Boston Bruins need to focus on building depth this summer

The Boston Bruins are in for a busy offseason as general manager Don Sweeney has a lot on his plate.

First, there’s pending Bruins’ free-agents including Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen up front, along with Matt Grzelcyk and Kevin Shattenkirk on the back end. The elephant in the room however, continues to be their goaltending situation, which is going to be at the forefront of anything Sweeney’s able to pull off this summer.

Jeremy Swayman, who took over as the number-one throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, is a pending restricted free-agent and is in line for a significant pay increase off his $3.47 million salary from last season. Secondly, when it comes to the Bruins’ crease, is the future of Linus Ullmark. The same Ullmark who Sweeney tried to move in-season during this past year, but Ullmark wanted no part of the deal, reportedly to the Los Angeles Kings, and used his no-trade protection to stay in Boston. Ullmark holds a 15-team no-trade clause for the 2024-25 season.

So, where does Sweeney go from here? The Bruins’ GM enters the 2024 offseason with Ullmark as trade bait and a projected $20.9 million in cap space.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed where the Bruins offseason plans should be focused on:

Tyler Yaremchuk: The decision making in Boston this summer it kind of starts with what’s going to happen with Linus Ullmark and going from there, if they are able to off-load Ullmark and his $5-million contract, and offload is probably not a good way to put it, if they are able to find a home where Ullmark is willing to accept a trade to, what becomes the first priority for them with that money?

Frank Seravalli: I think there’s lots of different things to tackle. The first and most obvious would be to try and rebuild your team down the middle. With all due respect to the job that Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha did last season for a team knocking on the door for 110 points, mostly on the backs of their goalies, they’ve got some changes to try and beef up that centre position. That’s one, and two, changes are coming on the back-end. Matt Grzelcyk is probably going away, you’ve got McAvoy, Carlo and you got Lindholm, so how can you find a way to strengthen that defense core. So if that box is also checked, you’re looking at the bottom of the Boston Bruins lineup, the bottom six. They were able to find some bargain bin players to add at free agency, vets. They went with the James van Riemsdyk’s and Kevin Shattenkirks, and it didn’t work out with Milan Lucic last year, and they didn’t spend a lot, mostly because they had the big bonus overage from the contracts of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. They have that off their books now and they still need to create cap flexibility, Ullmark is the best way to kill two birds with one stone. You gotta pay Swayman more, you’ve got to figure out your cap situation and find the flexibility to be able to improve your team, and oh by the way, Ullmark should get you some significant assets back in order to try and do that.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Jake DeBrusk’s future, is it 50-50? Do you think he makes it to the market?

Frank Seravalli: My guess is he makes it to market.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I guess the last one is if the Bruins themselves get to sink their teeth into the free-agent market, is Elias Lindholm just too obvious of a fit, what do you make of that connection?

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, I mean they were rumored to try and get him when he was leaving Calgary. They didn’t have the assets to do it. They were trying to wait for this exact moment in time, I think because they didn’t want to spend assets to get him. Then he’s in Vancouver, and there was talk about a swap. You want to ask about smoke and fire, that’s fire. So I would be surprised if they don’t try to make a run at him, but I guess, be careful what you wish for. How many Lindholms can you have on one team that makes some serious coin and what’s it going to cost you because there should be a real market adjustment on Elias Lindholm based on the season that he had.

You can watch the full episode here: