NHL free agency got off to a fast start Wednesday afternoon, and the Bruins jumped in with an early move of their own.
According to multiple reports, the Bruins have agreed to a three-year deal with defenseman Derek Forbort that has an average annual value of $3 million.
UPDATE: The Bruins have officially announced the Forbort signing for three years with an average annual value of $3 million.
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).
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.
Ideally, Forbort would be on the third pairing on a true Stanley Cup contender. There is certainly an argument that he's an upgrade over what the Bruins had on their third pairing last year, and his size, physicality and penalty-killing is a welcome addition.
He is not, however, the all-around, big-minutes left D the Bruins would have preferred to find. The market was thin on those players, with Jamie Oleksiak and Alec Martinez signing with Seattle and Vegas, respectively, before free agency even began, and 36-year-old Ryan Suter getting a four-year deal from Dallas.
With Forbort in the fold and Mike Reilly reportedly locked up Tuesday night, that sets up the left side of the Bruins' defense as Matt Grzelcyk, Reilly and Forbort, in whatever depth chart order.
Related
