Whilst the Boston Bruins General Manager is entitled to take a break today, given it’s the fourth of July; he still has plenty of work to do this summer.
Don Sweeney no doubt knows that he has a busy couple of months ahead. Whilst he’s emerged from the free agency frenzy that greets the start of the free agency window relatively unscathed, the Boston Bruins still need to sort out some key contract renewals and a couple of big positional decisions ahead of the new season.
First and foremost, you’d think a new contract for key defenseman Charlie McAvoy needs to be settled upon. His deal is likely the most expensive the Boston Bruins will sign this summer and will shape the roster and salary cap for years to come.
We’ve speculated on the cost of this deal previously, thankfully we had our facts completely wrong when we suggested he could be ripe for an offer sheet. McAvoy, by virtue of not appearing in more than ten games during his first campaign for the Boston Bruins isn’t actually eligible to be offer-sheeted. We wouldn’t have put it past the Montreal Canadiens to try to screw us here; they gave it a try with Sebastian Aho after all.
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Moving on from that particular contract, you’d look at second pairing defenseman Brandon Carlo and their versatile 200-foot winger, Danton Heinen as the other key deals that must be signed.
If Don Sweeney is able to tie all of these up and get it sorted in time not to impact upon them making training camp and the start of the season, you’d have to agree it has been a successful off-season.
The other big challenge, both for Don Sweeney and head coach Bruce Cassidy, is to determine who fits in on the wing of the David Krejci line. You could make good claims to the position for several of the guys on the roster; whether that’s bumping Danton Heinen or Charlie Coyle up to the second line or exploring options that are in the prospect pipeline.
Would Anders Bjork fit the role, for example? What about pushing new free agency signing, Brett Ritchie up the line-up and seeing if he can make it stick – he has previously offered a scoring touch for the Dallas Stars when given the chance.
These have to be the priorities and then add in the bonus of dealing away the deals of David Backes and Kevan Miller and you’d have a near-perfect summer.
No big departures, aside from the expected Marcus Johansson one and Noel Acciari leaving, though he has likely been replaced by the depth free agency deals. No big new arrivals, though that’s not always a bad thing, given the potential to regret free agency frenzy deals later on.
All in all, moving forward from a Stanley Cup Final shouldn’t be a huge challenge and we shouldn’t be overly concerned about everything getting done and heading into the new season ready to go again!