TAKEAWAYS: Bruins Free Agency

TAKEAWAYS: Bruins Free Agency

Murray, do you want to just sort of recap what has happened today for the Beast as you’ve been reporting?
Again, started with a trade with the Edmonton Oilers. They get winger Victor Arvinson in exchange for a fifth round pick in 2027. Then they signed free agent Tanner Jano 5-year deal at 3.4 million per former Columbus Blue Jacket Jordan Harris uh used to play at Nor Eastern. I know you’ll be excited about that. Uh he has been signed. Sean Corali also returns on a two-year deal worth 1.85 85 million. Maz, your thoughts.
I don’t know half the guys on that list.
It’s all bottom six forwards. No one does.
Okay. So, so who who’s the guy? Uh, who’s what’s his name? Son, who what are you talking? Jano.
Jano. That’s it. That guy. Who’s that guy? Can No, I’m serious. Who is he? What? Why have I never heard of him? Is he some scrub? Does he blow?
No, he’s a tough guy. Well, you know, it’s interestingly I I I mockingly say I don’t care if the kid’s from uh Malden or Moose Jaw. This guy happens to be from Moose Jaw.
Like literally from Moose Jaw.
He played for the Moose Jaw Warriors in Saskatchewan.
So I I don’t know anything about that player. It feels to me like they just signed a bunch of
So he’s a he’s 28 years old. He is a uh five-year NHL veteran. Uh I believe he was undrafted. Uh, if I have that wrong, you can let me know. Uh, because I didn’t quite show up here. He’s a fourthliner and a fighter. I say fighter like as close as you can get to it in today’s NHL. Pretty tough bottom six forward. So, so my my question then becomes, you have a limited amount of talent on your team, like legit front end talent, and you sign a fourthlininer who was undrafted to a five-year contract for, you know, $21 million or whatever the number is or no, a little less than that. So, you know, 19, $18 million, whatever the number was. Why did you have to give this guy five years? uh completely preposterous signing by the Boston Bruins. A preposterous uh and the only thing that’s um uh more preposterous is that they keep doing it. There’s always a guy I I what I what I’ve come to believe is like the Neely signing like he gets Neie still has this antiquated notion of the NHL power forward and the fight himself.
Yeah. He thinks it’s 1991
or he you know they want some and we all do. Wouldn’t we all love to have a team with Cam Neely on it? Sure. It doesn’t exist anymore or it’s just like impossible to find. There’s only one Matthew Kachchuck. There’s only a couple guys like that. Well, Cam Neely had skill. I mean, they sign these guys that are just tough and that’s it. Like big whoop.
I mean like the worst example Nick Richie like that guy.
Yeah.
Like the big lumbering oath. He was stiff
that is out there because you feel this need to be which you you need physicality and I like size and all of this but it feels like I don’t know it feels and what I’ve come to believe and know is that you know Sweeney does have it in his mind that the game is about speed and skill and open ice and that’s a lot of it and Neie still has this thing about the NHL power forward and so there’s always a guy on the roster that just doesn’t seem to fit. He just kind of sticks out and that’s what this guy is. Tanner Jano. Five years. Five years. Five years at three and a half million. Uh DJ Bean tells me that his projection going into the thing, his projected deal was two years 1.4.
Okay. So, so again, like
that was the kind of deal he was projected to get.
So, let’s sign him for longer and for more money. That’s the Bruins difference.
So, Bruins give him five and three and a half. And, and listen, let me tell you something before I go too far. It is I I assume I’m going to assume there was someone out there willing to pay him five times three or four times three and a half and you had to go to five. So the market’s gotten stupid. If you just look at the tracker or what guys, you know, nobody’s guys you’ve never heard of are signing for big money across the league that you’d sit there and go, “What the hell was that? Trent Frederick, eight years and whatever he got in Edmonton. What the hell is that?” So there’s a lot of those contracts out there and in that context this Tanner Jano thing isn’t that outrageous because there’s been more there’s been a lot of contracts like that. My second guess would be why do you have to get on the stupid train with everybody else?
Exactly.
Why can’t you just watch the stupid train go by the station and save your bullets? I I I I now trust the Bruins are going to spend money. I I don’t think they’re cheaping out or or at least on the roster. They spend on the roster. I they might cheap out at some other things, but when it comes to the roster, they spend on the roster. I’m I I I have faith you’re going to spend on hockey players. You don’t have to spend on every dumbass player that comes down the pike. And this feels like a dumbass signing five years for this guy.
So that that’s the one and this is the one that to me that in hearing from friends and in, you know, listening to Tai Anderson and talking to Bruins fans that this is the one that really sent people over the edge. And I would say, look, again, I I I couldn’t tell. I I don’t ever remember seeing this guy play. I’m not trying to be a wise ass. I don’t ever remember seeing him play.
Well, he scored 24 goals for Nash uh Nashville in 21-22. Since then, he’s never scored more than seven. He was part of that Tampa team after they won the cup. I don’t remember him either. I don’t played last year for the K here. You want you mentioned Ty Anderson. He lost his mind a couple times today. G, give me Ty Anderson on this, Jimmy. Number two, though, the the the second cut from Ty Anderson on Tanner Jano. How many goals do you think Tanner Jano had last year? I
I have no idea.
Just ballpark it.
Not a Tanner Jano guy. How many How many goals do you think a guy who gets a fiveyear deal?
Four. He had four goals.
No, he had seven.
See? Yeah. But probably more assists.
All over achieving
upside.
Yeah. Oh, how many assists do you think you had last year?
Probably more than seven, right? No, he had six 13 points. You’re giving a 5-year deal to a guy with 13 points who’s 28 years old. What are you doing? What is the direction? Don Sweeney last week goes, “Oh, we’re not going to gift our young players uh any opportunities.” No, we’re going to box him out with five-year deals now instead. That’s what you do. The boner that they have for the power forward. Tanner Jano’s last two seasons. 14 goals.
Consistent. 14 goals in 120 games.
Seven.
Come on. You’re getting a goal every 10 games. You got to give five years for that. You’re getting You know what you’re getting.
At least he’s been good in the playoffs. Oh, wait. He has zero goals in 16 career playoff games.
We’re not going to be there. So, what’s
I mean, they’re going to make the playoffs. I don’t have to worry about those.
Why are you worried about that?
Yeah.
Holy crap. Why would you do that? You traded Trent Frederick and everyone was going, “That’s a great deal. You don’t want to pay that guy. You don’t want to give that guy a lot of term.” So, they go to give that give that term to a worse player essentially. So, this is the part I don’t get is that at the bottom of your roster, you’re giving out fiveyear deals.
Why?
That’s the one you got to give out a five-year deal to the guy at the bottom of the roster.
That makes no sense to me. I don’t understand that. That is the exact spot where a guy should be on a one or twoyear deal depending on who he is and how good he is and how you know what his track record is and plug and play. That’s it. And if he sucks, you get some other scrub from down there to run into walls and slam into people. It’s a they brought Loco back. He like again I’m not telling you this guy’s a perfect match or whatever. What’s he making? He’s making nothing. So, just because there’s a lot of stupid contracts out there, just because there’s been a run and there’s been, you know, contracts that just don’t make sense across the league, why why do you if all the dodo birds, they’re going to jump off the cliff, which is what dodo birds do, I think, actually do, right?
Uh, well, lemmings do. I know that lemmings. That’s what I was thinking.
So, the lemmings jump off a cliff. Why do you have to jump off the cliff with everybody else?
Cuz you’re a lemming.
Cuz you’re stupid. because you’re stupid. I mean, that’s the part I really I don’t get. At the bottom of the roster, you got to give a five-year contract for $3.4 million a year. Guy scores single digits.
Unless this is something to appease the new coach, which also doesn’t make sense.
Well, that was the other one. That’s the other move.
Same with Arbertson.
No. Well, no, that is Arvdson. Why Why does Tanner Jano Oh, he was on the Kings last year. He was on the Kings, but Sterm was at the AHL.
Oh, right. Okay. So, he, you know, mixed up. Maybe they were. Maybe this was though, Murray. Yeah, maybe they trained.
I just can’t help but not notice the king thing of this.
No, listen, that that’s fair. I I didn’t draw the connection. I mean, I should have obviously Sturm was at the AHL, but this guy pro they probably trained together, training camp, all that stuff. He’s probably very familiar with him. And just real quick, as both of these guys that we’re talking about were also Nashville Predators. Uh would you like the quick synopsis of both of these players from our guy Jared Stillman at 1025 the game in Nashville?
He texted me this morning after both these moves, please. Uh, first on uh Victor Arverson. He sucks. Uh, and on Jano woof. More on Ardson. More on Jano. More on Well, my listen. Hey, here’s the good news, folks. You got another Hockey East guy from Habil whose dad also played at Hockey East. Oh,
so I know that’s going to warm the cockals of your heart. You know, that’s going to give shoot some cuz I know how important it is to you that the local kids stay local and that the Bruins continue to tap in to that massive stream of talent here coming out of Hil.
And his dad also played in the league,
UMass LOL. I don’t know if he played at the NHL level, but
the long New England tradition here.
So, he’s a hockeyy’s legacy.
So, this is what we got. So, I I know that that’s going to soften the blow. At least we got another Hockey East kid in here because I know that’s important to you.

Felger and Mazz recap the first day of NHL Free Agency, examining where the Bruins stand in all of it.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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