Bruins Make Low-Risk, High-Reward Addition To Bottom Six

The Boston Bruins couldn’t have asked for more out of Pavel Zacha after acquiring him in a trade with the New Jersey Devils.

The B’s immediately saw Zacha take his game to new heights in 2022-23, scoring a career-best 21 goals and 36 assists. That’s why it only made sense for Boston to go back to that well in hopes of turning an under-utilized Devils forward into a key contributor.

Boston announced the signing of Jesper Boqvist on Wednesday, inking the 24-year-old to a one-year NHL contract with a cap hit of $775,000.

Boqvist is obviously a low-risk signing, but helps raise the ceiling of the Bruins’ bottom-six unit. He scored 10 goals, 11 assists and 21 points last season, and though they weren’t career-highs — he had tallied 23 points in just 56 games with the Devils the year prior — he did play a bigger role than he had prior.

The Finland native will maintain his restricted free agent status at the end of next season, meaning he’ll remain under team control next offseason. If he does crack the lineup, Boqvist could slot in behind Zacha, Charlie Coyle and Morgan Geekie, should Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci call it quits.

His Bruins contract comes in a few thousand dollars under the qualifying offer he was due from New Jersey, which the Devils chose not to extend — making him a free agent.