As expected, despite the excitement provoked by the centennial celebrations, the 2023–24 Boston Bruins effectively had a bridge year. It was about as productive of a bridge season as you can get, with them landing in second place in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the Eastern Conference, and, as has become tradition, defeating Toronto in seven before falling to fellow rivals/eventual champions Florida in round two in six. The org also used this time to get additional reps in for youngsters such as Matthew Poitras, Mason Lohrei, and John Beecher and saw them take steps upward (Poitras doing so to the point where it felt like a genuine loss when his season ended due to shoulder surgery). Despite all that was good, the oldest American NHL club was still effectively biding its time waiting for this summer’s cap flexibility to come along. How well did Don Sweeney, Cam Neely, and the rest of the front office end up using it? How did they do in their efforts at the NHL Entry Draft in Vegas? Let’s take a deep dive.

Notable free agency departures include the team allowing James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Shattenkirk to hit the market. At this time, neither the veteran forward nor the veteran blueliner have found a new squad, though both are considered to be potentially valuable additions to a roster (see: here and here), so I won’t be surprised if they get scooped up before all is totally said and done or doing the early phases of the season. Rental/one-time adversary Pat Maroon also departed for Chicago via the UFA market. This one is not a tremendous loss, as Big Rig’s impact of being a menacing lower part of the roster forward with some offensive upside is not what it once was and the Bruins experienced that. Perhaps the most noteworthy change was the departures of long-time, beloved LW Jake DeBrusk and pretty respectable big blueliner Derek Forbort left for the Canucks on seven- and one-year deals, respectively. DeBrusk’s departure was not totally unexpected, but saddening, as, despite the ignominious beginning to his tenure with the Bruins reaching on him in a sequence of three picks that left a lot of value on the board, he had proven to be sneakily good and capable of reaching 25 or more goals per season. Forbort marked a surrendering of a useful frame, reach, and physical presence on the defensive core, but neither player is completely replaceable, especially not the latter. It becomes a bit of a puzzle, though, when looking at the free agent swap that the Bruins conducted.

C/RW Elias Lindholm served as a rental for the Canucks as they went all in on their pursuit of a Stanley Cup in their somewhat unexpected competitive window. He did his job come postseason even as the Canucks’ aspirations ended at the hands of Edmonton in round two, racking up 5 goals and 5 assists in 13 games, but he had a very poor season on the whole, and both his productivity (44 points in 75 games) and his microstat profile will tell you that. The Bruins, nevertheless, opted to sign him, which in and of itself doesn’t look awful given that it permits Pavel Zacha to assume a smaller role and shift to the LW. However, even though it’s not an outright overpay given the value that someone like Lindholm has on the market for better or worse, I don’t know if I’m fond of giving 7x$7.8M to someone who is coming off the kinda year he had and is profiling the way he’s been the last few seasons. Steve Silverman at Clutchpoints thinks Lindholm can take steps up in a roster that has been consistently good for a while, but I don’t know if I love the mindset of paying a guy for what he might do because of other people. We’ll see if it pays off. Either way, Lindholm will be 36 years old when that contract ends, and it’s easy to imagine it ending with a buyout.

The Bruins might’ve done even worse with the addition of a big defenseman, however, given the terms granted to another Canucks departing name, Nikita Zadorov. I get what they’re trying to add here, he does have attributes that teams value and, despite the “unga bunga” element to them, still have legitimate utility in the contemporary NHL. The price tag isn’t even bad at $5M a year. However, Clutchpoints’ Tristin McKinstry astutely points out the contract will be very limited in movement possibilities due to its protections, and his physical playing style will likely have worn him down by its end. If Zadorov plays up to his highest potential, then great! It certainly will help Boston’s immediate aspirations. However, if he doesn’t, they’ll likely be saddled with a deal that is actually worse than its price tag at face value.

Ever the squad to adhere to the mindset of “carpe diem” by participating in big trades, the Bruins conducted one of the biggest headlines of the summer a week before free agency began, when G Linus Ullmark, after a lot of speculation about how long the beloved tandem of him and Jeremy Swayman could be kept together, was dealt to the Ottawa Senators for the 2024 first round pick that originally belonged to Boston (25th overall), G Joonas Korpisalo (25% retained), and C Mark Kastelic. Contrary to what some believe, I don’t see a hypothetical timeline wherein this trade goes DRASTICALLY better for Boston if they had pulled the trigger earlier due to the lack of return that goaltenders traditionally get on the trade market. However, that said, things got drastically worse for them here. Ullmark has a Vezina Trophy to his name and respectable results in his time in Boston and is being supplanted by someone who is among the most overpaid players at his position in the league, even at a lower cost with the retention, that has been volatile at best throughout his career and was one of the worst goalies in the league last season statistically. At present, Swayman is still an unsigned RFA and the sides appear at a stalemate. After Swayman had elected to bring the team to arbitration last summer, he was still eligible for a one-time team-elected arbitration; however, neither the team nor Swayman were interested in that this time around per Ty Anderson, who further noted it was unlikely that any team would offer sheet Swayman. That said, despite the openness of the operating space for these negotiations, there hasn’t been much progress. Assuming, though, the season just progresses normally with Swayman performing at his usual clip, the team has a player who’s ready to take the full-time starter position and do it well (Swayman was fourth amongst all goaltenders in GSAE with a minimum of 25 games played, per MoneyPuck). However, after sharing the net with a goaltender who was sixth in GSAE, he will instead share it with the netminder who ranked 53rd in that category, ahead of only Chicago’s Arvid Soderblom. Whether Korpisalo serves as a backup or a full-fledged tandem partner, it is a downgrade.

The Bruins reacquiring their first round selection not only put them back in the first round, but gave them their only pick in the top 100. This has become a standard picture for them, as they’ve been aggressive in maintaining their contender status for many years now. With the 25th overall selection, Don Sweeney, Cam Neely, and director of amateur scouting Ryan Nadeau opted to hedge their bets on C Dean Letourneau of St. Andrew’s College U18 AAA in Ontario. Letourneau tallied 127 points in 56 games with SAC U18 AAA last season, while also appearing briefly in the USHL with the Sioux Falls Stampede (not registering any points in 2 games). Letourneau is committed to Boston College and is on the roster for the coming season and, while already possessing exceptional physical qualities, will likely spend the coming years sharpening his processing abilities and overall hockey IQ. My immediate reaction to this selection that I espoused on our podcast two days after round one remains the same: There’s an interesting thought process here based off of what he can potentially be, but it’s gonna take a while for it to pay off, it’s far from a sure thing, and I think I would’ve liked to see what would’ve come out of him spending more time in the USHL to temper himself. We can only wait and see what Greg Brown and his staff do for him at The Heights, a development course that many Bruins fans will likely be paying close attention to given college hockey’s popularity in the New England region. With regards to the selection of D/Quinnipiac commit Elliott Groenewold at 110th (acquired from MIN), I additionally stand by what I said in my article about great day two picks despite what tools the former Cedar Rapids RoughRider may possess: The Wild made off like bandits here by making a much better value selection in the form of Aron Kiviharju at 122nd overall, to the extent where you can’t look at the Groenewold pick in a vacuum. That said, the Bruins also got a good value selection of their own by picking up C Jonathan Morello (OJHL – St. Michael’s Buzzers) at 154th overall. Chris Peters notes that Morello was ranked at 95th in FloHockey’s top 100 and opines that Morello is “just scratching the surface.” I’m inclined to agree given that Morello tallied 57 points in 50 games in this past Junior A season, performed even better in the postseason with 12 goals and 9 assists in 11 games (as the Buzzers swept the Markham Royals in round one before falling in seven games to the Cobourg Cougars in round two), and looks like he can be a solid addition to the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints in this coming year, while also benefiting from being cultivated in an environment with a good track record of success and is just coming off an appearance in the Clark Cup finals. The Bruins ended their draft, wherein they had just four selections, by taking D Loke Johansson, who spent the previous season split between the J20 Nationell and the Hockeyallsvenskan and will play for the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats in 2024–25. There isn’t much to say here; Johansson is a respectable skater with decent fundamentals in important capacities such as positioning, but will primarily serve as a big body who can deliver bone crunching hits. A pretty quiet draft for the Bruins and one that induced some head scratching, but might also have some hidden value.

The Bruins’ efforts this summer were centered upon the aspiration to become competitive again as soon as possible. I think the free agency action has some potential there, but also comes bearing risks that are not insignificant. They also didn’t do themselves any favor with the trade they partook in. With regard to the future, I think this year’s draft was a more successful endeavor than last despite them having less draft capital overall, considering there are signs of high ceilings in at least two selections. That said, their draft efforts were not dissimilar to how I perceived Philadelphia’s (less so the Jett Luchanko selection, which I wasn’t a big fan of at first but could be much better than it looks on its face considering Luchanko’s Herculean physical capabilities and the limitations provided by his playing with a fairly poor Guelph Storm squad, but definitely regarding day two even if I am warming up to some of those picks) where the primary aspiration seems to be superficially assessing prospects based off of particular physical attributes. I think a grade of C+ is fair for the Boston Bruins here. It is not impossible to imagine them inserting themselves into true contender status again this coming year, but I can just as easily see things going the other way, as well, and their significant downgrade in net is not something to be ignored. Their draft was also unspectacular, but maybe, we’ll be surprised by it. While it has become standard for nearly a decade and a half for them to draft players that don’t project well, they simultaneously have had an impressive amount of success doing so. Ironically enough, Boston is kind of a 50/50 shot at succeeding in their “win now” endeavors, but may sustain their seemingly non-stop reign of being consistently relevant, if not necessarily successful every year, that has been going on since effectively the 2008–09 season (fitting with their organizational tendency of never undergoing long rebuilding periods and somewhat reflecting their still existing North American pro sports record of most consecutive playoff appearance) in the most unlikely way possible. It should be interesting to watch.