Boston Bruins: Cale Morris would be an NCAA free agent worth pursuing

The Boston Bruins have what could be called limited goaltending depth in the pipeline; adding Cale Morris of the University of Notre Dame might help the situation.

Tuukka Rask has held the net for the Boston Bruins for seemingly an age now and will continue to do so at least for the next couple of years. Backing him up is another thirty-plus year old in Jaroslav Halak. Beyond that, there’s not a ton of depth; that’s where Cale Morris comes into it.

He has one more year left with the Fighting Irish and you’d probably allow him to finish out there before sending him straight to Providence for seasoning. This is a player that went un-drafted and currently finds himself an NCAA free agent with his signing rights not held by any NHL team.

His statistics for the past season were impressive; a goals-against-average of 2.19 and a 0.930 save percentage. The year before was even better; 1.94 as a goals-against-average and a 0.944% total.

More from Editorials

• Pavel Zacha’s veteran status leading to bigger role in 2023-24
• The Bruins should take a look at these four free agents
• Why the Bruins should wait to name a captain until after the season
• 3 players the Bruins can, 3 players could trade, 3 players they shouldn’t trade
• It’s time to offer Jake DeBrusk a contract extension

For the sake of a contract and bit of money when he eventually hits professional status, you have to hedge your bets on this sort of player; while NCAA players can be hard to judge (Jimmy Vesey, anyone?), they can often turn out to be shining diamonds in the rough.

The Boston Bruins currently have goaltending, beyond Rask and Halak, of 26 year-old Maxime Lagace; signed this summer from the Vegas Golden Knights’ AHL affiliate, 21 year-old Czech Dan Vladar and 20 year-old Kyle Keyser, who out of the lot looks the best chance to ever see NHL time.

Beyond them they also have Alaskan-born Jeremy Swayman, currently playing for the University of Maine and putting up lesser numbers than Cale Morris.

As a minimal risk signing, the Boston Bruins should definitely approach Cale Morris. At best they get a college graduate in a year’s time that is ready to share the net with Kyle Keyser on the Providence Bruins. At worst, they’ve taken a gamble at a limited cost on an un-drafted prospect and he hasn’t quite turned out.

It’s safe to say the Boston Bruins scouting staff no doubt attend plenty of NCAA games, given the number of players they’ve had graduate from the collegiate system. They’ve no doubt seen Cale Morris in action and only time will tell if they’ve liked what they’ve seen enough to offer him a deal.