The Bruins did what they had to do in shoring up their restricted free agent contracts, finally coming to terms on bridge deals with defensemen Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy.
Those deals, at least for the moment, appear to be very team-friendly in the short term. And that’s beneficial because general manager Don Sweeney now can turn his attention towards shoring up the future of Boston’s roster — most notably, the impending free agency of offensive defenseman Torey Krug.
Krug has expressed his interest in remaining in Boston, and admitted that he wants to get some clarity on where he stood in the organization while the team was working on McAvoy and Carlo deals.
With the RFA’s now signed, it seems Krug is the next logical step for the B’s. But Sweeney wants to make sure he has all his ducks in a row before putting ink to paper.
“Everybody has their place on our hockey club, and Torey’s an important part of our hockey club,” Sweeney said via WEEI’s Matt Kalman. “We have some forecasting to do, we have conversations that have to take place, they will, and I indicated to each and every one of our players that we will have those once I have the ability to start forecasting a little more accurately. And then so I’ll do that accordingly.”
Jake DeBrusk and Matt Grzelcyk will be RFA’s in the summer, while Charlie Coyle will be another notable unrestricted free agent.
Krug, 28, has scored at least 50 points in each of the last three seasons, including six goals and 47 assists last year while running point on the top power play unit. He had two goals and 16 assists in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season.
