NHL free agency begins Wednesday at noon, and we know the Bruins are going to be in the market for at least one left-shot defenseman once it does.
In a new post predicting where some notable free agents will sign, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman does indeed have the Bruins signing a left-shot D, but it’s not one people around here have been talking about much.
Friedman has the Bruins signing Derek Forbort. So, who is Forbort? And would he make sense for the Bruins?
Forbort is 29 years old and he’s big: 6-foot-4, 219 pounds. He is a defense-first, shutdown-type defenseman who has averaged over 20 minutes per game in four of the last five seasons. He has consistently been one of his team’s top penalty-killers and often gets the toughest defensive assignments. He’s a pretty good skater for a player his size, but brings little in the way of offense (his career high in points is 18 and he had 12 in 56 games last year).
Here’s an analytical breakdown courtesy of the excellent @JFreshHockey’s player cards:
Forbort was the 15th overall pick back in 2010 and eventually broke through with the Los Angeles Kings during the 2015-16 season. He became a fixture in the Kings’ top four over the next few years before being traded to the Calgary Flames during an injury-plagued 2019-20 season and then spending this past year with the Winnipeg Jets.
Whether Forbort makes sense for the Bruins comes down to what kind of contract he’s getting. As a depth, third-pairing D on a fairly cheap contract, he’d make plenty of sense. His size, shutdown style and penalty-killing is certainly something the Bruins could use on that third pairing, especially if Connor Clifton is playing on the right side.
And third pairing is really the kind of role Forbort should have on a true Stanley Cup contender, as opposed to the top-four role he had to play on a defensively deficient Jets team or on those post-Cup Kings teams that missed the playoffs more often than not.
But throwing real money at Forbort and making him your big top-four signing could be a mistake given his limitations. You would hope the Bruins would have their sights set higher, on someone like Ryan Suter or Alec Martinez, who are older than Forbort but also still better. Friedman, for what it’s worth, predicts Suter ends up with the Dallas Stars while Martinez re-signs with the Vegas Golden Knights. (UPDATE: Martinez is indeed reportedly staying in Vegas, so scratch him off the list.)
Forbort’s biggest contract to date was a two-year deal from 2018-20 that had an average annual value of $2.5 million. After his injuries in 2019-20, he settled for a one-year, $1 million deal last offseason. Something fairly short-term between those two deals money-wise or even closer to the $2.5 million would be fine.
Evolving-Hockey, however, has Forbort’s next contract projected to be five years with a $4 million AAV, with his ice time and tough assignments likely driving up that price. That just screams overpay and the kind of long-term commitment to a depth player that got the Bruins in trouble with John Moore. If Forbort’s market ends up looking anything like that, the Bruins would be wise to look elsewhere.
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