While it isn’t likely to happen given that, at this point, the Bruins seem relatively set in their planned NHL roster to start next season, there’s once again this offseason a cadre of unsigned restricted free agents that could help a bold hockey team ready to strike while most hockey managers have left for their summer cottages.
Last season, the St. Louis Blues took advantage of an Edmonton Oilers team facing salary cap hardship and signed RFAs Dylan Holloway and Phillip Broberg to offer sheets, stealing them away from the strapped Oil. Both young players were boosted into bigger roles with the Blues and played key roles in helping St. Louis get back into the playoffs last season, and Edmonton was able to get back to the Stanley Cup Final even if their overall depth was compromised by the departures of two young up-and-comers.
It's a little bit of a different overall scenario this summer as elevated salary cap ceilings are making the cap much less of a constraint for most teams, but nonetheless there are some talented RFAs still without contracts as we hit the summer dog days of the offseason. The question is whether it would be worth it for the Bruins to pursue any of those restricted free agents and potentially address some top-6 scoring issues that look like they are going to limit this B’s hockey club at the start of next season.
Clearly, the Bruins put together the free agent pieces for “the juice” they’re looking to see for next year coming off a really down season where they finished in the NHL Draft lottery for the first time in a couple of decades. Names like Michael Eyssimont and Tanner Jeannot are going to aid Boston’s overall competitiveness night-to-night in the NHL, but they aren’t likely to help the Bruins alleviate last season’s scoring woes.
“Maybe it is from the bottom up, but the juice is coming and we expect to be a much more competitive team,” said Don Sweeney. “The improvements now come from within, but make no mistake if a young player has the opportunity to make our team then he’s making our team. The competition is there and that’s what we want.”
But the other side of that coin is some of the considerable hockey talent that’s still ripe for the taking as they sit unsigned in the middle of the summer. The Buffalo Sabres took one of those players off the board earlier this week when they inked defenseman Bowen Byram to a two-year, $13 million bridge contract that will give them a little more time to gauge where he is as a finished blueline product.
Still, 25-year-old Gabe Vilardi is unsigned by the Winnipeg Jets and is coming off 27 goals and 61 points as a 6-foot-3, 210-pound righty shooting center that’s ripped off three straight 20 goal seasons. And others like Kaapo Kakko, Marco Rossi, Mason McTavish, Connor Zary and Sam Colangelo are similarly unsigned and there for the taking if a team turns aggressive like the Blues did last season.
Gabe Vilardi goals last season. That release + hands around the net. Nice with it pic.twitter.com/Gp5D313tjE
— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) June 27, 2023
There are varying degrees of NHL success or establishment amongst those aforementioned RFA names, but all of them could be viewed as an upgrade from some of the names dotting a Bruins roster with more hard-working plumbers than high-flying craftsman.
There’s obviously the draft pick compensation for any of these players, but the Bruins are in a good position to use their trove of draft picks to acquire younger players that would be in the Black and Gold fold for some time. At this point, it feels like it’s more about pulling apart a roster that the team has committed to start the season with the focus toward getting back to defensive and goaltending basics while building things offensively.
The Bruins aren’t going to deal Joonas Korpisalo and attempt to dump his $3 million salary after expressing a need to have a strong tandem partner to support Jeremy Swayman in an expected rebound season. And they’re not going to deal Andrew Peeke either as one of three right-handed defensemen on the NHL roster along with Charlie McAvoy and Henri Jokiharju are expected to do heavy lifting for the Bruins next season.
And it’s unlikely the Bruins would be looking to give away skilled center Casey Mittelstadt and his $5.75 million salary either, while knowing that there’s going to be a high draft pick cost in any attempts to dump salary for a player that struggled in Boston after being dealt from Colorado last season.
Really, it’s a much different landscape this summer versus last summer when it comes to chasing after restricted free agents with offer sheets.
“Everybody has to be cognizant of [offer sheets]. The cap going up took away a little of the likelihood of [an offer sheet], but that doesn’t mean it can’t exist,” said Don Sweeney after getting done with his free agent signing work on July 1. “The RFAs? You’ve got to have both sides cooperate because sometimes they may delay it and get past the [July 1] signing period and you know know. But I think everybody was a little more aggressive in trying to get their RFAs done to avoid it and know what you had to spend elsewhere.”
That’s really what it comes down to for a realistic point of view.
It takes two sides to make an offer sheet happen and that includes the player/agent looking to find a landing spot for a player that wants a change of scenery, or is blocked on the depth chart as the two players exiting Edmonton for St. Louis were a year ago.
Some of it may be an unwillingness to yank apart a prospective roster that the Bruins have put together with their signings and trades earlier this month, and some of it may be a desire to retain flexibility for a massive UFA class next summer that currently includes Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Artemi Panarin, Kyle Connor and Kirill Kaprizov among a truly star-studded list.
But if it takes two to tango, then it doesn’t feel like either side is warming up their dance moves between the Bruins and a slew of unsigned, talented restricted free agents at this point in the summer offseason.