The Bruins’ pain is their chief divisional rivals’ gain.
Tyler Bertuzzi, who’d been rightly seeking a long-term, big-bucks deal, settled for a one-year deal with an AAV of $5.5 million with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Ouch.
It is not the deal he wanted, nor one that was available to the B’s when they had exclusive negotiating rights to Bertuzzi, apparently. The player’s agent Todd Reynolds told ESPN they were seeking a long-term deal from the B’s and they couldn’t agree on money. The two sides decided to go their separate ways and, by the time Bertuzzi’s camp decided the best route was a one-year deal, the B’s had allocated just slightly more than what Bertuzzi signed for in Toronto.
The question is if GM Don Sweeney, who said on Saturday both term and money were roadblocks to a deal for the 28-year-old, would have been willing to work to get that $5.5 million into his payroll structure. The B’s needed to sign players. While Sweeney has been clear that jobs can be earned by some of his young Providence players like Fabian Lysell and Georgii Merkulov, he wasn’t comfortable enough to hand them jobs without some competition.
He spent $5.8 million on forwards Milan Lucic, James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Geekie, Patrick Brown and defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, leaving him money left over to sign RFAs Jeremy Swayman, Trent Frederic and Jakub Lauko, with perhaps enough wiggle room to bring back either Patrice Bergeron or David Krejci in the seemingly unlikely event they decide not to retire.
Things happen quickly at the opening bell of free agency and Sweeney didn’t have the luxury of waiting to see if Bertuzzi would get boxed out.
If he thought Bertuzzi could have been had for the deal that he signed in Toronto, perhaps he would have gambled on moving other pieces, like trading Matt Grzelcyk’s $3.687 million contract or really rolling the dice and trading Linus Ullmark’s $5 million contract (the idea of leaving the net to Swayman and Brandon Bussi never sounded as appealing to this observer as it has to others).
But the clock cannot be turned back. The B’s signed their guys. Bertuzzi landed in the enemy camp.
And even though it’s not the deal that Bertuzzi expected in his first foray into UFA waters, it should work out very well for him. Barring injury, playing in Toronto’s talented top-six that as of the moment boasts Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander should help him post big numbers. When he takes another crack at free agency next summer when there is expected to be a significant salary cap increase, he could cash in on the type of deal he expected this year, or even better.
He also makes the Leafs very formidable.
The signing of 37-year-old brawler Ryan Reaves to a three-year deal seemed like a drastic overreaction to the B’s signing of Lucic. But with Reaves and Bertuzzi together, the Leafs have more moxie than they’ve had in a long time.
We learned last year not to make too many assumptions about a team in July. No one predicted at this time last year that the B’s would have a historic regular season. You never know how a team gels come October.
But as of right now, it looks as if the B’s are at the start of a bridge in which the highest hopes would be for a wild card spot.
Meanwhile, the Leafs may still have some flaws on the back end, and Bertuzzi’s loose play around the blue lines will challenge the D even more. But Toronto fans’ ever-present belief that this is the year the Leafs could bring home the club’s first Stanley Cup since 1967 sound a little less maniacal today.