Plenty of teams, even within the Boston Bruins own Atlantic Division have been making moves to tidy up their salary cap space.
The Boston Bruins have contracts due for defensemen Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy, but seem intent not to make any moves to ensure that there’s additional finances available to them.
Around the Atlantic Division, we’ve just seen the Tampa Bay Lightning move a long-time injured reserve, Ryan Callahan out, sending him to the Ottawa Senators and thus freeing up just over $11 million in terms of cap space; something they need to get 92-point center man, Brayden Point re-signed.
In making the deal, they’ve also added yet another goaltender, Mike Condon. This brings them to seven goalies within their organisation; they can no doubt shift Louis Domingue, Zach Fucale, Scott Wedgewood or Condon himself out at some point, thus opening another $1 million or so.
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
Likewise, the Toronto Maple Leafs made one of the oddest moves we’ve seen in a while, sending their backup goaltender, Garrett Sparks to the Vegas Golden Knights in return for a long-term injured reserve in David Clarkson.
This opens up to $10.5 million for the team to bury on long-term injured reserve, essentially allowing a cap hit nearer to $92 million. However, it means if they want to use that money to sign Mitch Marner, a deal can’t occur until the first day of the season.
Looking to the Boston Bruins roster, you’d have to imagine there is some smart deal you could make to open up more money for the McAvoy and Carlo contracts.
We’ve spoken plenty about the notion of dealing away David Backes, whilst it’s to be expected that both Kevan Miller and John Moore will start the season on injured reserve. Perhaps Miller is a prime candidate to be moved elsewhere in a similar fashion to Callahan just was, given he only has a year of term left.
Such a move would free up a further $2.5 million for the young defenseman and wouldn’t necessarily damage the roster too much. Surely there’s a General Manager that would be willing to take on the contract in return for say a fourth round draft pick.
You have to be certain that Boston Bruins General Manager, Don Sweeney is doing the rounds with his counterparts and we may well not have seen the final transactions of summer.
However, all the time there’s delay in getting Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy’s deals confirmed, the Boston Bruins fanbase is going to be getting more and more exasperated.