Several Bruins are gathering in Nashville for Monday night’s NHL Awards show and some will no doubt walk away with the hardware for the incredible regular season the team had.
But just below the surface was not only the lingering pain of how that historic season ended far too early, but also that the salary crunch the club is facing will in some way break up that team.
We could know how drastically it’s broken up this week when the draft is held at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday and Thursday and free agency opens on Saturday. The Bruins have just under $5 million in cap space with only seven forwards and one goalie signed. Players will have to be moved to rebuild a team that will inevitable have less depth than the 2022-23 team did.
One of those players could be one of the honorees in Nashville. Goalie Linus Ullmark is the favorite for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie, but the goaltending tandem with Jeremy Swayman – a restricted free agent – might be a luxury the can no longer afford.
That idea has not slipped past Ullmark.
“It crossed my mind. I’m not going to lie,” said Ullmark to reporters in Nashville on Sunday. “That’s part of the sport we live in. And when you have two goalies that are so close stat-wise, there’s going to be some changes, probably. And I can speak for both of us that we both want to be together and stay in Boston because that’s where we’ve thrived and you saw the success that we’ve had. And we’ve just got to see. There’s a personal side to it and there’s a business side to it.”
Ullmark has a 16-team no-trade clause, which might make it more difficult to move him than Swayman. But while he’s thought about the possibility of being moved, that’s about as far as his thought process has gone.
“There’s a lot of what-ifs,” he said. “I try not to think about it too much. For me, at least, that’s not important, at this point. Whenever that day comes, if it ever comes, that’s something I’ve got to deal with at that point.”
Coach Jim Montgomery is up for the Jack Adams Award as the league’s best coach. He admitted it would be “devastating” to lose a player like Ullmark. And he might not be the only valuable player to leave the fold.
“Yeah, it would be, right? Who wants to lose a Vezina Trophy winner? And if (Patrice) Bergeron decides to retire, we lose a Selke winner, too,” said Montgomery with a chuckle. “The Bruins have to do things differently next year. We’ll have to see what that looks like.”
Adding to the agita is the fact that the 65-win Bruins know they had the chance of a lifetime to win a Stanley Cup and they did not get out of the first round.
“When I think of our season and I think of the history of the league, it’s pretty special what we accomplished. And that’s never going to go away. Any time the next team comes along, we’re going to be one of the teams in that breath,” said Montgomery. “I don’t know if it takes away the pain, because that lingers with us. We know we fell short. That pain lives with you. Your failings, as long as you learn from them, they make you stronger and they make you better. We want to know this is how we’re going to move forward. And we have a great corps of players. All together with (GM) Don Sweeney and what we do in the Bruins’ culture, we’re going to move forward and we’re going to get better from this. We’re going to have to win with less. We all know the cap situation. So things are going to change for us. But Florida, they had a much better regular season (in 2021-22) and they were in the finals (this season).”
If Ullmark is indeed one of the players to be moved, the team that gets him will be getting an even more driven player after his performance in the playoffs did not match the regular season.
“I’ve got to say I’m very motivated, very inspired as well to get next season started. That’s all I can say,” said Ullmark. “I try not to dwell on the past. What’s happened happened. But it’s given me a lot of time to think about what I can improve in my game as well. There were a lot of things that happened obviously that I can learn from. I’m a lot more wiser, a lot more used to it. So when next season comes and I’m put in the same position, I’m going to be a lot more confident when it comes to certain things.”….
When looking back at where he thought his team didn’t measure up, Montgomery said he didn’t think his team didn’t play as fast as it had in the regular season. It also fell short in front of Ullmark and Swayman.
“The defending part kind of it got away from us, especially in big moments,” said Montgomery. “I thought one part of our evaluation is that the net front battles, and I think we lost that. And I give (Matthew) Tkachuk and (Sam) Bennett incredible kudos there. They were really good at getting in front of our goalie there. There were too many screens and not enough box-outs for our liking. Sometimes you have to tip your hat to great players and unfortunately, that’s an area I felt we didn’t win. If we win that area, I think we would have moved on.”…
Bergeron, whose wife Stephanie is expecting the couple’s fourth child any day, will not be attending the awards ceremony.
David Pastrnak, a finalist for the Hart Trophy, is arriving in Nashville on Monday.
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