Teams like the Florida Panthers and the Buffalo Sabres headlined day one of free agency — the Sabres for the names they attracted, like Christian Ehrhoff, and the Panthers for the number of fairly skilled players they brought down south.
The Bruins didn't do anything like that, but that doesn't warrant the C-minus free-agency grade that Yahoo Sports' Puck Daddy bestowed on the B's free-agency moves.
Yes, the Bruins let Tomas Kaberle and Michael Ryder test the free-agent market. Ryder left the Bruins on the first day of free agency, while Kaberle departed a few days later. No, the Bruins didn't break the bank on a player like Brad Richards or some of the other, less-notable free agents, but that doesn't really matter for the Bruins. At the end of free agency, all that matters is which team has the best chance at winning the Stanley Cup. The Bruins, despite their lack of free-agent moves, are still defending Cup champions and still have a legitimate chance at repeating next year.
As far as Ryder and Kaberle are concerned, it wasn't surprising that they left. A little more than a year ago, Ryder's name surfaced in trade rumors, as he wasn't helping the team out very much. Ryder was an instrumental part of this championship team, but he was never indispensable like Tim Thomas or some of the other players. Kaberle's story is worse. The Bruins paid a steep price — their 2011 first-round draft pick, a conditional pick and former first-round pick Joe Colborne — for Kaberle, and yet he didn't help the Bruins' power play like he was supposed to.
The Bruins weren't completely inactive during free agency. They signed former Canadien Benoit Pouliot to a one-year deal and they dealt for Joe Corvo. It cost the Bruins a fourth-rounder to bring the veteran blueliner to Boston, and he should be a good fit for the Bruins.
Maybe those moves weren't spectacular. They don't compare to Columbus' lucrative offer to James Wisniewski, or Florida's deals with Tomas Kopecky, Scottie Upshall, Sean Begenheim and Ed Jovanovski, among others.
Don't forget that the Bruins avoided a potential free-agency mess by locking up both Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara last year, prior to their contracts expiring at the conclusion of the 2010-11 season. If both had become free agents and the Bruins had re-signed both, they would have gotten a better grade. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli also said the Bruins weren't looking to sign a big-name free agent because the team is focused on saving up cap room to re-sign current Bruins players who will be hitting free agency soon. Trying to keep a Stanley Cup-winning team intact by saving cap room doesn't sound like a bad idea.
Free agency isn't overrated, but it measures teams on who and how many players they sign without taking into account which players the team needs to do well, where the team was to end the season and where it'll be starting the season. Take the Florida Panthers, for example. The Panthers deserve a good grade because they weren't very good last year, but they should be a much better team thanks to the new additions. The Bruins already have a good team, one that really doesn't need to be tampered with. Any team that comes out of free agency with the possibility of doing well in the playoffs in the coming season should score above average.
Maybe the Bruins don't deserve an A-plus, but they certainly scored better than a C-minus.
