Who should the Bruins sign in free agency?
all right so I’m recording this the night before July 1st which is day one of NHL free agency i wanted to give my predictions or you know thoughts on what the Bruins should do going into free agency i feel like they’re already off to a good start and uh before I get into possible uh free agents the Bruins can target in this upcoming free agency I want to talk about uh the players that they signed and also James Hagens uh that draft selection along with just overall the draft itself more so I guess just William Moore also so um yeah without further ado I’m just going to get into it because again it’s literally the night before so I got to record so I’m just going to get this going pretty quickly um the first thing I want to start off with talking about is the Morgan Geeky extension so Morgan Geeky got got extended six years 5.5 million for the Bruins obviously he had a breakout year for the Bruins this year um really kind of came out of nowhere I’d say um he started the year at the be at the beginning of the year he started just being a health healthy scratch guy jim Montgomery did not play him a lot at the beginning of the year and then once Montgomery got fired um Morgan Geeki got a bigger leash and he ended up getting a lot of playing time and eventually you know made his way onto the first line and faced a lot of success he was top five in 5v5 goals this year which is pretty crazy to think of considering how bad the Bruins were and how you know what Morgan Geeki was as a player before this season and uh honestly I think this is a great contract for both Geeki and the Bruins some people may think it’s high um I think it’s a little high for him but you’re also projecting you’re kind of taking a little bit of a bet and hoping that he maintains this level of play and I honestly believe he can do that i think Geeki’s connection with Passak has been great they’ve been very good with each other on the first line um the only issue that I would say Geeki and Passak have are they’re both very offensive minded guys so the defense wasn’t great i’d assume I know Pastor was um in the negatives for plus minus i know that’s not that big of a deal but at the same time I mean both guys were also um negatives and plus minus although his defense isn’t the greatest you’re getting him as an as an extra goal scorer and he provides that for the Bruins um yeah I just feel like him and Pastrack again with that connection they’re doing very well um he’s great around the net too crashing you know to the net and just overall he’s had a great season especially playing on the left side of the wing uh so I feel like it makes a lot of sense to extend him i don’t have any problems maybe sure when uh the years go on maybe this contract doesn’t look the best maybe it is a bit of an overpay but at the same time where the Burns are and you know their projector their projections as a team they got to take some swings obviously they’re not going to be contenders right away they’re kind of transitioning into a younger year into uh more youth uh movement especially with how they’ve been especially after last year’s trade deadline and things like that and he’ll fit in so it’s kind of it’s going to be kind of a theme for the Bruins this uh off seasonason too where they’re probably going to overpay some players i’ll kind of get into that when I’m going to talk about possible free agents but at the same time they got to make moves like this and while the contract might not look great in itself I feel like at least the first two years of this extension it’s going to look good for Geeky but maybe as time goes on it might not look the best but at the same time the cap’s going up so I’m not overly concerned i mean it’s 5.5 million there are definitely worse contracts out there so again I’m pretty fine with this signing and it the Bruins have solved their first line for the time being again I don’t think Morgan Geeki will necessarily be on the first line for all six years of his contract but him and Pastnack have a good thing going so I think this is a great time i feel like this is a proper extension and Geeki deserved it now moving on to the lesser extensions of the day this all happened in the same day uh John Beecher got extended for one year 900k um not going to really talk about it much but Beecher he’s you know he’s a fourth liner he’s nothing particularly special he’s solid on the penalty kill but he provides nothing much on the on the offensive side um he’s not goal scoring is not his forte he doesn’t really shoot the puck a lot and yeah I I think just keep him in in he keeping him in a depth role like he’s he’s he’s a fourthliner i’m not going to expect anything crazy out of this you want to keep him around for one more year see if anything changes maybe he’ll actually become a very productive fourth liner um but I don’t know if I’m the Bruins I would definitely bring in another fourth liner but again it’s 900k it’s not too much i feel like it’s just another year where the Bruins are going to see if they have something in Beecher before they let him go so I’m fine with the extension i don’t care that much it’s 900K so I’m not going to really worry about that and the last extension was Michael Dpietro signing a 2x 812K contract so another contract that’s not a lot it doesn’t really necessarily matter it’s nothing like shattering for the Bruins like it’s a whatever I guess move but at the same time it’s definitely kind of brings up an interesting topic considering they signed a goalie to an extension that’s not Corposal or Swayman obviously considering Swayman just signed an extension last year but regardless the Bruins signed another goalie practically and I think that’s going to result in Jonas Corposal leaving this team um I’m not exactly sure i’d assume that’s probably the case especially considering Corposal I think he makes around 3 million so I feel like the Bruins are going to try to dump that uh I think I think the Bruins are going to dump that contract sometime at least hopefully they’re going to do that if not they’re probably going to just wave him which it is what it is but at the same time it’s good to see that the Bruins are I don’t know it’s I don’t think again nothing special but it’s going to result in Yonas Corpuso leaving this team so that’s kind of the main thing the main takeaway from this and then the last thing that I’m going to talk about briefly is the Bruins drafting James Hagens with the number seven overall pick um off rip I really like this draft selection either some people really like this draft pick or some people are a little skeptical considering he you know fell and I don’t know we all know Don Sweeney isn’t the greatest drafter in the world so maybe he’s just he just got lucky and things like that maybe the Bruins are seeing something in Hagens that other teams have seen and are is the reason why he slid all the way to seven considering he was at one point projected to be the number one pick in this draft um but either way regardless of him sliding I still think this is a great pick even if he was projected to be you know the seventh or eighth best player in this draft um the thing with Hagens is that he addresses a major problem that the Bruins have and that is puck movement the Bruins especially last year really struggled moving the puck they really didn’t have any players on that team on the team that really did an exceptional job of doing that um and that resulted in them struggling severely on the power play every single time that they would rush the puck into the offensive zone after the puck got d uh the puck got dumped into their defensive zone when they had to regroup they would lose the puck a lot of the times and they wouldn’t and it would result in them not getting any or barely any shots on net during their power play and that’s why they had such a terrible power play and so James Hagen is James Haggins is going to address that instantly for this team so I love that considering it addresses a major need for the Bruins um I know Higgins has said that he wants to play for the Bruins at least this year the likelihood of that happening in my opinion isn’t likely at least in my opinion i think that he won’t crack the Bruins roster right away if I’m Hagens I’d probably stay at BC for my sophomore year and then once that season’s over uh go to the Bruins kind of like what we’ve seen with Cole Cfield um Lane Hudson last year he did that you know all the NCAA guys once their season finishes up they go to the team and it would be a good idea for Higgins especially considering I believe that the Bruins won’t be contenders i mean we’ll see how this offseason kind of goes about but I expect the Bruins to kind of be in the same situation that they were last year um and that would be a good thing for Hagens to transition into the NHL for so I feel like that’s the best bet for his trajectory i don’t tr I wouldn’t prefer him to I guess hypothetically start on the Bruins roster and have you know 10 games to kind of prove whether or not he deserves to be on the roster full-time and have the chance of him playing in Providence i would much rather just have him play in pro play in Boston College uh dominate down there especially considering he didn’t have the best uh season in his freshman year at Boston College i know I’m saying that considering you get a point per game but either way I still like this it’s going to help the Bruins in the long term while obviously you can’t expect 18 year olds to instantly come in and be a differencemaker i know why Johnson was like that but they’re very rare cases so again in the future this will definitely help out the Bruins and again he will fit in with the Bruins timeline right now a huge thing that the Bruins are dealing with is them you know getting younger so I really like this and Hagens is going to be a future top six center for the for the Bruins so it’s exciting to see and I’m definitely excited in that as well the other draft pick of note for the Bruins uh was William Moore who was taken I believe 51st in the second round he’s a US uh national development player so I don’t know exactly much but I viewed I saw his highlights i saw a little bit of um reviews from The Athletic on who Moore is as a player and honestly at least from what I read at the on the Athletic he wasn’t projected to be anything particularly special some people project him to be more so you know this bottom six forward kind of a grinder and well I do believe that he can kind of be like that and that’s kind of his that might be his game in the NHL i’m a little more uh optimistic with Moore’s role in the NHL again this is all hypotheticals because again we’re dealing with 18year-olds the NHL draft is so random like it’s such a it’s so unpredictable i mean you’re dealing with 18-year-olds from all across the globe so it’s really hard to project how these players will transition into the NHL and who will actually make it to the NHL so that’s kind of a factor so I feel like besides like the top 10 or top 15 consensus players you never know who’s going to make the NHL from there um I do believe William Moore wi can make the NHL i definitely think it’s more likely than not um but either way again kind of getting to my point I think his potential is I think his potential in the NHL would be more so like this i can see him like as a middle middle of middle six um I can see him as this middle six forward who he provides offense but he’s also you know this gritty grinder type of player um what I noticed what I noticed the most out of William Moore is that he’s not afraid of going into the corners he’s not afraid of um crashing to the net and a lot of his goals resulted in that so I don’t think he’s necessarily going to be this I mean he wasn’t projected this because obviously he wouldn’t be a first round pick but I don’t expect him to I feel like he would be more so like this complimentary guy rather than a guy that’s going to you know carry a line or things like that so that’s the main thing that I noticed out of Moore he is still a little bit uh you know lanky and things like that he definitely needs to be needs to put on some more size in my opinion at least based on what I’ve seen out there but at the same time his physicality is there his uh willingness to get into the dirty areas of the ice it’s really great to see out of a young player like that and it’ll definitely project into the NHL and one other thing that I noticed too and also one other thing that I’ll notice I’ll say before that is I think he’s a great passer too he has a great vision for the ice so I don’t think he’ll again I don’t think he’s like this puck carrier but he is great at finding players and you know making good reads on the ice which at least that’s what I noticed on the small sample size that I watched out of him but regardless the other thing that I was going to mention is I think Moore has great potential on the power play as a guy who will get into in front of the net um handle the puck in you know the B on the boards you know things like that so I feel like in that aspect he works well in the power play i think that can project into the NHL again I don’t NHL prospects aren’t my forte this is kind of the first year where I’m kind of getting into it but at the same time I don’t know really much about it but from what I’ve seen already and what I’ve what I’ve read and things like that about Moore I’m a little bit higher on Moore compared to the consensus and I think he can he can be a productive player for the Bruins 3 to four years down the line so yeah we’ll see about that but those are kind of my thoughts about William Moore one other free agent that I forgot to talk about was uh Henry Yoki Haru uh right defenseman for the Bruins who they trade for during the deadline from the Buffalo Savers for fourth round pick um it’s a 3×3 uh million dollar contract for him so I think I mean I kind of thought that the Bruins were going to resign him considering they trade for him during the deadline despite them being sellers and you know things like that despite Yeah despite the Bruins being sellers and despite Yiharu Yiharu being a unrestricted free agent by the end of the year and honestly I like this considering especially with the AAV and things like that i think three years is great value for a defenseman like that um again right defenseman’s are very valued in free agency so it makes sense to resign him now rather than him hitting free agency and having to pay him a lot more so I give credit where credit is due with that um I think Yoki Haru is a valuable player for the Bruins defense for the Bruins defense i think he impacted the Bruins in the short sample size that he had i think he was definitely more of a positive than he was a negative for this team um he’s nothing special i think he’s more so just a body out there as as bad as that might sound um he’s nothing flashy like his game he’s a very stay-at-home prototypical just nothing ordinary like he’s not going to be overly offensive he’s not going to be you know this crazy defensive beast blocking shots like he’s just there he’s going to eat up minutes he’s a great skater um I think the most notable thing that I saw at a Yoki Haru last year when I was watching the Bruins I kind of fizzled out watching the Bruins by the end of last year’s trade deadline so I didn’t get to watch Yoki Haru a ton but one thing that I noticed out of out of him in the short sample size he’s played with the Bruins so far is that he paired up with Nikita Zidorov very well yoki Haru played very well with Nikita Zidorov when he did get paired up with him um the Bruins definitely shuffled their decor up a lot especially at the end of the year um mostly because of injuries i know uh Makavoy missed a lot of last year after the Four Nations um I think Glory was banged up at one point obviously Campus Lindholm was injured for the majority of last year um and then you know your minor injuries and things like that happened over the course of the year but over that year Nikita Zidorov had a tough time finding a D partner for him uh at the beginning of the year it was mostly Zidorov and Makavoy playing on the first line and honestly I don’t think that it worked out well for the both of them um it just Yeah it just wasn’t a great pairing and it just did I don’t I don’t know exactly how to describe it but it just didn’t work when Makavoy pinched up Sedorov just couldn’t handle the twoon-one situations um you know things like that they also worked him out with Carlo but also Brandon Carlo was just a disaster last year for the Bruins um even they worked him out with Peak and Peak I think he worked decently with Peak but at the same time I feel like him with Lurai or like I don’t know again it just wasn’t a perfect fit but I felt like last year and again I can’t exactly put my finger as to why this is the case but I feel like him and Zidorov paired up the best out of any other defenseman so considering Zidorov we paid or the Bruins paid him a massive amount to be this shut down big body defenseman and he’s not really living up to this contract right now adding in a guy like Yohi Haru who they found a little bit of success with last year i think it makes a lot of sense and again I feel like in the short sample size Yokohi Haru played with the Bruins it worked out again I can’t really put my finger as to what it is but it just clicks and I’m totally fine with that so I’m really fine with it fine with uh Yogi Haru staying with the Bruins especially on a cheaper cheaper deal and yeah this this decor for the Bruins isn’t terrible i would say I’m gonna get into this for the free agent uh kind of things I want to talk about for them but realistically the only thing that they’re missing is a bottom uh left shot defenseman for this roster at least for the uh defensive side at least for their decor and at least their defensive core can look pretty solid considering they lost or not even honestly this DEF core looks pretty solid i’m not going to lie cuz now you got Nikita Zidorov Charlie Makavoy Yogi Haru Andrew Peak Hamus Lindholm and Mason Lurai so I feel like that’s a solid six guys that they can have and yeah I I don’t mind that at all so this leads me to the main topic of the video uh who should the Red or Jesus Christ who should the Red Sox nope who should the Bruins uh target in free agency and I think the two names that have been the biggest topics and the two names that I believe could fit in with the Bruins the most are Pew Sudter and Brock Besser both I guess formerly of the Vancouver Conucks at least Brock Besser he’s definitely not coming back to Vancouver pew Sudter i have no idea what his market exactly is but um I’ll start off with Brock Besser first because I feel like this would be the most glamorous free agent selection the Bruins can get i obviously there’s a glaring hole for the Bruins in their top six they definitely need a right shot or at least a right winger to complement that top six and Brock Besser is definitely going to provide that so I I’m not going to really explain much into that but I think that’s probably the most optimal player the Bruins can get and again they have the cap money to spend it so why not and he fits in with the Bruins timeline so the Bruins you know need that type they need that type of guy especially with Ellas Lynholm who will likely slot in to be the second line center for the Bruins assuming that’s going to happen and I guess I’m kind of getting into hypotheticals because I believe Pew Sudter would then have to slot in as the starting center and I guess I’ll talk about this more with Pew Sudter which will be another kind of subtopic inside that topic but regardless yeah we need or at least the Bruins need a goalcoring offensive guy to help out Lynholm for their second line they need secondary they need scoring on other lines and a guy like Brock Besser will definitely provide that so I think that’s top of the order for the Bruins on who they should get in free agency and then Pew Sudter well he’s definitely not the most sexiest name out there and probably not a guy that the Bruins would definitely would want to get out of free agency i definitely think that he’ll provide a need that the Bruins have and that’s just a uh defensive-minded gritty center that can complement Geeky and Pastrack on that first line kind of play i’m saying this very loosely playing that I guess Patrice Berseron role which let’s be real obviously Pew Sudter is not even a quarter of the player that Patrice Burgerson is I’m not going to you know it’s a terrible comparison but you kind of know where I’m getting at with it yeah so I feel like having a guy like Pew Sudter who can be sort of like this connector piece be great at faceoffs be great on the penalty kill it’s a need that the Bruins have they definitely their power their penalty kill wasn’t awful compared to their power play which I guess is not saying much about their penalty kill but regardless they definitely need that you know firstline penalty killer out there to help out and also just be a huge forward that can play a lot of minutes and things like that and I feel like Pew Sudter can be that the only issue is it’s I feel like the Bruins would have to overpay in order to get a guy like Sudter i don’t know that’s just my opinion and also they’re going to have to play him in a bigger again I haven’t really watched the Vancouver Conucks as much i feel like having him in this I don’t think Pew Sudter is necessarily your typical firstline center type of player and the Bruins are probably going to have him play a type of role that he’s never played in the NHL before so it’s it’s lofty expectations for a guy who doesn’t who definitely doesn’t have the resume to back it up so but again at the same time he addresses a need for the Bruins he’s going to improve the Bruins and fit in and address a need that the Bruins definitely need so just having those I guess just having a guy like Sudter and having a guy like Besser those are going to address two of the biggest needs that the Bruins have so any of those two guys that can address those needs I feel like the Bruins can definitely have so I guess name some other players in the comments I guess but um honestly yeah that kind of just wraps it up kind of uh me just ranting about a bunch of other Bruins stuff but we’ll see what free agency holds hopefully the Bruins can make a splash considering the amount of cap space um one other thing little little I completely forgot about this during the Pew Sudu uh talk but I wouldn’t be surprised if Pavloaka gets traded um I’m not going to get too deep into it but I definitely can see that especially if they want to get more cap but again not really going to get into that but that’s honestly all I have so we’ll see what free agency holds tomorrow
In this video I’ll be giving my thoughts on who the Bruins should go after in free agency along with my thoughts on the players they resigned over the last couple days.
