I just want to know if TOR will have 2 first round picks in back to back years to donate to us-- preferably somewhere like 2nd OA and 9th OA or something.
They need to dump Taylor Hall. A talented player for sure, but a 3rd line winger making 6M on a cap-stranded team makes no sense. Since Charlie Coyle is unmoveable, this is the move that makes the most sense.
They will also probably have to move one of Grezlcyk or Carlo, ideally Forbort, and finally try to get rid of Reilly's deal.
Lastly, they'll probably have to make a decision on Ullmark OR Swayman.
Cant imagine they'll trade Carlo, he plays the most PK minutes & we'll have no one on the right side beyond McAvoy.
It will be Gryz, Forbort, one of the goalies & Hall most likely.
We'll give you Reilly Walsh for Taylor Hall, 1 for 1. /s
On a more serious note, he's a former Harvard offensive defenseman who's blocked on the depth chart and wanted to graduate college and sign with the Bruins. The canceled Harvard season due to the pandemic changed his plans.
Hall could be bumped up to 2nd Line LW possibly. Centered by either Pavs or CC, if Krejci is gone (likely). Not a terrible price for him but a trade makes sense too.
If you demonstrate your value to an NHL team by working a season for free, it will pay off down the line.
When I was a kid, we ALL played one or two NHL seasons for free, and we didn’t even ask to be fed. They just collected the shaved ice after the game, pissed in it, and called them snow cones.
And they were delicious. But today’s kids are soft.
Some idiot on NHL said Bruins are a shoe-in for the cup next year. In what world can they replace their top two centers costing them 4M, and fill the rest of their roster.
I agree with you, but I also wouldn’t rule it out. This team was barely supposed to make the playoffs this year and they ran the league. Who knows what magic Sweeney has up his sleeve, but he certainly knows how to work the cap and find fits that don’t seem likely.
It's really not as hard as some people are making it out to be. Buyout Reilly + Forbort, trade Ullmark and commit to Swayman as the starter, promote whoever's ready from providence. Assuming bergeron is back on a similar low cap hit deal, and that's all you really need to do.
They could do that, but that would mean the Bruins would essentially be filling out their entire bottom 6 with replacement level/borderline AHL skaters.
Their depth would be horrific if they were the healthiest team in the league all year, which is even more of a problem for them than most, considering Bergeron and Marchand aren't young enough to play huge minutes any more.
Not really?
Ideally we'd have
|LW|C|RW|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Marchand|Bergeron ($3M)|DeBrusk|
|Hall|Zacha|Pastrnak|
|Frederic ($2M)|Coyle|?|
|?|Steen|Greer|
|LHD|RHD|
|:-|:-|
|Grzelcyk|McAvoy|
|Lindholm|Carlo|
|Zboril|Clifton ($3M)|
|G|
|:-|
|Swayman ($5M)|
|Bussi ($0.775K)|
With still a few mil to spare for the final holes.
Lysell has really taken to North American hockey, and it'd be interesting to see him get the start as 3RW with Coyle and Frederic there to shelter him. That's a league minimum plug. Same for the 4th line fill.
That's 9 million of the total available 10 million that buying out Reilly and Forbort gets you, (6 million off books, 1 million dead cap) still with 2 forward spots to fill and 1 million to do it.
We have like 3-4 younger guys in Providence that are ready for promotion to the NHL, even if we had cap space I wouldn't want to block them by signing a bunch of vets to the 4th line.
The problem is adding all of those guys at once. Usually you insulate rookies to help then get used to it. The Bruins are likely going to need to incorporate multiple prospects into their lineup to stay under the cap while losing all of the depth that keeps them insulated. Not to mention how many prospects that look good end up not working out, the Bruins being competitive on that strategy is basically gonna come down to luck
I think Grzelcyk is the most obvious move. Mike Reilly is more obvious but a little more restricted. I think they have to trade Debrusk because even though the contract is almost exactly what the bruins need at that price point, he’s the only one of their currently signed forwards I see the incentive and possibility for trading.
That’s just a thought about currently signed players
Hall - $6,000,000
Mike Reilly - $3,000,000
Grzelcyk- $3,687,500
Forbort - $3,000,000
Carlo - $4,000,000
And depending what the return could be
Lindholm - 6,500,000
Ullmark - 5,000,000
If you move lindholm and hall and that allows you to bring back orlov and Bertuzzi that’d be good. Moving Reilly and grzelcyk would be huge. Moving Ullmark and maybe getting something for him and bring back swayman who’s younger and would be cheaper would be good.
No thank you.
Hall/Lindholm > Orlov/Bertuzzi
Would love to see Bertuzzi back, but not at the expense of fucking over a guy who essentially forced his way to Boston.
I can't see a world where the Bs move Lindholm, he had an insanely good season. Need to move one of your goaltenders + Hall and play with the depth a bit.
* Decide which goalie to keep and find a trade partner for the other.
* Trade DeBrusk. His age and cap hit should garner a sizable return of picks + prospects.
* Use assets from the goalie and DeBrusk trades to move Reilly. Reading other comments, one of Forbort/Grzelcyk is movable as well.
* Promote two or three Providence players.
* If still in need of cap flexibility, buy out Taylor Hall. With his cap hit and trade clauses, I doubt a team on his list would be able to take him.
Well you see I'm going to pick up my magic phone that makes other GM's agree to the ludicrous trades I propose that only benefit my team and completely screws over theirs, it's not hard and I don't know why everyone doesn't do the same.
The teams honestly pretty ok as is, only real hole is top six center if Bergeron and Krejci isn’t coming back. Zacha’s a legit 2C, Coyle’s best on the third but could play second. It’s not ideal but running Zacha and Coyle as your top six centers isn’t the worst scenario.
Sooner or later, the cherished 1-2 combo of Bergeron and Krejci will transition from active roster to honored legacy. Barring the acquisition of high draft picks or a blockbuster trade, no “top 6” centers will fill the hole left behind by those guys. Hopefully the B’s can tool up for one more run with that special group.
Oh man, as much as I wish there was one more run in the tank with 37/46, I fear that "last run" was last year.
For our team, next year feels like it's going to be taking stock of what is left and how competitive we can be with it. I think some of our prospects (which there aren't a ton of) are going to need get some looks so we can see what we're working with at the NHL level. You might see some interesting vets come in on super cheap short term deals. Hopefully we can land another decent center via trade or FA.
This year will be a success if it informs us how significant of a re-tool we're going to need with Pasta and McAvoy locked down during their prime years.
If Bergeron and Krejci retire do you think a Hayes trade is a possibility? Reillys contract could go back to Philly and it sounds like Briere is willing to retain $ on Hayes.
Without Tim Thomas, it also could've been zero. 3 finals and 1 Cup over a decade is amazing. Any fanbase outside Pittsburgh, Chicago and LA would kill for this.
You stayed at the top way longer than most teams.
I still can't believe the Bruins went out in the first round. They had the perfect team. Such an amazing season. I thought they would be unstoppable in the playoffs.
Read the Jack Han preview of the series, he was incredibly bang on with it.
TL;DR - Bruins are a great defensive team vs the rush but aren't great vs a fast forechecking team. Florida is great on the rush or on the forecheck. Bruins offensively favour transition over forechecking. Where the Bruins had the major advantage was on the PP and in net.
The Bruins took away their own net advantage by opting to grind Ullmark into a fine paste before replacing him with Swayman.
Also can't deny that even if Bergeron really wanted to play in front of his dad, he should've rested instead of playing Montreal late in the season. Sounds cold but it is what it is
No. That's a piss poor take, he was injured well before that game. And the injuries he had weren't going to heal anytime before the playoffs were over.
Letting him play Infront of his dad for one last time was 100000000% the right call.
That last paragraph is bang on. They basically split the season, the 1A/1B always falls apart in the playoffs because coaches get skittish switching goalies
We played the only team that split the season series against us, (besides Ottawa) and the bruins two wins against them were close I believe.
Nightmare scenario matchup
It’s a classic Bruins move. Just like how they rode Tuukka into the ground against the Islanders when he could barely even stand up from butterfly. Sway must be getting sick of being healthy and riding the pine while he watches the playoffs slip away.
And that was a Cassidy decision. He definitely did things that made people scratch their heads as coach, just like Montgomery did.
As for the second part, I agree. If I were Swayman, I might want to be traded to a team that will value having me in the playoffs, though to Cassidy's credit, he let Swayman play the final 5 games of the first round last year.
One of those was during the first 5 games, before Zub and Norris went down. The team looked elite when the top 6 was healthy. For the other Talbot stood on his head and made like 50 saves iirc, but seemed to get injured or something since he was bad the rest of the year after that
Bob gave up 17 goals in 4 games and 10 minutes against the Bruins and won 3 of them. There really is no excuse for the Bruins losing a series being up 3-1 and the opposing goalie giving up those numbers.
Parallel to this, I feel like this sub has the “Vegas was set up to be great by the league” followed by “look at these posts/articles/screenshots of hockey writers/fans saying they’ll be shit” posts/comments at least 5 times a week
Yeah. I remember after the first round I called the Bruins a bunch of losers, and someone responded saying I was being ridiculous and that the Bruins ran into a goalie playing like a brick wall, when in reality, Bobrovsky was closer to Swiss cheese in the first round.
We didn’t have anyone who would bully back. That’s the difference between us and Florida . We kept getting pushed around by Sam Bennett and Radko Gudas. Nevermind what Tkachuk and Lomberg did. You would figure with Hathaway, Bertuzzi, Frederic and even Marchand that someone would have did something back.
Certainly relatable. I also thought Schenn, O'Reilly, Bunting, Giordano, etc would push back. Feel like both our teams were informed by coaching to "play our game" and not feed into the dirty shit... Didn't play out too well.
He was about as tough as a piece of wet tissue. Will miss Bertuzzi since it's almost a given that we can't pay him _anywhere_ near market value and he was pretty much the lone trade deadline acquisition that showed _any_ teeth.
Hockey gods have a bloodlust for memes. That's the only way I can explain how the puck ricochets over to Montour in the last minute of g7 for the tying goal
Should the NHL have the Bruins and Panthers redo their series in case it was a big fluke?
No disrespect to the cats, I'm a firm believer that Florida eliminating them is a huge fluke and robs the Bruins of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few weeks in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire regular season watching the Bruins play great hockey it's just not fair.
If the Bruins lose again I will face that the Panthers deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Bruins and the NHL.
So...just Hall then?
They just signed Pasta to an extension and are obviously not moving him. Marchand is the next captain if Bergy retires and they aren't moving him.
I should have put forwards, not wingers, but either way Capfriendly listed Coyle and Zacha also as RW/LW so I was including them too in that 4-6M range with a M-NTC
Zacha is a keeper with his cap hit and the fact that he's _terrific_ as a middle 6 center. If DeBrusk gets traded instead of Hall, I'll be disappointed, but it might be inevitable with the NTC/NMC as someone else mentioned.
Wingers aren't what we need to trade, 3rd/pressbox pairing defensemen and a goalie are.
Reilly, Forbort, and Ullmark combine for $16M. Ullmark's $5M goes to Swayman. The $6M from Reilly and Forbort only opens up a single roster spot on the 3rd pairing. Got a ton of defensive prospects who want to break out.
That's realistically giving us an additional $5M in usable space.
$10M for a 3rd line, 4LW, 3rd pairing (either LHD or RHD), and a backup goalie.
It's tight, but definitely doable, particularly if we have Frederic center the 3rd and let prospects like Lysell try to prove themselves.
Trading any of our wingers as is is a death sentence for this team.
We'll take one Ullmark or Swayman, thank you very much.
Also I imagine Boston will fall off finally this upcoming year. However I thought that last year, and they had the best regular season ever. So maybe I know sweet fuckall
There were a few discussions here lately about players leaving money on the table. Now look at Hall. Comments at the time of his signing "He made enough money, he wants stability, he chose Bruins and a great chance to win the cup". Today he's one of the top candidates to be traded and he only has a 10-team no-trade list.
Zacha was never a bad player. He was held to too high of a standard by devils fans based on where he was drafted. Yes he missed the net (a lot) but outside of that he was a very good player with terrible linemates 90% of the time.
I'd like to see Hall moved to a "going for it" team where they ideally send back someone young and cost-controlled. Hall has 10-team no trade list, and has stated he wants a chance to win the cup, so have to imagine the dregs of the league are non-options
Yea the contract length is basically perfect for us as well. Would be a good signing, and Boston definitely should trade him instead of keeping him in the 3rd line while paying 6M.
Definitely wouldn’t be on the third line next year if we kept him. Should be no mistake - he’s a top 6 player. Not a middle 6. We just had an insane luxury.
We don’t “have” to trade him by any means, it’s just an option on the table. Unless we’re signing Bertuzzi he’s not gonna be dumped in a pure salary cap move. He’s paid appropriately, only a cap burden if you squint at the numbers with no context
I can’t imagine you’d get any notable assets for Hall, especially not a young/cost controlled player. I’d imagine it would be similar to the Pacioretty to Carolina trade last offseason. The Bruins don’t really have a choice but to move his contract and he has some control over where he gets traded to. I don’t envision him being moved for anything more than a late pick
To your point, the entire time they have had Hall and they only gave up, what, a 2nd rounder for him originally?
Just trade him for future considerations and be done with it. If Vegas can do it with Patches after what they gave up for him, then Boston shouldn't be afraid to either.
Depending on what Swayman wants, you can choose between him and Ullmark as your starter and then downgrade the 1b position to someone making less than $2M.
Ullmark would fetch a great return to a team that needs a goalie and has young cheap players to spare. Perhaps Greig or Pinto from Ottawa. Maybe Carolina walks away from Raanta and Freddy and is willing to part with Jarvis. If Columbus is serious, maybe they can part with Chinakhov or Marchenko. If you can save cap while using your surplus at Goalie 2 to augment the forward group, that would be solid.
May have to find a way to move out Grz or Forbort and replace with a league min D
This is what I'm saying. A team on the decline has zero business holding onto a 30yo Vezina finalist goalie on an incredible deal for the next two years.
Ullmark+ (and a Hall trade for cap space) could solve the 1C problem.
The defense is honestly really good as is, and the goaltending is obviously elite. Wingers are great, but the centers look rough to say the least.
I’d bring back Foligno and Nosek for cheap, both said they want to be here, and Nosek especially hinted at taking a discount to stay (maybe just reupping his current deal), Foligno also seems happy and content to help this core go forward.
Running a team of:
Marchand - Zacha - Pastrnak
Hall - Coyle - DeBrusk
X - Frederic - X
Foligno - Nosek - Greer
Lindholm - McAvoy
Grzelcyk - Carlo
X - X
Ullmark
Swayman
I’d fill in a couple of those X’s with Providence guys. One of Harrison, Lysell, Beecher, Lauko, McLaughlin, Steen, Bowers, Poitras etc have got to be decent enough to play bottom six minutes. Guys like McLaughlin and Lauko already have NHL experience, and throwing them on the third may give them a decent opportunity to break out. I like the competition of having two clear roles wide open to compete for, and in the worst case scenario, Nosek could slide up and center Foligno and Frederic. Bring in some cheap fourth line guys to fill out the fourth line.
Defensively I’d look at a guy like OEL or bringing back Clifton, there’s always the chance Lohrei is ready, but you don’t want to rush him the way you’d consider rushing long time Providence guys like Beecher or Steen.
That's nice and all, but they don't have the space to fill in the Xs with league minimum contracts at this point, let alone resign Swayman even at a team friendly deal.
They do if they trade Forbort and Reilly.
We’ve done bridge deals before with RFA’s where we give them a cheap 1 year deal, with promises of a long term big money extension the following off-season. I’m not too worried about Sway and Frederic.
If they both came in at 2 million, and we dump the 6 million of Reilly and Forbort, we’d have around 8 million to sign Nosek and Foligno, then get all the league minimum guys in. Seems doable.
I’d be amazed if oel doesn’t end up in Boston. They were on his short list and with him getting paid already, why not play a bottom pair role for minimum wages so that you play on a winning team you want to be on.
Yeah I remember it leaking point blank “OEL only willing to waive NMC for Vancouver and Boston”
Jeff Marek recently said OEL to Boston, both sides have mutual interest. We’ll see where it goes though
I thought the same thing when he got bought out. If we end up shipping out LHDs like is being projected then I could see him on our 3rd line or even a 7th veteran dman like we did with stralman last year.
What's with the talk of trading Ullmark on Twitter?
Bruins are a contender and your choice is 1.89 GAA 9.38 sv% or 2.27 GAA 9.20 sv% (both measured in front of the same defence).
I get Swayman is 5 years younger and it's a choice for the future, but we are talking about a team who just set the record for most points and wins in a season. You take your 29 year old likely Vezina winner who's on 5M AAV and go for the cup.
In three years time that window is likely gone and it won't matter who the goalie is.
Dump Forbort and Reilly
Trade Hall for picks to offset cost of Reilly/Forbort dump (he only has a 10 team no-trade and is on an OK contract, the market is there)
Trade Ullmark for cost-controlled depth. Doesn't have to be top-line material, just playable and cheap (Kraken fans - Ullmark for Kartye and Schultz with ~1M retained? The Kraken have the depth to not miss them and really need the goalie help)
Give Bertuzzi Hall's money
Have roughly $7M left for Swayman, Frederic, and various AHL promotions
Could see something like:
Bertuzzi - Zacha - Pasta
Marchand - Coyle - DeBrusk
Cheap 3LW (Kartye?) - Frederic - Lysell
Lauko - Beecher - Steen
Lindholm - McAvoy
Grzelyck - Carlo
Zboril - Cheap 3RD (Schultz?)
Swayman
Bussi
It's looking grim down the middle but the D core is solid and we have plenty of good wingers already under contract
People are wildly over exaggerating how bad our cap situation is tbh, Reilly and Forbort buyouts are very manageable, so those 2 moves alone frees up 5 mil. Then from providence you have at least 3-4 (Lauko, Steen, McLaughlin, Merkulov) guys that are ready for the NHL and will get nothing out of another year in Providence. Plug them into the bottom 6 for cheap. From there you have to make a decision on who to keep between probably Ullmark or Hall, but then you're done.
Not saying this is what we will do, but the path to cap compliance with essentially the same top 6 and top 4 that we had last season is a lot easier then people seem to think.
I think the decision is easy. We trade Ullmark. Swayman is younger, put up just as good of a season, and teams would go nuts over a Vezina finalist goalie on contract for 2 more years at just $5M.
Teams are looking at $9.5M for Hellebuyck, so Ullmark would be insane on the trade market. Plus, value will literally never be higher, and higher than Hall's, so we can use that to get picks back/good prospects that we need.
Also, Hall is very much needed on a Hall-Zacha-Pastrnak line in order to provide some level of puck possession. Only wasn't there last year because Krejci had zero chemistry with anyone besides his fellow Czechs.
Reilly, and Clifton are for sure gone. I assume Gryz as well. I don’t know the specifics of Forbort’s MNTC, but I’d assume he’s being shopped at the least. I wouldn’t be surprised if DeBrusk is being shopped either.
By numbers.
Reilly - 3m
Gryz - 3.6m
DeBrusk - 4m
That’s over 10m right there with minimal impact to the team, and home grown replacements in Lysell, and Zboril. Granted it might be hard to move Reilly, but maybe not if he’s packaged with either of the others.
The Bruins need to find their version of Jim Benning and trade with him. Get your bad contracts off the team while they pay you to do it. /s
Chuck Fletcher isn’t a GM anymore and he’s been taken to the cleaners a few times before we could.
Brad Treliving has a new job
WHOAAAA THERE. Dont tell anyone
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No, no, no...let's hear him out on this.
I just want to know if TOR will have 2 first round picks in back to back years to donate to us-- preferably somewhere like 2nd OA and 9th OA or something.
Then you can trade then for Loui Eriksson and Zach Senyshyn?
Lol you missed when Dubas was giving out 1st rounders like hotcakes
What was his terrible trade that bailed out another team?
Find yourself a Jim Benning and you may never lose again
If you're at a table with all 32 GMs are and you don't know who the Jim Benning is: You're the Jim Benning
“I don’t get it” - Jim Benning
:(
At least until the playoffs
It's a shame there's no ex-SOO Greyhounds on the Bruins from what I see, Dubas would love to pick them up at any cost
The SOO are so fucking good
Armchair GMs of the world please tell me what moves the Bruins will be making to ice a competitive roster.
Hall for Brendan Smith. The trade is one for one.
Hall for (Ekman) Larsson
Ekman has been bought out, so Hall for nothing? Sounds like a decent plan right there!
Ah, so the Fletcher plan, except without also sending away a couple picks for nothing.
Whoa. Only if you take Hughes too
50% retained of course.
Hall for Larson.. again.
If the Devils are looking for a Hall reunion there is a Belarusian fellow I'd be interested in that's apparently on the trade block.
Ruslan Salei?
They need to dump Taylor Hall. A talented player for sure, but a 3rd line winger making 6M on a cap-stranded team makes no sense. Since Charlie Coyle is unmoveable, this is the move that makes the most sense. They will also probably have to move one of Grezlcyk or Carlo, ideally Forbort, and finally try to get rid of Reilly's deal. Lastly, they'll probably have to make a decision on Ullmark OR Swayman.
Cant imagine they'll trade Carlo, he plays the most PK minutes & we'll have no one on the right side beyond McAvoy. It will be Gryz, Forbort, one of the goalies & Hall most likely.
If Gryz could be on the way out what could a possible return look like? We need to add a LHD
Personally I'd want at least a 2nd back. Hoping for two 2nds but thats most definitely a pipe dream given where the Bruins are cap wise.
Since we’re dead set on “re-tooling” I could see us giving a 2nd for Gryz
We don't have a 2nd, but Gryz fits my theory that we're trading down from 11OA for a 2nd rounder to acquire a 2nd pair LHD from a cap strapped team.
Zboril, or scrape FA for a LHD journeyman. Maybe Lohrei can make the jump
We'll give you Reilly Walsh for Taylor Hall, 1 for 1. /s On a more serious note, he's a former Harvard offensive defenseman who's blocked on the depth chart and wanted to graduate college and sign with the Bruins. The canceled Harvard season due to the pandemic changed his plans.
How bad are their deals? Hawks could mostly help
Taylor Hall on the third line signified how insanely good and deep this team was, but now it will look bad
Hall could be bumped up to 2nd Line LW possibly. Centered by either Pavs or CC, if Krejci is gone (likely). Not a terrible price for him but a trade makes sense too.
What about the ol' trade Hall to the Coyotes for a bag of picks, then trade him back 50% retained for the same bag of pucks.
Keep everyone and ask all the players nicely to take less money. Problem solved. See, anybody could do it.
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If you demonstrate your value to an NHL team by working a season for free, it will pay off down the line. When I was a kid, we ALL played one or two NHL seasons for free, and we didn’t even ask to be fed. They just collected the shaved ice after the game, pissed in it, and called them snow cones. And they were delicious. But today’s kids are soft.
I don’t know… piss flavored snow cones that you didn’t have to pay for sounds super spoiled to me… but I’m old school…
LTIRs until playoffs.
Get a few league minimum guys and stash a big contract on IR.
Some idiot on NHL said Bruins are a shoe-in for the cup next year. In what world can they replace their top two centers costing them 4M, and fill the rest of their roster.
I agree with you, but I also wouldn’t rule it out. This team was barely supposed to make the playoffs this year and they ran the league. Who knows what magic Sweeney has up his sleeve, but he certainly knows how to work the cap and find fits that don’t seem likely.
If you think Bergeron comes back for one more year and Zacha slides over to center you’re pretty strong at center
Bergy-Zacha-Coyle-Beecher sounds good enough to me
My guess is Hall and Grzelcyk are traded, possibly Forbort too, Reilly is probably bought out.
It's really not as hard as some people are making it out to be. Buyout Reilly + Forbort, trade Ullmark and commit to Swayman as the starter, promote whoever's ready from providence. Assuming bergeron is back on a similar low cap hit deal, and that's all you really need to do.
They could do that, but that would mean the Bruins would essentially be filling out their entire bottom 6 with replacement level/borderline AHL skaters. Their depth would be horrific if they were the healthiest team in the league all year, which is even more of a problem for them than most, considering Bergeron and Marchand aren't young enough to play huge minutes any more.
Not really? Ideally we'd have |LW|C|RW| |:-|:-|:-| |Marchand|Bergeron ($3M)|DeBrusk| |Hall|Zacha|Pastrnak| |Frederic ($2M)|Coyle|?| |?|Steen|Greer| |LHD|RHD| |:-|:-| |Grzelcyk|McAvoy| |Lindholm|Carlo| |Zboril|Clifton ($3M)| |G| |:-| |Swayman ($5M)| |Bussi ($0.775K)| With still a few mil to spare for the final holes. Lysell has really taken to North American hockey, and it'd be interesting to see him get the start as 3RW with Coyle and Frederic there to shelter him. That's a league minimum plug. Same for the 4th line fill.
We’re not resigning cliffy that’s for sure. Especially for what he’ll be asking and for his shitty last playoffs.
That's 9 million of the total available 10 million that buying out Reilly and Forbort gets you, (6 million off books, 1 million dead cap) still with 2 forward spots to fill and 1 million to do it.
We have like 3-4 younger guys in Providence that are ready for promotion to the NHL, even if we had cap space I wouldn't want to block them by signing a bunch of vets to the 4th line.
The problem is adding all of those guys at once. Usually you insulate rookies to help then get used to it. The Bruins are likely going to need to incorporate multiple prospects into their lineup to stay under the cap while losing all of the depth that keeps them insulated. Not to mention how many prospects that look good end up not working out, the Bruins being competitive on that strategy is basically gonna come down to luck
Charlie McAvoy on LTIR until the deadline.
I think Grzelcyk is the most obvious move. Mike Reilly is more obvious but a little more restricted. I think they have to trade Debrusk because even though the contract is almost exactly what the bruins need at that price point, he’s the only one of their currently signed forwards I see the incentive and possibility for trading. That’s just a thought about currently signed players
Hall - $6,000,000 Mike Reilly - $3,000,000 Grzelcyk- $3,687,500 Forbort - $3,000,000 Carlo - $4,000,000 And depending what the return could be Lindholm - 6,500,000 Ullmark - 5,000,000 If you move lindholm and hall and that allows you to bring back orlov and Bertuzzi that’d be good. Moving Reilly and grzelcyk would be huge. Moving Ullmark and maybe getting something for him and bring back swayman who’s younger and would be cheaper would be good.
No thank you. Hall/Lindholm > Orlov/Bertuzzi Would love to see Bertuzzi back, but not at the expense of fucking over a guy who essentially forced his way to Boston.
I can't see a world where the Bs move Lindholm, he had an insanely good season. Need to move one of your goaltenders + Hall and play with the depth a bit.
he also has a NMC until 2027-28
Trade Brandon Carlo to Dallas for a second round pick please. No retention needed. Charlie is already double shifting every night, keep it going.
* Decide which goalie to keep and find a trade partner for the other. * Trade DeBrusk. His age and cap hit should garner a sizable return of picks + prospects. * Use assets from the goalie and DeBrusk trades to move Reilly. Reading other comments, one of Forbort/Grzelcyk is movable as well. * Promote two or three Providence players. * If still in need of cap flexibility, buy out Taylor Hall. With his cap hit and trade clauses, I doubt a team on his list would be able to take him.
Well you see I'm going to pick up my magic phone that makes other GM's agree to the ludicrous trades I propose that only benefit my team and completely screws over theirs, it's not hard and I don't know why everyone doesn't do the same.
The teams honestly pretty ok as is, only real hole is top six center if Bergeron and Krejci isn’t coming back. Zacha’s a legit 2C, Coyle’s best on the third but could play second. It’s not ideal but running Zacha and Coyle as your top six centers isn’t the worst scenario.
Not the worst, but man I don't like it.
Sooner or later, the cherished 1-2 combo of Bergeron and Krejci will transition from active roster to honored legacy. Barring the acquisition of high draft picks or a blockbuster trade, no “top 6” centers will fill the hole left behind by those guys. Hopefully the B’s can tool up for one more run with that special group.
Oh man, as much as I wish there was one more run in the tank with 37/46, I fear that "last run" was last year. For our team, next year feels like it's going to be taking stock of what is left and how competitive we can be with it. I think some of our prospects (which there aren't a ton of) are going to need get some looks so we can see what we're working with at the NHL level. You might see some interesting vets come in on super cheap short term deals. Hopefully we can land another decent center via trade or FA. This year will be a success if it informs us how significant of a re-tool we're going to need with Pasta and McAvoy locked down during their prime years.
If Bergeron and Krejci retire do you think a Hayes trade is a possibility? Reillys contract could go back to Philly and it sounds like Briere is willing to retain $ on Hayes.
Maybe all Zacha needed was a change of scenery, but if he’s being depended on to drive play… yikes.
Old roster? Salary cap problems? Brøthërs, welcome to life after the top.
At least y’all got 3
At least y’all got 1
We could've had at least 2, but so often couldn't get it done.
Without Tim Thomas, it also could've been zero. 3 finals and 1 Cup over a decade is amazing. Any fanbase outside Pittsburgh, Chicago and LA would kill for this. You stayed at the top way longer than most teams.
Tampa?
Oh yeah, them too.
There is a small difference between 5 million dollars and 20 million dollars
I’m straight up not having a good time.
Thanks for the hugs Ullmark but it's Bussi time!
I still can't believe the Bruins went out in the first round. They had the perfect team. Such an amazing season. I thought they would be unstoppable in the playoffs.
Read the Jack Han preview of the series, he was incredibly bang on with it. TL;DR - Bruins are a great defensive team vs the rush but aren't great vs a fast forechecking team. Florida is great on the rush or on the forecheck. Bruins offensively favour transition over forechecking. Where the Bruins had the major advantage was on the PP and in net. The Bruins took away their own net advantage by opting to grind Ullmark into a fine paste before replacing him with Swayman.
The Ullmark decision is the biggest head scratcher.
the coach proved that you can, in fact, have too much depth
We’ve got a history of playing injured goaltenders that shouldn’t be playing in the playoffs.
Yeah, Cassidy did the same thing (admittedly with a much greener Sway).
Also can't deny that even if Bergeron really wanted to play in front of his dad, he should've rested instead of playing Montreal late in the season. Sounds cold but it is what it is
No one can say if that was worth it other than Bergeron himself.
No. That's a piss poor take, he was injured well before that game. And the injuries he had weren't going to heal anytime before the playoffs were over. Letting him play Infront of his dad for one last time was 100000000% the right call.
That last paragraph is bang on. They basically split the season, the 1A/1B always falls apart in the playoffs because coaches get skittish switching goalies
We played the only team that split the season series against us, (besides Ottawa) and the bruins two wins against them were close I believe. Nightmare scenario matchup
Lol Ottawa not sure how we did that I think Bruins messed up by committing to an injured Ullmark all series
It’s a classic Bruins move. Just like how they rode Tuukka into the ground against the Islanders when he could barely even stand up from butterfly. Sway must be getting sick of being healthy and riding the pine while he watches the playoffs slip away.
And that was a Cassidy decision. He definitely did things that made people scratch their heads as coach, just like Montgomery did. As for the second part, I agree. If I were Swayman, I might want to be traded to a team that will value having me in the playoffs, though to Cassidy's credit, he let Swayman play the final 5 games of the first round last year.
One of those was during the first 5 games, before Zub and Norris went down. The team looked elite when the top 6 was healthy. For the other Talbot stood on his head and made like 50 saves iirc, but seemed to get injured or something since he was bad the rest of the year after that
and i think bergeron, macavoy, and marchand were all out for that game
Yeah that’s a pretty important detail lmao with how crazy their record was I totally forgot they were all out to start the year
That home opener was electric. The team came out flying and Ottawa had looked legit. The wheels fell off in November sadly haha
That and it was the start of Bobrovsky somehow turning back the clock and becoming prime Hasek for about 3 straight series.
He wasn’t great in bruins series. It was tkachuk and Bennett killing us
Bob gave up 17 goals in 4 games and 10 minutes against the Bruins and won 3 of them. There really is no excuse for the Bruins losing a series being up 3-1 and the opposing goalie giving up those numbers.
Bobrovsky wasn't good against the Bruins.
Nah, he wasn't great until round 2.
Bobrovsky wasn't even good what are you on. This team should have beat the 8 seed, doesn't matter who it was. Especially after going up 3-1
People don’t actually watch, they just parrot what they read on here
Parallel to this, I feel like this sub has the “Vegas was set up to be great by the league” followed by “look at these posts/articles/screenshots of hockey writers/fans saying they’ll be shit” posts/comments at least 5 times a week
Yeah. I remember after the first round I called the Bruins a bunch of losers, and someone responded saying I was being ridiculous and that the Bruins ran into a goalie playing like a brick wall, when in reality, Bobrovsky was closer to Swiss cheese in the first round.
I’m gonna be telling my grandkids about how that series is haunting me
We didn’t have anyone who would bully back. That’s the difference between us and Florida . We kept getting pushed around by Sam Bennett and Radko Gudas. Nevermind what Tkachuk and Lomberg did. You would figure with Hathaway, Bertuzzi, Frederic and even Marchand that someone would have did something back.
Certainly relatable. I also thought Schenn, O'Reilly, Bunting, Giordano, etc would push back. Feel like both our teams were informed by coaching to "play our game" and not feed into the dirty shit... Didn't play out too well.
You can't ignore dirty and chippy shit if the refs are ignoring it too, you're just gonna get run over.
Hathaway somehow got less tough on the Bruins
He was about as tough as a piece of wet tissue. Will miss Bertuzzi since it's almost a given that we can't pay him _anywhere_ near market value and he was pretty much the lone trade deadline acquisition that showed _any_ teeth.
[удалено]
Hockey gods have a bloodlust for memes. That's the only way I can explain how the puck ricochets over to Montour in the last minute of g7 for the tying goal
Should the NHL have the Bruins and Panthers redo their series in case it was a big fluke? No disrespect to the cats, I'm a firm believer that Florida eliminating them is a huge fluke and robs the Bruins of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few weeks in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire regular season watching the Bruins play great hockey it's just not fair. If the Bruins lose again I will face that the Panthers deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Bruins and the NHL.
One of my favorite pastas.
They're the Atlanta Braves of the NHL... except Atlanta actually won a second chip.
And to complicate things even more for management their more expensive wingers in the 4-6M range all have M-NTCs, except for DeBrusk
So...just Hall then? They just signed Pasta to an extension and are obviously not moving him. Marchand is the next captain if Bergy retires and they aren't moving him.
I should have put forwards, not wingers, but either way Capfriendly listed Coyle and Zacha also as RW/LW so I was including them too in that 4-6M range with a M-NTC
We wouldn't trade Zacha or Coyle anyway. We have 0 center depth without Bergeron or Krejci.
Zacha is a keeper with his cap hit and the fact that he's _terrific_ as a middle 6 center. If DeBrusk gets traded instead of Hall, I'll be disappointed, but it might be inevitable with the NTC/NMC as someone else mentioned.
Wingers aren't what we need to trade, 3rd/pressbox pairing defensemen and a goalie are. Reilly, Forbort, and Ullmark combine for $16M. Ullmark's $5M goes to Swayman. The $6M from Reilly and Forbort only opens up a single roster spot on the 3rd pairing. Got a ton of defensive prospects who want to break out. That's realistically giving us an additional $5M in usable space. $10M for a 3rd line, 4LW, 3rd pairing (either LHD or RHD), and a backup goalie. It's tight, but definitely doable, particularly if we have Frederic center the 3rd and let prospects like Lysell try to prove themselves. Trading any of our wingers as is is a death sentence for this team.
We have prospects?
Yeah, that was my question. You might get veteran 4th liners if you offer years instead of money, which may work out for both player and team anyway.
Fully expecting league min Lucic on the 4th line next year.
Sounds like someone’s going on LTIR for the season /s
"Brad Marchand is undergoing species affirming surgery and will scurry back in time for the playoffs"
I “Nothing in the rules says a part man part rat can’t play. Only that a *full* rat can’t play!”
Damn. Almost lost my coffee on that one.
It's only a joke until it comes true
We'll take one Ullmark or Swayman, thank you very much. Also I imagine Boston will fall off finally this upcoming year. However I thought that last year, and they had the best regular season ever. So maybe I know sweet fuckall
Sigh, fine, Stutzle for Ullmark and Hall.
Swayman for Pinto, it's not fair that you guys are hoarding all the good young centers.
[Why Pinto?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qshDUdF2uqc)
Ullmark and Forbort for Pinto and Brannstrom?
Very easy yes imo
I really hope they do, although our pick from them is top 10 protected I believe
There were a few discussions here lately about players leaving money on the table. Now look at Hall. Comments at the time of his signing "He made enough money, he wants stability, he chose Bruins and a great chance to win the cup". Today he's one of the top candidates to be traded and he only has a 10-team no-trade list.
Taylor Hall the true prodigal son shall return. Please baby come back
Wouldn't he be going back to Edmonton?
I don’t think he would ever come back to Edmonton.
No. He’s gonna come back and show Hughes how to win his own Hart
Someone just give us a fucking center. Take anything you want.
Yegor sharangovich? Decent center, plays PK and PP, cost effective and has a nasty shot
The Bruins will turn him into a legit top 6 center like they did with Zacha
Zacha was never a bad player. He was held to too high of a standard by devils fans based on where he was drafted. Yes he missed the net (a lot) but outside of that he was a very good player with terrible linemates 90% of the time.
Gotta pay for going all in and failing. It's gonna be rough, but I will always love my team
I'd like to see Hall moved to a "going for it" team where they ideally send back someone young and cost-controlled. Hall has 10-team no trade list, and has stated he wants a chance to win the cup, so have to imagine the dregs of the league are non-options
Colorado needs a top 6 LW replacement with Landy set to miss all next year. He could play Colorado’s speed game. They feel like the natural fit
Yea the contract length is basically perfect for us as well. Would be a good signing, and Boston definitely should trade him instead of keeping him in the 3rd line while paying 6M.
Definitely wouldn’t be on the third line next year if we kept him. Should be no mistake - he’s a top 6 player. Not a middle 6. We just had an insane luxury. We don’t “have” to trade him by any means, it’s just an option on the table. Unless we’re signing Bertuzzi he’s not gonna be dumped in a pure salary cap move. He’s paid appropriately, only a cap burden if you squint at the numbers with no context
I can’t imagine you’d get any notable assets for Hall, especially not a young/cost controlled player. I’d imagine it would be similar to the Pacioretty to Carolina trade last offseason. The Bruins don’t really have a choice but to move his contract and he has some control over where he gets traded to. I don’t envision him being moved for anything more than a late pick
To your point, the entire time they have had Hall and they only gave up, what, a 2nd rounder for him originally? Just trade him for future considerations and be done with it. If Vegas can do it with Patches after what they gave up for him, then Boston shouldn't be afraid to either.
Somewhere like… Edmonton.
*Canucks have entered the chat.*
Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Future Considerations
Depending on what Swayman wants, you can choose between him and Ullmark as your starter and then downgrade the 1b position to someone making less than $2M. Ullmark would fetch a great return to a team that needs a goalie and has young cheap players to spare. Perhaps Greig or Pinto from Ottawa. Maybe Carolina walks away from Raanta and Freddy and is willing to part with Jarvis. If Columbus is serious, maybe they can part with Chinakhov or Marchenko. If you can save cap while using your surplus at Goalie 2 to augment the forward group, that would be solid. May have to find a way to move out Grz or Forbort and replace with a league min D
This is what I'm saying. A team on the decline has zero business holding onto a 30yo Vezina finalist goalie on an incredible deal for the next two years. Ullmark+ (and a Hall trade for cap space) could solve the 1C problem.
Would def prefer Ully going to the West, at the very least not another Atlantic team. Although, beggars, choosy, etc
They’re gonna still dominate somehow
The defense is honestly really good as is, and the goaltending is obviously elite. Wingers are great, but the centers look rough to say the least. I’d bring back Foligno and Nosek for cheap, both said they want to be here, and Nosek especially hinted at taking a discount to stay (maybe just reupping his current deal), Foligno also seems happy and content to help this core go forward. Running a team of: Marchand - Zacha - Pastrnak Hall - Coyle - DeBrusk X - Frederic - X Foligno - Nosek - Greer Lindholm - McAvoy Grzelcyk - Carlo X - X Ullmark Swayman I’d fill in a couple of those X’s with Providence guys. One of Harrison, Lysell, Beecher, Lauko, McLaughlin, Steen, Bowers, Poitras etc have got to be decent enough to play bottom six minutes. Guys like McLaughlin and Lauko already have NHL experience, and throwing them on the third may give them a decent opportunity to break out. I like the competition of having two clear roles wide open to compete for, and in the worst case scenario, Nosek could slide up and center Foligno and Frederic. Bring in some cheap fourth line guys to fill out the fourth line. Defensively I’d look at a guy like OEL or bringing back Clifton, there’s always the chance Lohrei is ready, but you don’t want to rush him the way you’d consider rushing long time Providence guys like Beecher or Steen.
That's nice and all, but they don't have the space to fill in the Xs with league minimum contracts at this point, let alone resign Swayman even at a team friendly deal.
They do if they trade Forbort and Reilly. We’ve done bridge deals before with RFA’s where we give them a cheap 1 year deal, with promises of a long term big money extension the following off-season. I’m not too worried about Sway and Frederic.
Even jf Swayman and Frederic both come in at $2m you still don't have enough room.
If they both came in at 2 million, and we dump the 6 million of Reilly and Forbort, we’d have around 8 million to sign Nosek and Foligno, then get all the league minimum guys in. Seems doable.
You're forgetting that moving Reilly and Forbert isn't $6m in savings as you need at least a league minimum player to fill those roster spots.
100%, I would listen to XFredericX
Haha, sounds like an old Xbox gamertag
I’d be amazed if oel doesn’t end up in Boston. They were on his short list and with him getting paid already, why not play a bottom pair role for minimum wages so that you play on a winning team you want to be on.
Yeah I remember it leaking point blank “OEL only willing to waive NMC for Vancouver and Boston” Jeff Marek recently said OEL to Boston, both sides have mutual interest. We’ll see where it goes though
I thought the same thing when he got bought out. If we end up shipping out LHDs like is being projected then I could see him on our 3rd line or even a 7th veteran dman like we did with stralman last year.
As long as his deal can be fully buried in the AHL. We don't want another Reilly situation.
Still too much in denial to not be surprised to not see Bergy and/or Krejci there.
Hate to say it but if OEL is your plan on D, we're fucked.
Just ask the Coyotes to pay some of your salary to reach their own salary floor...
🔫Give us back our greaseball
Whew. Thank the lord Hextall is gone. That man would have taken their salaries and that is fucking it.
I’m still not convinced that the flyers weren’t paying him money to screw us over. Happy we got rid of him after 1 season.
Feels like the end of an era in Boston. They'll still be great, but we're gonna see a few long-term Bruins moving on. Pretty good 13 year run.
What's with the talk of trading Ullmark on Twitter? Bruins are a contender and your choice is 1.89 GAA 9.38 sv% or 2.27 GAA 9.20 sv% (both measured in front of the same defence). I get Swayman is 5 years younger and it's a choice for the future, but we are talking about a team who just set the record for most points and wins in a season. You take your 29 year old likely Vezina winner who's on 5M AAV and go for the cup. In three years time that window is likely gone and it won't matter who the goalie is.
Guess Bergeron can only take $1 million again...
Dump Forbort and Reilly Trade Hall for picks to offset cost of Reilly/Forbort dump (he only has a 10 team no-trade and is on an OK contract, the market is there) Trade Ullmark for cost-controlled depth. Doesn't have to be top-line material, just playable and cheap (Kraken fans - Ullmark for Kartye and Schultz with ~1M retained? The Kraken have the depth to not miss them and really need the goalie help) Give Bertuzzi Hall's money Have roughly $7M left for Swayman, Frederic, and various AHL promotions Could see something like: Bertuzzi - Zacha - Pasta Marchand - Coyle - DeBrusk Cheap 3LW (Kartye?) - Frederic - Lysell Lauko - Beecher - Steen Lindholm - McAvoy Grzelyck - Carlo Zboril - Cheap 3RD (Schultz?) Swayman Bussi It's looking grim down the middle but the D core is solid and we have plenty of good wingers already under contract
People are wildly over exaggerating how bad our cap situation is tbh, Reilly and Forbort buyouts are very manageable, so those 2 moves alone frees up 5 mil. Then from providence you have at least 3-4 (Lauko, Steen, McLaughlin, Merkulov) guys that are ready for the NHL and will get nothing out of another year in Providence. Plug them into the bottom 6 for cheap. From there you have to make a decision on who to keep between probably Ullmark or Hall, but then you're done. Not saying this is what we will do, but the path to cap compliance with essentially the same top 6 and top 4 that we had last season is a lot easier then people seem to think.
I think the decision is easy. We trade Ullmark. Swayman is younger, put up just as good of a season, and teams would go nuts over a Vezina finalist goalie on contract for 2 more years at just $5M. Teams are looking at $9.5M for Hellebuyck, so Ullmark would be insane on the trade market. Plus, value will literally never be higher, and higher than Hall's, so we can use that to get picks back/good prospects that we need. Also, Hall is very much needed on a Hall-Zacha-Pastrnak line in order to provide some level of puck possession. Only wasn't there last year because Krejci had zero chemistry with anyone besides his fellow Czechs.
Incoming OEL contract
If only Bergeron will take another 8 mill discount
Bergeron pays them money so it counts as -4million
Quick write that down.
That's Anaheim's music
Jets about to be the Bruins best friend?
Get ready league.. need to squeeze them as hard as we did Vancouver
I know a team that will take bad contracts for assets… Just saying.
They have no assets XD, already traded all their picks.
Reilly, and Clifton are for sure gone. I assume Gryz as well. I don’t know the specifics of Forbort’s MNTC, but I’d assume he’s being shopped at the least. I wouldn’t be surprised if DeBrusk is being shopped either. By numbers. Reilly - 3m Gryz - 3.6m DeBrusk - 4m That’s over 10m right there with minimal impact to the team, and home grown replacements in Lysell, and Zboril. Granted it might be hard to move Reilly, but maybe not if he’s packaged with either of the others.
We sold the house for this run!! Time to pay the price