Assessing the Bruins cap situation after Jeremy Swayman’s arbitration hearing

Last week, Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman was awarded a one year, $3.475 million contract for the 2023-2024 season after an arbitration hearing with the team. Next summer, Swayman will once again be an Restricted Free Agent with arbitration rights.

After previously agreeing to terms on a contract with Trent Frederic, the Bruins now have all their RFA’s signed and a 24 man NHL roster ahead of training camp. With Swayman being awarded almost the middle ground of both sides’ arbitration filings, how does the Bruins cap situation look in the aftermath of the deal?

Well, for starters, with the upper cap limit at $82.5 million, CapFriendly shows the Bruins at $83,070,834 in cap hits, which is over that limit. The good news for the team is that they don’t have to be cap compliant until opening night, which gives them some time to figure it out.

As such, they can go down a few different avenues to get under the cap. Derek Forbort is on the final year of a $3 million per year contract and could be appealing to teams as a shutdown defenseman on the penalty kill.

Moving someone like Forbort or even Matt Grzelcyk would give Jakub Zboril a clear cut path to playing time and could also give someone like Ian Mitchell, who was recently acquired in the Taylor Hall trade, a potential roster role as well.

Alas, that seems unlikely. The most likely option, also the easiest in this case, would be waiving a player or two and carrying 22 skaters instead of 23 to open the year. The aforementioned Mitchell, who is making $775,000 this year, seems like a prime candidate to be waived and assigned to Providence.

Another player who could get sent down to get under the cap is Patrick Brown, who the Bruins are on the hook to pay $800,000 this year. AJ Greer, while unlikely, could also get waived. Even someone like Zboril, although surprising, could get waived, as he’s due for just over $1.1 million in his final year before being eligible for unrestricted free agency.

No matter what happens this year, the Bruins have almost $30 million in cap space to work with next summer, which could translate into a big payday for Swayman if he puts up numbers similar to last year’s performances alongside Linus Ullmark in net.