When free agency opens in any professional sport, most fans just want to see their favorite team be active and engaged. When NHL free agency officially started today at noon, the Bruins were certainly as busy as any club in the league but when you run through all the names of guys that they signed, you are left wondering if any of them will have any type of major impact for Boston. Leaving out the four players that will most likely be stuck in Providence for most of (if not all of) next season, B's GM Don Sweeney brought in six legitimate NHL veterans. The most notable names are goaltender Linus Ullmark (formerly of the Sabres) and forward and former Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno. In addition, depth forwards Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek are here too along with defensemen Derek Forbort and Mike Reilly (who was traded to the Bruins before the trade deadline last season).
Haha is that it? For a team that likes to think of themselves as true Stanley Cup contenders every season, it sure feels like Sweeney was trying to shop at The Dollar Store to get what he needs rather than spending a little more to get some better players. Jaroslav Halak signed with Vancouver and free agent Tuukka Rask is out for awhile following hip surgery so the B's needed a veteran goalie to work with promising young netminder Jeremy Swayman. That's fine and Ullmark had actually put up respectable numbers somehow on the worst team in the league in 2021: 9-6-3 w/.917 save percentage and a 2.63 goals against average. He's only 27 years old but did he really need a four-year contract with an annual cap hit of $5 million (faints)?
Foligno feels a little bit like David Backes light and we all know how that went for the B's. A well-respected leader and dependable player that at 33 is definitely on the back end of his career after being traded to Toronto last season and not making many contributions to that loser franchise. In 49 games last season between the two teams, he had 20 points (7 goals, 13 assists). The former first-round pick (28th overall in 2006) got a two-year deal with an annual cap hit of $3.8 million. Haula is truthfully a journeyman since this will be his sixth NHL team but he is coming off a pretty nice little season in Nashville: eight goals, 10 assists & plus-21. For that, the 30-year-old earned a two-year contract with an annual cap hit of $2.375 million. Finally for the forwards, Nosek put up eight goals and 10 assists with a plus-seven rating for the Golden Knights in 38 games. Like Haula, he is 30 and he was signed for two years but with a lower annual cap hit ($1.75 million). Foligno could be insurance if David Krejci doesn't re-sign with Boston while Haula and Nosek should easily replace center Sean Kuraly who signed a four-year contract with his hometown team-the Blue Jackets-earlier today.
Reilly was a pleasant surprise in 15 games last season with the black and gold after being obtained from Ottawa as he notched eight assists and was plus-seven. In his first postseason with Boston, he slowed down to four assists and a plus-three rating in 11 games. On a good team (which the Bruins hopefully can still qualify as), he is a third-pair left-shot defenseman that is a solid puck-mover with some offensive ability. The fact that he's 27 is most likely why he signed a three-year deal with an annual cap hit of $3 million. I can't say that I know much about Forbort besides the fact that he's big (6-foot-4, 219 pounds) which is something that Boston really lacks on the back end and he averaged over 20 minutes of ice time last season with Winnipeg. He is 29 and with a three-year deal that carries an annual cap hit of $3 million, I'd guarantee that Sweeney expects him to be much more than Jarred Tinordi who signed with the Rangers this afternoon.
It would be dumb to make any sweeping conclusions already about this group since odds are that Sweeney still has some tinkering to do both in terms of additional signings and perhaps a few more trades (for instance, backup goaltender Dan Vladar got flipped to Calgary for a third-round pick this afternoon). You also have to remember that he signed Brandon Carlo, Taylor Hall-and to a much lesser extent Trent Frederic-in the past few weeks, who are likely to be more important moves this offseason in the long run when it's all said and done. I'll just leave this here: Jack Eichel is still on Buffalo and while it is probably a pipe dream that he'll ever be a Bruin, we can choose to hold out hope that Sweeney finds a way to acquire him for basically whatever it takes. Can you imagine your excitement level if Eichel was going to be a Bruin for a long period of time?
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