Bruins general manager Don Sweeney essentially admitted Tuesday what everyone already knew: The B’s were all in for the 2022-23 season.
Unfortunately for Boston, they failed.
Now, it’s on Sweeney to deal with the repercussions that come with such an aggressive team-building approach. Speaking at a season-end press conference Tuesday, Sweeney acknowledged not only is his offseason beginning far earlier than he hoped, but business might be trickier than usual this summer.
“Our goal this season was to put the absolute best roster we could put together and try to take a real, legitimate run and we failed, no question,” Sweeney admitted Tuesday. “We have to pay that forward a little bit.”
The Bruins were able to convince both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to return for the 2022-23 season as part of that attempt to make a deep run. In order to fit both under the salary cap, the Bruins had to give the two incentive-laden deals, knowing they’d almost certainly reach those incentives with the cap repercussions being kicked to the 2023-24 season. As Sweeney confirmed Tuesday, the cap overages for next season are in the neighborhood of $4.5 million against the cap.
That’s before even knowing whether Bergeron and Krejci — the club’s two top leaders — will continue their respective careers, leaving a potentially massive hole in the lineup and in the dressing room.
“We have some constraints, as do other teams. … Roster changes are likely coming,” Sweeney continued. “We’re not going to be the same team. But our mandate internally, collectively as a group is we have a really strong core of guys that hopefully will continue to grow and will take leadership responsibility moving forward regardless of whether Patrice and David walk back through the door because they need to.”
Because of the uncertainty surrounding Krejci and Bergeron, Sweeney said Tuesday the team once again is essentially operating with two offseason plans and will adjust as needed. The most notable difference between this summer and last, though, is the Bruins have a handful of unrestricted free agents — in addition to Krejci and Bergeron. All three of their trade deadline pick-ups — Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway and Tyler Bertuzzi — are UFAs. As are Nick Foligno, Tomas Nosek and Connor Clifton. Trent Frederic and Jeremy Swayman, meanwhile, are restricted free agents.
Factor in that cap crunch, and there’s going to be a reliance on the young core Sweeney has been able to build in recent years.
“We have a really good group of young players that are committed to this organization in some key positions for our organization. We have to grow and foster some younger players that will play some roles,” Sweeney said. “We feel good about guys who could go play a top-six role right now, I think we have to fill out the bottom part of our roster.
“I believe our D-corps, when you start with (Brandon) Carlo, (Hampus) Lindholm, (Charlie) McAvoy, it’s really at the top level of the year, in particular in the regular season and pockets of the playoffs. To the same degree, we had very good goaltending in the regular season, and as I referenced earlier, structure breakdowns and team-wide breakdowns led to the fact we’re not playing today. (The goalies) have to take some ownership of that, but you have to feel good about playing either one of them moving forward. We have some challenges. That just might mean younger players will have their ears pinned back as far as opportunities presented to them as well.”
That core should be talented enough to keep the Bruins from free-falling into the NHL’s basement. Whether they can establish themselves as legitimate Stanley Cup contenders as early as next season will depend on just how effective Sweeney can navigate uncertain waters this summer.
