the day, it appears that he is setting up for something. Boston has several key free agents to sign and limited cap space to do it. Bowers was going to be eligible for arbitration but it’s unlikely he would have received much of an award given how little he has contributed at the NHL level. Reilly is also an RFA on July 1st so Boston will need to sign him to a new contract.

Chicago Blackhawks Acquire Taylor Hall

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The Boston Bruins needed to clear some cap space and found a willing participant in the Chicago Blackhawks. The two have agreed on a four-player trade that includes Taylor Hall. The full deal is as follows:

The Bruins will not retain any salary in the deal.

Hall, 31, signed a four-year $24MM contract with the Bruins in 2021 but will last just two seasons before joining the sixth NHL team of his career. The deal does include a 16-team no-trade clause (that drops to 10 teams in a few days) but Chris Johnston of North Star Bets reports that Chicago was not one of the blocked destinations, meaning Boston did not need his approval.

Hall’s $6MM cap hit is not a huge overpayment, as he is still a fine middle-six winger, but the Bruins found themselves in a precarious situation with just a few days before free agency opens. They are interested in bringing back trade deadline acquisition Tyler Bertuzzi, but needed to clear cap before working out any deal. It will be interesting to see if they can close the gap and keep Bertuzzi in the fold once Hall is officially off the books.

After being a part of the best regular season team in history, moving to Chicago is a significant downgrade for Hall. He isn’t joining an organization completely bereft of talent, though—he may even get to play with Connor Bedard, depending on how things shake out.

There is, of course, the possibility that the Blackhawks flip the 2018 Hart Trophy winner as they continue their rebuild. Two years of Hall isn’t going to do a ton for their Stanley Cup chances, and perhaps retaining some salary could mean even more assets for the Bedard-led club a few years from now.

Foligno’s inclusion is interesting, given he is a pending unrestricted free agent. Perhaps he will join the Blackhawks on a new deal to help lend some veteran leadership to the young group. The veteran forward is set to turn 36 in October but had a bounce-back season this year with 26 points in 60 games.

In terms of return for the Bruins, it’s really about the cap space. Mitchell and Regula are both fringe NHLers, who may have missed their window of real potential. Perhaps the Bruins see enough in one or both of them to make them a roster regular next season, but the young defensemen may again be destined for the minor leagues.

Mitchell, 24, played 35 games for the Blackhawks this season, registering one goal and eight points. The 2017 second-round pick has just 82 NHL games under his belt to this point, and is arbitration eligible as an RFA this summer. Interestingly, he does have a connection to Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery, who recruited and coached Mitchell at the University of Denver for one season.

Meanwhile, Regula is still just 22 but barely has any NHL experience. He saw just four games with the Blackhawks this season and has suited up 22 times in his career, registering a single point. Selected in the second round of the 2018 draft by the Detroit Red Wings, he is not yet eligible for arbitration.

At the very worst, the defenders could stretch out the depth chart for the Bruins, giving them valuable options to turn to in case of injury or poor performance next season.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet first broke the news that Hall was headed to the Blackhawks. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported the full deal.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Boston Bruins Extend Brandon Bussi

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The Boston Bruins have announced that they have re-signed netminder Brandon Bussi to a one-year, two-way contract extension. Per the announcement, the deal has a cap hit of $775,000.

According to CapFriendly, the contract has an AHL salary of $100,000 and contains total guarantees of $140,000.

Bussi is a fast-rising young goalie who was recently named to the AHL’s All-Rookie team after an exceptional first season as the leader of a three-person goalie group with the Providence Bruins.

Now 24, Bussi was originally a signing by the Bruins last March. He inked a one-year entry-level deal at an $825k cap hit, plucked from the college ranks after a strong final season at Western Michigan University.

He started all of Western Michigan’s games in 2021-22 and went 26-12-1 with a .912 save percentage. After leaving college he got an early taste of pro action with AHL Providence near the end of 2021-22 on an ATO, and went 3-2 with a .920 save percentage in five games. He actually began this year at the ECHL level as the Bruins already had Kyle Keyser and veteran Keith Kinkaid entrenched as Providence’s goalie tandem.

But Bussi quickly proved himself to be overqualified for the ECHL, immediately stopping 75 out of 80 shots in his first two starts. He earned a call-up in November and didn’t look back. He went 22-5-4 in the AHL with a .924 save percentage and 2.40 goals-against-average.

While NHL opportunities might be difficult to come by in Boston as the Bruins already have Vezina Trophy frontrunner Linus Ullmark and the talented Jeremy Swayman in their crease. But another brilliant AHL campaign could see Bussi be a player of interest for other clubs and a potential trade asset for the Bruins, or could even force the team to choose between Ullmark and Swayman in order to provide Bussi with the chance to become a part of an NHL tandem.

In any case, he now has his contract for next season and will likely pair with Keyser as Providence’s goalie tandem for next season.

Offseason Checklist: Boston Bruins

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The offseason has arrived for all but the two teams that still have a shot at winning the Stanley Cup.  It’s time to examine what those eliminated squads will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Boston.

It was an all-in year for the Bruins as they structured some contracts to buy them more flexibility this year at a high cost for next season.  That flexibility allowed them to make two significant additions at the trade deadline, setting the Presidents’ Trophy-winning club up for what they thought would be a long playoff run.  Instead, they weren’t able to pick up the final victory of their first-round series against Florida, providing an early exit and questions about what comes next.  If GM Don Sweeney intends to keep this team in contention, he’ll have some work to do in the coming weeks.

Create Cap Space

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first.  The Bruins are carrying over a significant bonus overage penalty into next season from the bonus-laden deals they handed Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci last summer.  David Pastrnak’s AAV jumped up by more than $4.5MM while Pavel Zacha added $1.25MM on his new deal compared to 2022-23.

What’s the end result of this?  They have over $78.5MM in commitments for next season already, per CapFriendly, and that’s with at least six roster spots needing to be filled.  If all of those players signed for the minimum, they could squeak by from a cap perspective.  However, one of their restricted free agents alone could basically gobble up the less than $5MM in space they have left.

As a result, Sweeney is going to have to find ways to clear up space and might need to move multiple players to do so.  We’ll look at some of those options throughout this article but if there isn’t a move to be made with some of those players, they’ll have to look at moving other pieces out.  They simply don’t have a choice, Boston has to free up money in the next few weeks.

Goaltending Decisions

Lost in the fact that Linus Ullmark had quite the season in goal for Boston was the fact that Jeremy Swayman also had a very strong year as well, improving upon his numbers from 2021-22.  Frankly, that might be underselling it as he finished fourth in the NHL in both GAA (2.27) and SV% (.920).  That’s a nice way to head into his first trip through restricted free agency.  To make matters better for him, the 24-year-old is also eligible for salary arbitration.

The market for second contracts for young goalies without a lot of NHL experience has shot up in recent years.  Carter Hart received three years at $3.979MM after just 101 games.  Jake Oettinger received three years at $4MM after only 77 regular season games (plus a strong showing in the 2022 playoffs).  Spencer Knight received three years with a $4.5MM AAV after only 36 games played.  Oettinger and Knight’s contracts were signed within the last year so these are recent comparables to work with.  On top of things, it’s also worth pointing out that Swayman’s career numbers are better than what any of these three had at the time they signed their bridge contracts.

Those three contracts should give Sweeney a good idea of what Swayman will cost on his next contract.  Basically, all their cap space, give or take a few hundred thousand.  Can Boston afford that?  Not really as things stand.

As a result, there are some decisions to be made.  When determining who to trim from the roster to create cap space for, is it worth doing it to maintain an elite tandem with Ullmark, even though it would cost around $10MM for the two of them?  Considering that top goaltending can help overcome some offensive challenges, there’s certainly a case to be made that doing so would be wise.

But if the answer to that question is no, then the question becomes who moves?  It’d be hard to move on from Ullmark, the likely Vezina Trophy winner.  He’ll turn 30 late last month so is he their goalie of the future?  Or should Swayman, who has three years of control left, be the one to keep?  Both would command strong interest but losing one of them would certainly hurt their short-term fortunes.  The amount of cap space could also be limited since a decent backup would cost at least $2MM, likely more.  Considering the goaltending market typically shakes out quickly, the Bruins will need to decide which path they plan to take fairly quickly.

Get Center Help

This season, Boston had strong depth down the middle led by veterans Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, who returned to the NHL after spending a season back home.  Bergeron finished third in the team in scoring and Krejci fifth, a nice return on a combined base cap hit of $3.5MM.  Of course, there were $4.5MM in bonuses, all of which were easily met and with the Bruins spending the season over the cap, that triggered the carryover penalty.  Both veterans are set to become unrestricted free agents once again this summer and while there’s little concern that they’ll sign elsewhere, it remains to be seen if one or both are willing to return for another year, 20 for Bergeron and 17 for Krejci.

If both decide to give it another go, they’re likely to sign similarly-structured contracts to the ones they played on, allowing Boston to kick some of the cost over to 2024-25.  However, it’d only be kicking the problem down the road as organizationally, they need to add at least one longer-term middleman.  Pavel Zacha had a career year this season and could slide back to center but when he was with New Jersey, he struggled to produce so it’s hardly a guarantee he’ll be able to back up his 57-point campaign.  Charlie Coyle is a capable secondary center but not a true top-liner at this stage of his career so he shouldn’t be the solution on the top line either.

If the Bruins want to look outside the organization, it will be tricky to land a replacement with their inability to afford a market-value contract.  There aren’t any true top options in free agency and if they want to look to the trade market (perhaps to Winnipeg for one of their middlemen), they don’t have much in the way of top picks at their disposal.  Their first available first-round pick is in 2025 while their next second-rounder is in 2026.  Prospect-wise, their pool isn’t the strongest thanks to moving out several good draft picks to help keep them in contention.

It won’t be easy to acquire one and it will be hard to afford it in their cap structure but there is a definite need down the middle to address this summer whether it’s bringing back their long-term veterans or looking elsewhere.  One way or the other, Sweeney is going to have to try to find a way to accomplish this.

Move A Blueliner

One way that Boston can try to create some cap space is to move a defenseman or two.  As things stand, they have nearly $31MM committed to seven rearguards for next season.  No other team has that much money committed to their back end.  By the time you add in Ullmark’s $5MM AAV and Swayman’s likely number near that amount, it looks like the Bruins could have half of next year’s cap committed to non-forwards.  That would certainly be a risky proposition.

Beyond Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm, it’s plausible that any of their other defensemen could be in play.  Mike Reilly is someone they’d certainly want to move after he spent most of the year at AHL Providence although they’ll likely have to incentivize a team to take him or take a similarly-sized contract back which wouldn’t help their cap situation.  He has one year left at $3MM.  Derek Forbort is another pending UFA who can still hold his own on the third pairing but $3MM for someone in that slot is on the pricey side given their cap situation.  Even moving Jakub Zboril, another 2024 UFA, for someone making the league minimum would free up a little over $300K.

As for the other pending UFA out of this group, Matt Grzelcyk is one to watch for.  He was a top-four piece not long ago but has dropped into more of a depth role and found himself on the bench at times in the playoffs.  He’s still a capable blueliner but again, he’s on the pricey side for the role he was in down the stretch.  The expected departure of Dmitry Orlov could put him back on the second pairing but it still wouldn’t be surprising to see Sweeney try to find him a new home.

Brandon Carlo is the other regular that hasn’t been mentioned.  With four years left at $4.1MM, his contract is certainly reasonable for a second-pairing defender although he’s not exactly the type of blueliner that’s going to jump in the play and contribute much offensively.  In an ideal world, Boston would probably want to keep him but if they find themselves having to trade for a center, Carlo would be one of their more asked-about trade chips in such a scenario so moving him can’t be ruled out either.

For now, the Bruins have the costliest defense in the NHL.  It seems unlikely that will still be the case in October when the 2023-24 campaign gets underway.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Dmitry Orlov Looking To Test Open Market

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  • While the Bruins would likely want to keep defenseman Dmitry Orlov in the fold if they could free up enough cap space to do so, the veteran told Sport-Express’ Alexey Shevchenko that he’s looking forward to seeing what’s available in free agency. The 31-year-old is coming off another strong season, notching 36 points in 66 games between Washington and Boston while logging 22:33 per night, the second-highest ATOI of his career.  Orlov, who also indicated that he’s not planning to sign in the KHL, is coming off a contract that carries a $5.1MM AAV and is likely to get a fair bit more than that on the open market with a long-term agreement.

Latest On Tyler Bertuzzi

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  • Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports in his 32 Thoughts blog that the Boston Bruins are “exploring what it needs to do to keep Tyler Bertuzzi,” a player set to hit unrestricted free agency later this summer. The Bruins traded their 2024 first-round pick to the Detroit Red Wings to acquire Bertuzzi, and the 28-year-old subsequently impressed in the black and gold, scoring 16 points in 21 regular-season games and 10 points in the team’s seven-game first-round playoff series. Bertuzzi is likely to have wide-ranging interest this summer in what is considered a thinner free agent class, so it’s unclear whether Boston will be able to get his signature on a contract extension. But given Friedman’s report, we at least now know that the Bruins are actively looking for an avenue to retain the former 30-goal scorer.

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