What can we expect from the Bruins after their free agent moves?
When Bruins general manager Don Sweeney was asked on Saturday if the door was closed on re-signing Tyler Bertuzzi, he said, “In all likelihood, yes.”
When asked a follow-up about why the two sides weren’t able to find common ground, he cited both the years and money Bertuzzi was looking for and was expected to get.
“Probably all the factors,” Sweeney said. “The term that he has rightfully probably earned, the AAV [average annual value] that he’s seeking and what other teams are in position to provide that we probably weren’t. Unless I made another big move, and again, he’s going to land in a really good spot for him and his family and we wish him luck. He was a great piece of our puzzle and dearly would like to have gone down the path to extend him.”
If Bertuzzi went on to sign somewhere for five or six years at $6-7 million a year, a lot of Bruins fans probably would have understood Sweeney’s unwillingness to extend that far.
That didn’t happen, though. Instead, Sunday evening came and Bertuzzi signed a one-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs for $5.5 million.
Wait, what? How did Bertuzzi end up with one of the Bruins’ biggest rivals on such a team-friendly deal? Shouldn’t the Bruins have been more than willing to give Bertuzzi that contract?
Well, sure… if they ever had any reason to believe that was an option. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski spoke to Bertuzzi’s agent, Todd Reynolds, on Sunday and put together a good breakdown of how this all went down.
As Sweeney referenced and as Wyshysnki confirmed, the 28-year-old Bertuzzi was looking for and expecting more years than the Bruins were willing to offer, so he decided to test the open market.
But then Bertuzzi and Reynolds “quickly found the flat salary cap had made for a much different landscape than they expected,” according to Wyshynski. Reynolds claims Bertuzzi did have some longer-term offers, but not from contenders or teams he wanted to play for. So they pivoted to a one-year deal with a contender and will hit the market again next summer when the salary cap goes up and teams will have more money to spend.
The Bruins, meanwhile, had already made their own pivot. Instead of devoting the bulk of their available cap space to one player or committing to anything long-term, Sweeney decided to load up on cheaper one- and two-year bargains on Saturday, also with an eye toward a more favorable marketplace next year.
By the time Bertuzzi was ready to settle for something short-term, Sweeney had already executed his backup plan, leaving himself just enough cap space to still sign restricted free agents Jeremy Swayman, Trent Frederic and Jakub Lauko, and potentially Patrice Bergeron as well if he decides to return.
Where it might be fair to second-guess Sweeney is on this: Should he have waited to see if there was going to be an opportunity to circle back on Bertuzzi? While Bertuzzi’s side somehow got caught off guard by the disastrous free-agent landscape, maybe Sweeney should have anticipated it. If he had waited, perhaps the Bruins would be the ones landing Bertuzzi on a one-year deal, not Toronto.
On the other hand, it’s hard to really blame Sweeney for moving onto a different plan. He and Bertuzzi’s camp had plenty of time to negotiate before free agency opened, and clearly he had been told that they weren’t interested in a short-term deal. If Sweeney had identified the guys he now wanted to sign instead, then moving quickly to get them and not waiting around for Bertuzzi with fingers crossed is completely understandable.
That has been Sweeney’s go-to approach in free agency. He has his list, he acts decisively, and he rarely waits around to pick up scraps.
There’s no guarantee Bertuzzi even would have picked Boston if Sweeney had waited. He is from Ontario, after all. It’s possible Sweeney could have slow-played it, still missed out on Bertuzzi, and also missed out on the players he did end up signing.
Regardless of how or why it happened or whether Sweeney should be criticized for it, it certainly stings to see Bertuzzi land with a division rival – one that looks better than the Bruins on paper right now – on such a reasonable deal.
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