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New York Times
13 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Bruins 2028-29 roster projection: How does the rebuild turn out?
The Boston Bruins have taken a big step forward in reordering their future. Fraser Minten and Will Zellers were among the returns in their selloff at the 2025 trade deadline. James Hagens was the prize for finishing with the NHL's fifth-worst record in 2024-25. So what could this look like in three years? Advertisement David Pastrnak will be 32 in 2028-29. Charlie McAvoy will be 31. The two cornerstones should be well within their windows of being franchise chain-pullers. But will the quantity and quality of Pastrnak's and McAvoy's next-generation reinforcements be robust enough for the Bruins to be Stanley Cup contenders? General manager Don Sweeney has made it a habit to spend liberally in free agency. There's no reason to believe that pattern will break. For this exercise, we'll peek ahead to 2028-29 using only current Bruins and internal prospects. It should provide a sketch to determine how aggressively management will need to supplement their existing veterans and inbound youngsters with trades and signings: Morgan Geekie will be halfway through his six-year, $33 million contract. Geekie, who will be 29 years old, could still be paired with Pastrnak. As for their prospective center, Hagens will be 21 at the start of the 2028-29 season. By then, the 2006-born center could have two-plus years of professional experience. The question is how good Hagens will be. Hagens' upcoming sophomore season at Boston College should give the Bruins better insight into what he will become. He was good enough to produce at a point-per-game basis as a freshman while centering Gabe Perreault and Ryan Leonard in 2024-25. The Eagles will ask Hagens to assume more offensive responsibility in 2025-26. It won't be easy without Perreault and Leonard as go-to wings. 'In some ways, it's going to benefit him,' player development coordinator Adam McQuaid said of Hagens' expected workload without his flammable linemates. 'Just continue to ramp up the compete level and consistent impact he's capable of having. That's a big thing for a lot of young players — just bringing the consistency night in and night out. It's not always going to be perfect. But just bringing the effort and wanting to be a driver and difference-maker.' Advertisement Unless Hagens turns into a top-tier smash, it's unrealistic to project him as a legitimate No. 1 NHL center at his age. But if Pastrnak and Geekie can carry the day, Hagens can continue his on-site development without the expectations of driving the line. The second line is full of wildcards. Will Zellers, the USHL's leading goal scorer in 2024-25, has yet to play a shift of NCAA hockey. He has work ahead of him to ramp up his pace and build the rest of his game. While he has top-six potential, Zellers will need time to develop. He will be a freshman at North Dakota this fall. 'I think he can get stronger, certainly, in order to play an offensive game at the NHL level,' amateur and college scout Parker MacKay said. 'That's going to come, though.' Will Moore is in the same category. He has second-line skill. But the incoming freshman at BC will need at least two seasons of college hockey to put on the weight required for NHL battle. Dean Letourneau has one year of NCAA experience. But it was a trying one. The 2024 first-rounder did not score a single goal. It's possible he may have to transition to an in-the-corners right wing who uses reach, physicality and puck protection to earn a pro living. 'He got much better with his stick,' McQuaid said of Letourneau once BC coach Greg Brown used him on the penalty kill. 'Just little details. He took all that in stride. But yet was like, 'I still want to do more. I believe I can do more.' Those are all positive things.' It's much easier to project the third line's performance because of their NHL experience. Elias Lindholm will be 33. He should be well into a phase of bottom-six, defense-first, penalty-killing shifts. Marat Khusnutdinov could develop more offensive presence by then. But he's on pace to be a third-line fixture. It's not as easy to determine what Matt Poitras will become. He is a natural center, but whether he has the all-around game to work the middle in the NHL permanently is unknown. Shifting to right wing could ease him of responsibility. Advertisement On the fourth line, Tanner Jeannot will be entering the fourth season of his five-year, $17 million contract. Minten, who will be 24, is trending toward becoming a trustworthy checking center. Chris Pelosi, the team's third-round pick in 2023, has the speed and puck-hungry approach to make it as a fourth-liner. Players not in the 2028-29 lineup (projecting to be traded or not extended) include Viktor Arvidsson, Johnny Beecher, Mikey Eyssimont, Fabian Lysell, Mark Kastelic, Sean Kuraly, Casey Mittelstadt and Pavel Zacha. The Bruins know what McAvoy is. It's not so with Mason Lohrei. The left-shot defenseman has the skill set to be the Bruins' version of Evan Bouchard: an offensive catalyst in charge of the power play. By 2028-29, Lohrei will be 27, perhaps more polished and more dependable defensively. Hampus Lindholm will be 34. He may not have the jump needed to push the offensive pace like he's currently capable of doing. It's possible Lindholm will have shifted more toward a matchup defenseman. Frederic Brunet, meanwhile, will be 25 and reinforced with three more years of pro shifts. He is a smooth skater who likes to go up the ice. On the No. 3 pair, the Bruins hope that Liam Pettersson, one of their two 2025 second-round picks, will have added the weight required for 200-foot shifts. The 6-foot-2 Pettersson was most recently listed at 170 pounds. Nikita Zadorov will be 33, still aligned with his defense-first window. Traded or not extended: Michael Callahan, Jordan Harris, Henri Jokiharju, Andrew Peeke Jeremy Swayman will start 2028-29 as a 29-year-old. Assuming 2024-25 was an exception, Swayman could still be peaking as a full-fledged ace. The Bruins do not currently have a high-end goaltending prospect, but they might not need one if Swayman is in elite form. Philip Svedeback, the organization's fourth-round pick in 2021, will be 26. Advertisement Traded or not extended: Michael DiPietro, Joonas Korpisalo, Simon Zajicek A much-needed infusion of youth is helping. More is coming: two first-round picks in 2026 and two more in 2027. But it's still not enough to offset the four first-rounders the Bruins traded between 2018 and 2023. Hockey operations will have to be aggressive on the trade market and in free agency to add NHL players, especially up front. The Bruins need game-breakers.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
NHL offseason concern-o-meter: Erik Karlsson trade market, Connor McDavid contract, more
After weeks and months of teasing an exciting summer, the NHL offseason fizzled out quickly. Trade buzz rarely came to fruition, free agency underwhelmed and there are few legitimate offer-sheet candidates left. With little NHL news and excitement coming out, the dog days of summer can become the prime time to debate, dissect and overreact. So why not add to the discourse? Let's dust off the concern-o-meter™️to analyze a few red flags that have emerged this summer. Concern-o-meter: 5/10 It's never easy to take a step back and start looking toward the future, so the Bruins deserve credit for making that decision at the trade deadline. Trading for draft picks and prospects such as Fraser Minten will help this team replenish its prospect pipeline. Bets on reclamation projects such as Casey Mittelstadt at the deadline, along with Viktor Arvidsson this summer, could pay off, too. Advertisement As promising as that all is, the real question is whether Don Sweeney has the vision to retool the Bruins into a contender around David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy. His track record of drafting and developing players is suspect at best, and this summer's direction emphasizing hard-nosed players and size only adds to that concern. The Tanner Jeannot contract may not be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, since it only carries a $3.4 million cap hit. However, it represents Sweeney's willingness to commit to a five-year deal with a player who brings size, but not nearly enough skill. It's too early to sound the alarms in Boston, but there are some concerning trends worth keeping an eye on. Concern-o-meter: 6/10 The Blackhawks may have gone into the offseason with a ton of cap space, but the reality is that the team isn't in the position to land a big-name free agent just yet. As tempting as it could have been to offer Mitch Marner $14 million AAV, his timeline doesn't line up with Chicago's. There is a difference between accelerating the process and rushing it, and that would have fallen into the latter category. Taking the slow and patient approach isn't perfect, either. Sometimes teams don't build the right support system to ease their young guns into a lineup. It can put too much pressure on franchise cornerstones to jump into meaningful roles, which can derail their development. While the Blackhawks already have some veterans on the roster, including Jason Dickinson, Nick Foligno and Connor Murphy, management has to be sure those players can provide enough support to their rising core. That starts at the top with Connor Bedard — who still looks to be on the Jack Eichel and Clayton Keller path, but could always slip to the tier below if Chicago doesn't play this right — and trickles down to the likes of Frank Nazar, Alex Vlasic and Sam Rinzel. Rebuilding can be a painful process, so taking this quiet of an offseason approach is somewhat risky. Advertisement Concern-o-meter: 6.5/10 There is time over the next year and a half for a Karlsson trade, so the Penguins don't have to rush anything this offseason. But how will starting the year in Pittsburgh affect his value? A few factors could influence that, including the aging process. Karlsson may have defied typical aging curves, but Father Time eventually comes for everyone — and that can be further exposed depending on his usage and the support around him. So moving Karlsson this summer could be the best path, if there is an available buyer. It's just that the options have dwindled over the last couple of weeks. The Hurricanes may not have signed a clear Brent Burns replacement, but management may not want to take another massive swing on defense after acquiring (and signing) K'Andre Miller. The Panthers are out after extending Aaron Ekblad. The Senators should probably see what Jordan Spence has to offer before committing to Karlsson's contract. Vegas appears to be a better landing spot for Rasmus Andersson. Concern-o-meter: 7/10 The league is right in one thing: the game can sell itself. At its core, hockey is an exciting sport that can attract even the most casual fans. The problem is that the NHL doesn't do enough to get eyeballs on the game, and the 2025-26 schedule is the prime example of that. The NHL is shifting more toward games starting at 7:00 p.m. local time, instead of on the half hour. That makes sense during the week, to ensure an early enough ending for fans on work/school nights. But when games are unevenly distributed throughout the week, with clusters on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it leads to a lot of overlap. It leans into the assumption that fans only want to watch their own team and aren't interested in a league-wide view. The data probably backs that up, but it's flawed because of the usual schedule structure. Fans can't bounce around to watch other games on busier nights. And lighter nights don't always have eye-catching marquee matchups. So if the idea is to have a standardized local starting time, there should be more balance across the week so there aren't seven or eight games starting at once every Tuesday and Thursday. Advertisement The 4 Nations Face-Off tournament proved there can be a lot of interest in hockey. But the league failed to build on that down the stretch and into the playoffs. Add in a discombobulated, drawn-out decentralized draft, and the season's TV coverage ended on a sour note. With the 2025-26 season opening up with a matchup between the Panthers and Blackhawks, since Chicago's market size and Bedard's star power were prioritized over actual rivalries, the league looks on track to repeat the same mistakes that keep it behind other major professional leagues. Concern-o-meter: 7.5/10 When the Kings' playoff window started to close a few years ago, management changed its approach. Los Angeles blended an aging core, led by Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty, with some up-and-coming talent. First, Adrian Kempe and Mikey Anderson emerged as key players. Then the next wave came, with Alex Laferriere and Quinton Byfield breaking out. And now Brandt Clarke, Alex Turcotte and Akil Thomas look poised to play more meaningful roles. But around that infusion of youth, the Kings opted to get older and slower this summer. That is especially glaring on defense, with Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin replacing Spence and Vladislav Gavrikov. Despite no changes in dollars and cents, this defensive swap cost the team 18 goals in Dom Luszczyszyn's model, which landed the Kings dead last in our offseason improvement round-up. Ken Holland's dealings were already questionable in his later years in Detroit. There were quite a few lows in Edmonton that outweighed some of the highs. So the Kings shouldn't exactly be surprised that this is the direction he's taking for his newest team. Maybe L.A.'s system will be strong enough to maximize Ceci and Dumoulin's defensive games, but maintaining that structure with weaker players operating within it could be a challenge. Concern-o-meter: 8/10 Two things held the Maple Leafs back this past season: their stars didn't shine bright enough in the playoffs and there wasn't enough bottom-six support. Matias Maccelli adds a middle-six playmaking presence to the Maple Leafs at a low cost. Nicolas Roy and Dakota Joshua add positional flexibility to the bottom six. If the Maple Leafs can channel the best from these three, after each experienced a tough 2024-25 campaign, that should solve one problem. But there is still a Mitch Marner-sized hole in the top six. As flawed as his Maple Leafs tenure was, and though his regular-season caliber didn't translate to a postseason environment consistently enough, he was still capable of putting up 100 points in the regular season. And there were some glimpses of that star potential in the playoffs. Advertisement That's something management has not replaced at this point in the offseason. The bottom-six support helps. So will another year of progress from Matthew Knies, John Tavares at a much more reasonable price, plus Auston Matthews and William Nylander. But for a team facing the pressure to finally go on a deep run, the offseason feels incomplete with that glaring hole in the top six. Concern-o-meter: 8.5/10 In a vacuum, it isn't that concerning that McDavid hasn't signed his next contract just yet. Sure, he signed his last contract on July 5, four days after being eligible to extend for the 2018-19 season. But none of the stars heading the 2026 class of free agents have extended, either — Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Eichel and Kyle Connor all have yet to ink new contracts. Leon Draisaitl waited a couple of months after his eligibility opened up last summer, too. That situation wasn't without its own pressure points. Draisaitl, like McDavid, said he needed time to figure out what both he and the team wanted. But an extension was signed in September 2024. As much as teams may want to have certainty on their franchise cornerstones sooner rather than later, players should take the time to contemplate their next steps. While a short-term contract should be on the table more often for elite players, the assumption should be that this will be McDavid's career-defining contract. It will likely be his richest deal financially and tie him to a team for the rest of his prime. While trades are always a possibility down the line, players don't sign seven or eight-year contracts thinking about that. So it makes perfect sense for McDavid to take the time after another painfully disappointing finish to consider what is best for him moving forward. But there is something about his parting comments that hits differently. 'If I feel that there's a good window to win here over and over again, then signing is no problem,' McDavid said, as reported by The Athletic's Daniel Nugent-Bowman. Already, the team has Draisaitl extended for another eight years, four more years of Evan Bouchard, plus another season of Jake Walman to work around. It's a solid foundation for McDavid to be a part of in Edmonton, but it's far from the full picture. Advertisement The goaltending situation remains unresolved and volatile. While the team managed to clear out cap with the Evander Kane and Arvidsson trades, Edmonton also lost Connor Brown to free agency. Andrew Mangiapane appears to be a solid middle-six fit. Ike Howard and Matt Savoie also have long-term potential and should help balance the books with their entry-level contracts. But those changes may not be enough to replace what was lost and push this team further along. If not, does Stan Bowman have the vision and creativity to change that? Asking any general manager to build a contender in a cap world is a challenge. Navigating around core contracts such as those for Draisaitl, Bouchard and Darnell Nurse adds another element of difficulty. But Bowman's track record and decision-making don't inspire much confidence. The Trent Frederic extension shows some of the shortcomings in his cap management. The offseason is far from over, so while the alarm is not sounding for McDavid's contract situation just yet, the Oilers' future under Bowman is a growing concern. — Data via Evolving-Hockey, HockeyViz, Hockey Stat Cards, All Three Zones, Dom Luszczyszyn, The Stanley Cap and Natural Stat Trick. This story relies on shot-based metrics; here is a primer on these numbers. (Top photos of Erik Karlsson and Connor McDavid: Patrick Smith and Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Don Sweeney Deserves Massive Props For Great Bruins Trade
With the Boston Bruins performing far below expectations this past season, general manager Don Sweeney blew up the team's roster at the trade deadline. Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Trent Frederic, and Charlie Coyle were among the players that Sweeney traded to spark a new era in Bruins hockey.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Don Sweeney Deserves Massive Props For Great Bruins Trade
With the Boston Bruins performing far below expectations this past season, general manager Don Sweeney blew up the team's roster at the trade deadline. Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Trent Frederic, and Charlie Coyle were among the players that Sweeney traded to spark a new era in Bruins hockey.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Five Worst NHL Signings Of The 2025 Off-Season
The NHL free agent frenzy began less than a week ago, and as is usually the case, several clubs spent money irresponsibly. That is normally the case when July 1 comes around, but in a year where the free agent class was thin and two of the prime targets (Mitch Marner and Brock Boeser) did not get to the open market, clubs got into a bidding war and signed contracts with useful middle-of-the-lineup players that will not age well. Here are five contract signings that teams will likely regret: Advertisement Tanner Jeannot: Boston Bruins (Five Years, $3.4 Million AAV) The bruising winger is not the player who scored 24 goals with Nashville four years ago, but after a failed stint in Tampa Bay, Jeannot became a useful crash-and-bang forward with the Los Angeles Kings, leading the club in hits until an injury ended his season in late March. Jeannot benefited from teams looking to emulate the Florida Panthers model and parlayed that into a five-year deal, but Boston GM Don Sweeney's desperation to make the Bruins relevant again led him to make a big mistake. Connor Brown: New Jersey Devils (Four Years, $3 Million AAV) After some early success in Toronto and Ottawa, Brown's career was derailed by a serious knee injury with Washington. His first year back with Edmonton was as a fourth-line role player, and last season he was more useful (13 goals, 17 assists in the regular season, five goals in the playoffs), but the term and salary given by the Devils for a bottom-six forward were excessive. Advertisement Cody Ceci: Los Angeles Kings (Four Years, $4.5 Million AAV) Possibly the worst deal signed on July 1, as Kings GM Ken Holland went hog wild on a spending spree (Joel Armia, Brian Dumoulin, Anton Forsberg, Corey Perry) but did not address his new club's crying need for offense. Ceci is, at best, a middle-pairing blueliner and better suited to bottom-pairing duty, but benefited from a dearth of right-handed defensemen in free agency. A one or two-year deal would have been understandable, but a four-year contract for someone who will play behind Drew Doughty and Brandt Clarke on the right side is absurd. Cody Ceci (Brian Bradshaw Sevald-Imagn Images) Ryan Lindgren: Seattle Kraken (Four Years, $4.5 Million AAV) The same term and AAV as Ceci, the issue with Lindgren is not his quality as a player, but the fact that he may be the oldest 27-year-old in the NHL. After absorbing a ton of punishment as a shutdown defenseman with the Rangers playing alongside Adam Fox for five seasons, New York was fearful of signing him to a long-term deal and traded the blueliner to Colorado as a rental. Advertisement The concern over Lindgren's durability is valid, and the deal for a defenseman who has never scored more than 20 points in a season, even with the cap going up, was a risky proposition. Ivan Provorov: Columbus Blue Jackets (Seven Years, $8.5 Million AAV) Provorov benefited from the Noah Dobson contract (eight years at $9.5 million), making him and former Blue Jacket Vladislav Gavrikov the most sought-after defensemen on the market. The 28-year-old is a solid top-four blueliner who normally scores in the 30-35 point range and logs major minutes, but while the Rangers got Gavrikov at a $7-million cap hit, GM Don Waddell clearly paid a 'Columbus tax' for Provorov. Get the latest news and trending stories by following The Hockey News on Google News and by subscribing to The Hockey News newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on
