Takeaways from Bergeron's retirement press conference
A lot has been made of the way Bruins general manager Don Sweeney spent the little bit of money he had to work with this summer, with some wishing he had made another salary dump or two in order to re-sign Tyler Bertuzzi or free up enough money to bring in a center who could help replace Patrice Bergeron.
The Bruins’ roster as it stands today is certainly nowhere near as strong as last year’s on paper, with the exodus of forward talent the biggest concern. In addition to Bergeron and Bertuzzi, Boston also lost Taylor Hall via salary dump and is expected to lose David Krejci to retirement as well. Expecting new signings James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Geekie, Milan Lucic, Jesper Boqvist and Patrick Brown to replace all that lost production just isn’t reasonable.
Sweeney had to look for value signings given the Bruins’ salary cap situation and just hope a bunch of guys out-perform their contracts. According to one model, Boston just might have a roster that can do that.
On Monday, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn published his contract efficiency rankings, which aim to determine which teams are spending their money most wisely by using an analytical formula to project how much players will either exceed or fail to meet the value of their contracts in both the present and the future.
The Bruins have graded out well in this exercise for years, and continue to do so even with Bergeron and Krejci’s team-friendly deals off the books. This year, The Athletic’s formula ranks the Bruins fourth, behind only the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche.
There’s a lot that their model likes about the contracts on the Bruins’ books, including a belief that their four highest-paid players remain underpaid. David Pastrnak jumps up to an $11.3 million cap hit for this season and the seven that follow, but the numbers project him to actually be worth $14.2 million per year.
Charlie McAvoy is making $9.5 million per year through 2030, but the model thinks he’s worth $13.3 million. Last week, The Athletic ranked McAvoy and Pastrnak as the ninth- and 10th-best contracts in the NHL, respectively. Hampus Lindholm ($6.5M cap hit, $8.2M value) and Brad Marchand ($6.13M cap hit, $9.5M value) look like steals as well.
The Athletic’s model loves the contracts for Jake DeBrusk ($4M cap hit, $8.2M value), Pavel Zacha ($4.75M cap hit, $6.8M value) and Matt Grzelcyk ($3.69M cap hit, $6M value), too. It also likes the veteran signings of van Riemsdyk ($1M cap hit, $3.6M value) and Kevin Shattenkirk ($1.05M cap hit, $2.8M value) on cheap one-year deals.
The only Bruins making more than $1.1 million per year that the model thinks are overpaid are Charlie Coyle ($5.25M cap hit, $3.5M value) and Derek Forbort ($3M cap hit, $800,000 value). Coyle has three years left on his deal, while Forbort is entering the final season of his.
The Athletic’s model only looks at skaters. There’s no explanation for why goalies weren’t included, but we would guess that it might be because goalie performance is just harder to project from year to year. We would also guess that Linus Ullmark’s $5 million cap hit for two more years would grade out pretty well in any formula coming off a triple crown Vezina Trophy season. Jeremy Swayman is still awaiting a new contract after going to arbitration, as is Trent Frederic.
This doesn’t mean that the Bruins have the fourth-best roster or project to be the fourth-best team in the NHL this season. What it does mean is that they’re in good shape contract-wise, with very few “bad” contracts on their books and even fewer that they’re locked into for multiple years.
Maintaining financial flexibility for the future was one of Sweeney’s goals this offseason, especially with the salary cap projected to go up by more than $4 million next year. This ranking offers proof that he has done that, even if questions about the 2023-24 roster remain.