Boston Bruins Off Season Roster/ Cap Discussion

[jgatie]

I feel like we're nitpicking so much right now, lol.

Of course we are. When you have no argument, argue the minutia.

 

[BruinDust]

As stated, I was being generous. Anyway, I think we can agree that my argument that Swayman was asking for #1 money when he's never been a number one is pretty solid.

That's not my quote above however the only thing I think we are all going to agree on is Swayman needs to play better and more consistent next season.

 

[jgatie]

That's not my quote above however the only thing I think we are all going to agree on is Swayman needs to play better and more consistent next season.

We don't have to agree. The opinion that Swayman didn't deserve that contract is just that, an opinion. You base yours on what you believe to be true, and I base mine on what I believe. Though your idea that the workload of a number one being 50 actually helps my opinion, not yours.

 

[ON3M4N]

As stated, I was being generous. Anyway, I think we can agree that my argument that Swayman was asking for #1 money when he's never been a number one is pretty solid.

If we're going solely based on GP then yes I agree with what you're saying. In this case I think the Bruins felt like he was a #1 which is why they were willing to offer him #1 money. Their hope was that he'd continue to play like had the 100+ games prior and in a few years the contract would look like a steal. Y1 of the contract was an disaster and if Y2 is like that, well then we're in big trouble.

 

[BruinDust]

We don't have to agree. The opinion that Swayman didn't deserve that contract is just that, an opinion. You base yours on what you believe to be true, and I base mine on what I believe. Though your idea that the workload of a number one being 50 actually helps my opinion, not yours.

The "10% more starts than the other goalie" rule was your invention.

For the record, I never said he deserved that contract either. That's a loaded word in pro sports, deserved.

Would I of given him the contract he eventually got? Absolutely. 100 times out of 100. Extending core guys long-term (6/7/8 years) at 23/24/25 years old in a salary cap system typically ends up a sound decision when it's all said and done. Rarely has that come back to bite the team in the rear end. Usually the team is the one who makes out like bandits by the end of the contract, not the player.

This could of gone another way. He could of signed a 2-3 year bridge, played extremely well, and afterwards looked at them and said now I want 13 or 14 million with a 113 million cap. The whole idea of the 8-year deal for a guy in his mid-20s is your probably paying a bit more now, knowing the true savings is coming down the road in the back half of the contract as the cap goes up.

 

[Sheppy]

The "10% more starts than the other goalie" rule was your invention.

For the record, I never said he deserved that contract either. That's a loaded word in pro sports, deserved.

Would I of given him the contract he eventually got? Absolutely. 100 times out of 100. Extending core guys long-term (6/7/8 years) at 23/24/25 years old in a salary cap system typically ends up a sound decision when it's all said and done. Rarely has that come back to bite the team in the rear end. Usually the team is the one who makes out like bandits by the end of the contract, not the player.

This could of gone another way. He could of signed a 2-3 year bridge, played extremely well, and afterwards looked at them and said now I want 13 or 14 million with a 113 million cap. The whole idea of the 8-year deal for a guy in his mid-20s is your probably paying a bit more now, knowing the true savings is coming down the road in the back half of the contract as the cap goes up.

The contract is only good if he is.

This year he wasn't, in fact, he was one of the worst, if not the worst starting goaltender in the NHL.

Can it be a good contract? Absolutely, but sweet jesus he has to up his game.

 

[ON3M4N]

Bobrovsky last year played

The contract is only good if he is.

This year he wasn't, in fact, he was one of the worst, if not the worst starting goaltender in the NHL.

Can it be a good contract? Absolutely, but sweet jesus he has to up his game.

100% agree. I said before I think this season was a perfect storm. Swayman didn't have a training camp, Monty was on his way out, Elias & Zadorov struggled getting adjust to Boston. Hampus got hurt early and the offense was no where to be found. Aside from Pastrnak, not one was really good this year, it was a just total team shitshow. I know some will point to Geekie as a good year, but even he didn't take off until he got strapped to Pastrnak. He started off the first two months of the season with 5G/4A, which is a stark contract to the final two months of the season where he had 14G/12A

 

[BruinDust]

The contract is only good if he is.

This year he wasn't, in fact, he was one of the worst, if not the worst starting goaltender in the NHL.

Can it be a good contract? Absolutely, but sweet jesus he has to up his game.

They didn't sign him expecting him to regress. We can all agree he absolutely has to be better next year and in future years.

But overall team defense has to improve as well. They go hand-in-hand. Defensively this year's squad was complete doggy-poo.

 

[Sheppy]

They didn't sign him expecting him to regress. We can all agree he absolutely has to be better next year and in future years.

But overall team defense has to improve as well. They go hand-in-hand. Defensively this year's squad was complete doggy-poo.

Absolutely. I don't disagree here.

Now, if Swayman picks up where he left off this past season and is mediocre again, will we be like "Well, lets see how he does again next year?"

 

[BruinDust]

Absolutely. I don't disagree here.

Now, if Swayman picks up where he left off this past season and is mediocre again, will we be like "Well, lets see how he does again next year?"

Honestly I think it will take some time to make that determination. With a new head coach coming in with a new system, the early going might feature some rough patches. Next year is a work in progress. What I want to see is progress, from the team in front of him, and from Swayman.

 

[quietbruinfan]

If they can do it, great.

Obviously, the contract is a problem.

At this point I would get rid of him yesterday. Jeremy is not a bad person, in my opinion, but he is immature and a distraction.

He's not a guy I want in my locker room rebuilding the vaunted Bruins culture. That's not who he is.

Get what you can, and bring up Dipietro and Busse. Inexpensive, talented, apparently ready. Both of them. Let them be the tandem that can actually split an 82-game schedule. Instead of this ridiculous foolishness that is persisted since Omar was here. Get rid of corpus hollow I don't care what you got to do. Maybe you do buy them out. F"ck it. Get rid of all this foolishness.

"Speech to text,"

Corpus Hollow is a great nickname. Sometimes speech to text is too good lol.

 

[GordonHowe]

That's all well and good, but despite there being more players on waivers more often and a few more claims, waivers worked better when it was mainly a beginning of the season thing. The cap makes it hard for most teams to find slots.

Still, once in a great while you get somebody good. I just miss the days where two or three solid depth guys would be waived just after pre-season. See Tim Taylor.

Tim Taylor.

There's a blast from the past.

 

[Fingertools]

With much respect, the expression is take it personally. As for Swayman, business does involve being able to re-invest in your product and Swayman screwed them out of a player with his opportunistic and sudden hardball.
He whined and whined and when Sweeney foolishly gave them the chance, he absolutely stuck it to them. Worse yet, he weakened, if not completely broke, a culture of financial unselfishness. From Marchand to Bergy to Pasta all of them took at least one or more discount contracts-not M.B.A. Sway. Marchand alluded to it. The players were not happy and it showed as they played noticeably harder for Korpi.

5way is not getting better and he is showing the same stamina/consistency problems as before. For both on ice and off ice reasons, Sway should go away.....

To be fair, Marchand, Bergy and Pasta had already made more than $50M each before they took "discount" contracts, this is Sways first big money deal.

 

[GordonHowe]

Produced by Macca,

 

[GordonHowe]

Well I like their group. Either way, doesn't matter Mitch Marner is not going to be a Boston Bruin next year. I see zero reason for him to sign here. I literally can't come up with one single reason why he'd sign with the Bruins.

You never know.

Money talks,

 

[GordonHowe]

The only “single reason” is money. His past indicates that he is a money driven person.

Bruins have a hole at RW and IMO they should only be targeting impact players who fit this cores timeline. He’s 1 of 3 players that fit that bill in free agency.

Now, to your point, it will take more money for him to come here than others as the future of the Bruins even with him in the team isn’t very bright relatively speaking.

Throw the bag at him.

At least it should be fun to watch, and a canny PR move following a flaming bag of shit season and a hilariously disastrous end of year presser with Deaf, Dumb & Blind.

Go Donnie go! You can do it! #SweeneGenius Uber alles!

We U & support your every act, even the characteristically stupid ones.

Meet the Causeway Brain Trust,

 

[Tbaybruin]

We need almost as much on d. We can upgrade number 1. We don't really have an adequate 2, Lindholm is close. 4-7 should all be replaced and upgraded imo. 1xxxxx, 2 Mac 3 Hampus 4 xxxx 5 xxxx 6xxx 7xxxx The salary structure is not built for that, but ideally that is how it should go. That's Sweeney's problem not mine.

A healthy Mac is a #1 same with Hampus at 2. Zadorov was great the last 40 games. Peake and Mason are good for me. I really like our D. My one concern is Mac did play like a number 2 guy last year. He needs to be our #1 guy.

 

[GordonHowe]

The cap will be 113 million in a couple years, that 2 million is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

He signed an 8-year deal. What will the cap be in Years 6/7/8? 120 million? 130?

Fair. But the initial point stands.

Swayman is problematic on myriad fronts.

They're stuck with him.

I'm sure he'll rebound next season. But it's about more than performance on the ice, at least for me.

It's about character, maturity, and placing the team ahead of yourself. I don't see any of that with Jeremy, whatever he may say, or even believe in his heart.

 

[Hookslide]

Swayman didn't whine at all. He was invited to be on a podcast and answer questions honestly. Some fans didn't like the comments. I didn't have an issue with what he said, but again, to each their own. As for the rest.....

Marchand did not take a discount. He was paid around what he was worth at the time of the deal. He then proceeded to pop off and become one of the best LW's in the game. Had Marchand known he was going to turn into the player he did, he would have asked for more. Look at the numbers. Marchand signed his deal in September of 2016 (just before the 2016-2017 season). His 3 previous season he averaged out to a 30G/55P player. If you took his deal at today's cap #, It'd be a $7.1 million cap hit for a 30G/55P player.

Bergeron lets do the same thing. At the time Bergeron had hit 30+ goals once and 1 Selke. His 3 years prior to his new deal had him at essentially a 20G/60P player who was still fantastic in the dot. His salary in today's NHL would be $8.8 million. All things considered I think that's a pretty fair market deal based on what Bergeron had shown at the time. There was also the lingering concern that he was one big hit away from his career being over.

Pastrnak current deal certainly wasn't a discount as he's one of the top 10 highest paid players. With Pastrnak prior deal, he had a one season with 70pts & his 3yr average put him a 28G/58P guy, so lets just call it 30G/60P for Pastrnak. His deal by today's NHL cap would have been $7.8 million. That's a pretty good deal when you look at the body of work Pastrnak had going into negotiations.

I'd argue that non of these guys took discounts. They took fair market deals at the time and then proceeded to outproduce their contracts.

I totally agree with you on the Marchand, Bergeron myth that they took a team friendly deal.

 

[BruinDust]

Fair. But the initial point stands.

Swayman is problematic on myriad fronts.

They're stuck with him.

I'm sure he'll rebound next season. But it's about more than performance on the ice, at least for me.

It's about character, maturity, and placing the team ahead of yourself. I don't see any of that with Jeremy, whatever he may say, or even believe in his heart.

We differ here greatly I don't have any issues with Swayman's character or maturity or how he handled his business this past off-season.

If I have any specific issue, I felt in some of the blowout games (of which there were many) he frustration really showed. But also understand he's still a young person who hasn't encountered a whole lot of adversity in his elite hockey career up to this season. It's pretty much been by the numbers until this season having to play behind a truly awful team.

I think sometimes it's glossed over how bad this team was. I don't care what the standings say, the 3 worst teams I witnessed this season, by far, were San Jose, Chicago and Boston. All 3 teams putting off dreadful brands of hockey. Borderline unwatchable. Both offensively and defensively.

 

[GordonHowe]

Bruins Predicted to Sign Defenseman to $16 Million Deal to Replace Carlo

NHL insider Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic predicts the Boston Bruins will sign a former first-round pick defenseman in free agency.

heavy.com

 

[PlayMakers]

Bruins Predicted to Sign Defenseman to $16 Million Deal to Replace Carlo

NHL insider Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic predicts the Boston Bruins will sign a former first-round pick defenseman in free agency.

heavy.com

He was my target before they got Jokiharju. I don't know if Joker wants to stay, I also don't know if Fabbro is better... but I like his game.

 

[Coach Parker]

Bruins Predicted to Sign Defenseman to $16 Million Deal to Replace Carlo

NHL insider Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic predicts the Boston Bruins will sign a former first-round pick defenseman in free agency.

heavy.com

Oh boy. Coached against him and Barzal for years. Wanted him that draft year. Ironically, they both played for the BWC Bruins (elite Winter Club team that produced RNH as well as many others).

 

[Coach Parker]

So is everyone on the Sullivan train now?

 

[Mr. Make-Believe]

So is everyone on the Sullivan train now?

NO