With NHL free agency just days away, the Boston Bruins are narrowing their focus on ways to improve the roster.
It’s been no secret that the B’s are looking to strengthen the center position and that remained the case as Bruins general manager Don Sweeney met with reporters in Las Vegas ahead of the 2024 NHL Draft.
“We’d like to deepen the middle of the ice with us,” said Sweeney. “So that’s where we’re we’ve been focused in trying to have those talks with our group to say, ‘OK, who would be the guy?’ And [you] make hopefully the pitch at the right time that we can add a player of that nature. I think we continue to look to strengthen our back end and complement the group we have there. And then from there, it’s sort of like, how much of the pie is left?
“We just have to attack. I can’t tell you that we’re going to satisfy every need that our group had identified or [that] you might identify, but we are going to be aggressive to try to improve our hockey club.”
Interesting to note a couple of things here as the Bruins hold roughly $24 million in salary cap space, per our friends at PuckPedia, if Mason Lohrei ends up winning a regular defensemen job in Boston as expected. The first is that all signs point toward the B’s being very interested in signing frontline center Elias Lindholm away from the Vancouver Canucks, which would undoubtedly cost them in the $7-8 million range per season.
The 29-year-old Lindholm isn’t perfect and is coming off a down season where he was traded from the Flames to the Canucks, but he also had a strong playoff for Vancouver where he posted five goals and 10 points in 13 games. Clearly, he’s not the player he was in his best season when he posted 42 goals, surpassed 80 points and had a plus-61 for the Flames on a loaded team with Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk among others, but Lindholm was a pretty consistent frontline, two-way center during his time in Calgary.
Lindholm’s presence would allow Charlie Coyle to drop a little lower in the lineup and would give Boston the flexibility to slide Pavel Zacha over to the wing, which would essentially reshape the B’s down the middle after also trading for hardnosed center Mark Kastelic in the Linus Ullmark deal.
There will be other free agents like Chandler Stephenson, as well, for the Bruins as they appear drive to come away from the July 1 period with a quality signing at the center position. Those additions combined with the return to health of playmaking pivot Matt Poitras should give the B’s some very good options down the middle to start next season when considering the faceoff issues and offensive difficulties that intermittently plagued Boston last season.
Perhaps more interestingly, Sweeney didn’t give any indication that the Bruins are looking to upgrade at the wing in free agency. Even as Jake DeBrusk is expected to head to free agency and bring his clear speed and skill to market, the Bruins don’t seem to feel like they need to bring in corresponding talent from outside the organization.
Instead, it sounds like the B’s are prioritizing bringing in another defenseman despite Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Brandon Carlo, Andrew Peeke, Mason Lohrei and Parker Wotherspoon already being signed for next season.
“I don’t have any [Jake DeBrusk] update at this point in time,” said Sweeney, while also acknowledging that the B’s have had more recent contract talks on retaining Danton Heinen. “I suspect that Jake will head to UFA and test the market. [We] remain consistent that we’ve been in negotiations with Jake. We haven’t had any productive talks in quite some time. At the end of the day, that’s his prerogative to see what July 1 brings.
“We haven’t signed all those [pending free agent] players. I’m having a conversation with Danton and another one of our guys. They kind of know what our position is, each and every one of those individuals and their representation. I think it’s advantageous for them to take that knowledge. I don’t think it helps anybody’s situation for me to declare anything.”
