The Bruins were one of the busiest teams in the NHL on the first day of free agency, signing five players while also trading away Dan Vladar.
None of the players signed were named David Krejci or Tuukka Rask, though. So, what does all this mean for the two longtime Bruins?
Well... don't expect a simple answer. According to general manager Don Sweeney, the door to a possible return is still open for both. How they would go about walking through it is up in the air, though.
After all the moves they made Wednesday, the Bruins have less than $2 million of cap space remaining. Teams can go 10% over the cap during the offseason before ultimately needing to get under it before the season, but regardless the Bruins would need to move out some salary in order to fit Krejci in.
There have been conflicting reports about exactly where things stand with Krejci over the last couple days. On Tuesday, New England Hockey Journal's Kirk Luedeke reported a new contract was "being finalized." Later in the day, The Athletic's Fluto Shinzawa reported that Krejci had still not informed the team whether he intended to return to Boston or head to the Czech Republic.
Then on Wednesday afternoon, The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta reported the Bruins were "working on" Krejci's deal and that the "expectation is he's staying in Boston."
Speaking to the media Wednesday evening, Sweeney offered little clarity beyond saying the two sides have been talking and that there's still no "definitive timeline."
"David and I have communicated pretty consistently over the last little while. Nothing has changed on that front," Sweeney said. "He has his own reasons and he’s going to keep those private, as I am in terms of what his timeline is. Not unlike Tuukka, we’ve left things completely open-ended about him possibly returning to play for us. So, it’s not a definitive timeline.
"As you can see from several of the signings and the approach that we took, the center ice position, a little bit by committee, that we’re going to have to do that and allow some players to get into spots and hopefully perform to the level that they’re capable of. David is a unique player and he’s been a tremendous Bruin and a highly productive player throughout his career.
"And again, we hope that that will continue. But along that timeline of when he sees fit, not when we do. With Charlie Coyle coming off surgery — again, we wanted to identify players, and really two-positional players. In Nick Foligno’s case, a three-position player. All of them good on draws, all of them on the penalty kill. Several of them have played power-play situations, and providing depth throughout our lineup was really important."
The Bruins did get deeper Wednesday, but the thought of potentially having to fill Krejci's No. 2 center spot with any of Coyle, Foligno, Erik Haula or Jack Studnicka isn't exactly comforting.
While the Bruins opted for shorter-term depth signings up front, they made a bigger splash in goal, signing former Buffalo Sabre Linus Ullmark to a four-year deal with an average annual value of $5 million.
They then traded Dan Vladar to the Calgary Flames, solidifying their goaltending tandem as Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman... at least for now. A midseason return for Rask, who recently underwent hip surgery, has not been ruled out.
"Fortunate to have the opportunity to bring in a goaltender at a primary age with experience," Sweeney said of his goalie situation. "We just think where we were currently sitting with two young goaltenders, we needed to be prepared and allow Tuukka all the time he needs to get healthy. He just had surgery, spoke to him this morning, doing very well. Just have to go through the process and go from there.
"I think we’ve always left the door open for Tuukka to return, and I think it just allows Jeremy to continue to progress at a natural rate, but also give him the opportunity to be at the NHL level. As you can see, we gave Daniel an opportunity to go to Calgary and establish some stuff there. They were excited to have him. It was a little bit of a musical chairs shuffle, but for all the right reasons we just felt we’ve had very strong goaltending. We want to continue to have that, and it was a unique opportunity to explore having Linus join our group and we’re excited about that."
The good news is that there's no rush to make any sort of decision on Rask. Rask has stated publicly that he doesn't want to play for any other team, so the Bruins, in theory, could wait until well into the season, and well down Rask's road to recovery, to sign him.
Of course, if Ullmark and Swayman are both playing well and are both healthy, there may not be any need or spot for Rask. But it's not a bad fallback plan to have.
So, will either Krejci or Rask be back? Or have we seen the end of their Bruins careers? After a busy day during which the Bruins answered some other questions, those two remain -- to use Sweeney's term -- "open-ended."
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