Bruins need to shop for scorers in NHL Draft, not free agency

Both signings came in the immediate wake of Bruins president Cam Neely, speaking candidly during the club’s annual pre-season presser Monday, noting how the front office pursued goal scorers in this past July’s UFA market. Finding no takers, the brass resorted to the Plan B that led to the addition of support/role forwards Mikey Eyssimont and Tanner Jeannot.

We’ll never know the identities of those the Bruins targeted in Plan A, or how aggressively general manager Don Sweeney was willing to dig into the Jacobs family’s deep pockets to bring in, for example, Mitch Marner. Vegas won the Marner sweepstakes, first yielding Nicolas Roy in trade to the Maple Leafs and then lavishing Marner with an eight-year/$96 million bonanza.

The lesson here, albeit nothing new: If you’re a team seeking a dynamic scorer or two, then target the annual June draft of 18-year-old wunderkinds. While the Marner case shows that prolific scorers can be clipped off other rosters come free agent time, such “gets” are the vast exception and not the rule.

One of those rare exceptions benefited the Bruins greatly nearly 20 years ago, then GM Peter Chiarelli securing ex-Thrashers pivot Marc Savard as a UFA on July 1, 2006, the same day he also wooed Zdeno Chara away from the Senators. Savard had just rolled up 97 points with Atlanta, signed here as he was turning age 29, and then delivered 96 points his first season in Black and Gold — pivoting a line, by the way, that sometimes had Marco Sturm riding at wing.

Had it not been for getting his head scrambled by Matt Cooke’s predatory hit in March 2010, Savard might have had a huge offensive impact here for 8-10 years. He delivered 262 points his first three seasons, ranking him ninth league wide in that category. His 200 assists across those same seasons were topped only by San Jose’s Joe Thornton (220) and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby (202). “Savvy” had sweet mitts.

In the NHL’s post-cap era, Savard remains the Bruins’ most productive free agent forward acquisition. Chiarelli also hired a 36-year-old Jarome Iginla as a UFA in July 2013 and “Iggy” delivered 61 points that season before leaving the next July for the Avalanche. Another of Chiarelli’s UFA hires, winger Michael Ryder, helped the Bruins win the Stanley Cup in 2011, but he averaged just below 43 points for his three seasons in Boston.

History has shown top offensive players, despite their hard-fought right to reach free agent status while still of prime playing age, more often than not prefer to sign extensions with their existing teams. The “cap era” CBA has made staying put a more attractive option, in part, because it has allowed UFAs to sign eight-year max deals with their existing team, and only seven-year deals if they play their get-out-of-town card.

Note: The ability to extend Marner to eight years vs. seven factored in why the VGK surrendered Roy in trade. They felt an added year of Marner at $12 million was worth giving up Roy, and it acted as further inducement for Marner to sign.

The revised CBA, set to begin after this season, will trim a year off those max terms — from eight to seven and from seven to six. Any player signing for the seven-year max UFA extension will have to be on that club’s roster by the March trade deadline that precedes the annual July 1 free agency date. Overall, that tighter squeeze in the revised CBA likely will induce some players to grab an eight-year extension before that option is rendered extinct.

The Panthers, the defending back-to-back Cup champs, quickly signed their three top UFAs quickly over the summer — Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad — with their AAVs averaging $6.4 million. Only weeks later, those numbers looked modest when the Wild extended star winger Kirill Kaprizov for eight years at a $17 million AAV. The financial sands shifted quickly.

Jets-setters

No NHL team has done a better job against more challenging odds than the Jets in the fight to keep core talent from bolting in the UFA market.

Cash is always king, of course, but the Panthers have sunshine and a couple of glimmering Cups as the lures to keep their guys home, home on the range, and also to entice others to come there (witness: Matthew Tkachuk finagling his trade out of Calgary to get to Sunrise in the summer of 2022).

Winnipeg, with a reputation as the city that most often tops players’ no-trade demands, lacks sunshine and Cups. Its winters are long, cold, and harsh. It’s way out there, 1,390 miles northwest of Toronto and 830 miles east of Calgary. The shortest hop to big-city US culture (with apologies to Minneapolis) is 870 miles southeast to Chicago.

Yet Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff on Wednesday, in lockstep with Vegas and Mitch Marner, signed Kyle Connor, 28, to an 8-year/$96 million deal. Keep in mind, Canadian teams must pay in US greenbacks, meaning Connor will pull down $16.8 million in Canadian dollars as his AAV (based on Friday’s 40 percent exchange rate). Connor stood less than a year from his UFA liberation day and entered this season with 153 goals and 331 points the last four years. He could have named his next city as of July 1. He named Winnipeg now.

Cheveldayoff in the summer of ‘24 also secured long-term deals with his franchise tender, Connor Hellebuyck, and franchise center, Mark Scheifele, on matching eight-year deals with $8.5 million AAVs. Winnipeg also has impact forward Gabe Vilardi and defensemen Neal Pionk and Josh Morrissey on long-term, high AAV deals that will keep them on the job there for an average of seven more years.

“I reflected on it at the end of last year and gave it some thought, but there was never any scenario where I could see myself going somewhere else,” Connor told the Winnipeg Sun. “This team, these guys and this organization has been nothing but top notch. And like I said earlier, just giving you every chance you can to succeed and all the tools and I wouldn’t want to try to win a Stanley Cup with another group of players in an organization.”

The Jets drafted Connor with the No. 17 pick in 2015, the same day the Bruins chose Jakub Zboril, Jake DeBrusk, and Zach Senyshyn with pick No.s 13, 14, and 15. A decade later, it’s the draft and not the UFA market that delivers those dynamic scorers and ultimately forces franchises to do everything they can to cultivate their talent and pay whatever it takes to keep them on the payroll.

Big impression

Entering weekend play, the player on last season’s Boston roster to score the most goals in the new NHL season: Justin Brazeau, who potted three in Pittsburgh’s first two games (both wins) under new coach Dan Muse.

Brazeau scored 15 goals in his 76 games with the Bruins over two seasons and was dished as part of the March deadline roster purge, bringing back Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko from the Wild.

The winger scored twice, each time set up by Evgeni Malkin, in a 3-0 whitewash of the Rangers to open the season. He followed two nights later with the game-winner, again set up by Malkin, in a 4-3 clipping of the Islanders.

The 6-foot-3-inch, 195-pound Malkin — two games, five assists — has been flanked by Brazeau (6-6, 232 pounds) and Anthony Mantha (6-5, 240) much of the time since training camp opened. That’s just under 700 pounds of beef on the blades — reminiscent of the Bruins days when Pat Burns had Jumbo Joe Thornton centering Mike Knuble and Glen Murray as the “700 Pound Line.”

Brazeau, never drafted, turned pro with ECHL Newfoundland in the summer of 2019. He signed with Providence after a year with the AHL Marlies and finally made Boston’s varsity roster late in the 2023-24 season. Now 27, he signed a two-year/$1.5M AAV deal, the first one-way deal of his career, with the Penguins on July 1.

With his pair of goals (one into an empty net) vs. the Rangers, Brazeau became only the fifth player in the Flightless Birds’ history to score at least two goals in his team debut, joining Bobby Simpson (1981), John Chabot (’84), Rob Brown (’87), and Jake Guentzel (2016).

The Penguins took on the Rangers again Saturday night in Pittsburgh. The Bruins get their first look at Pittsburgh, and perhaps Brazeau, on Jan. 11, a rare Sunday 5 p.m. matinee on Causeway Street.

Swede sensation

A durable, consistent performer throughout his career, Mattias Ekholm signed on with the Oilers for another three seasons at a modest $4 million AAV.

The 6-5 backliner came to Edmonton at the 2023 trade deadline, following 10 seasons with Nashville, and has been the glue guy back there, helping the Oil reach the Cup Final the last two seasons.

As part of the deal, the Predators obtained a first-rounder in the ‘23 draft, used to select defenseman Tanner Molendyk at No. 24. Molendyk last season wrapped up his junior career with WHL Medicine Hat and now will begin his pro career with AHL Milwaukee.

Provided he remains healthy and maintains his metronomic endurance, Ekholm, 35, next season will play in his 1,000th regular-season game.

To date, only nine Swedish blue liners have reached that coveted plateau: Nicklas Lidstrom (1,564), Borje Salming (1,148), Victor Hedman (1,132), Calle Johansson (1,109), Erik Karlsson (1,086), Ulf Samuelsson (1,080), Oliver Ekman Larsson (1,060), Alexander Edler (1,030), and Fredrik Olausson (1,022).

Fine Finnish

Joonas Korpisalo was superb in overtime in the Bruins’ 4-3 win over Chicago on Thursday, turning back Frank Nazar and Connor Bedard on Grade-A chances early in the extra session.

The Finnish stopper is hardly a stranger to OT. Playing in the playoff bubble of August 2020, “Korpy” manned the Columbus net for six-plus hours, before Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point nailed one by him in the fifth overtime (150:26) for a 3-2 victory. Korpisalo finished with an astounding 85 saves, while the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy blocked 61. Point and Victor Hedman led the way with nine shots apiece (Point scoring on two of his chances).

The 85 stops remain the all-time playoff record.

Bruins fans of a certain age will recall the night at the old Garden, March 21, 1991, when the Nordiques’ Ron Tugnutt set the regular-season standard for saves (70) in a game, in what ended a 3-3 overtime deadlock.

Tugnutt, then age 23, withstood a barrage that included 19 shots on net (also a record) by Ray Bourque, whose tying goal midway through the third period set the stage for OT. Reggie Lemelin faced 26 shots in the Boston net.

Tugnutt’s stops included one off a sizzling 15-foot one-timer Bourque squeezed off in the slot that the Quebec tender snared with his lefthanded glove — a dumbfounded Bourque left shaking his head in utter dismay.

Loose pucks

Jakub Lauko’s return to the Hub was brief, the speedy winger delivering 2-3–5 in his 18 games here under Joe Sacco once coming over from the Wild. Unable to land NHL work as a free agent over the summer, Lauko returned home to Czechia and signed a three-year deal with Dynamo Pardubice. Entering weekend play, he was tied for third for overall production (3-5—8) with Pardubice. Among his new teammates: ex-Bruin Vladimir Sobotka, who had a brief run here after being selected No. 106 in the 2005 draft. Sobotka, now 38, wrapped up his NHL days by playing a season-plus in Buffalo and returned to play in Europe following the 2019-20 season … Jakub Zboril, ultimately traded by the Bruins to Columbus in the deal that netted Andrew Peeke, signed a five-year contract before last season with Pardubice. But after his disappointing season there, Zboril and Pardubice agreed to terminate the deal, with “Zibby” then joining Vitkovice (Ostrava, close to the border with Poland). As of Friday, he had but one assist and was -3 with Vitkovice. Overall, the Czechs are so thin on defense that Zboril is still considered to be on the country’s watch list for the February Olympics in Italy … Some 3½ years after turning pro with the Bruins as an undrafted free agent out of Western Michigan, goalie Brandon Bussi is inching ever closer his shot in the NHL. He dressed in the backup role to Frederik Andersen in the Hurricanes’ 6-3 win Thursday night over the Devils and is the next-man up until the injured Pyotr Kochetkov is ready to resume active duty. Bussi, considered the Bruins’ top goalie prospect until Michael DiPietro leapfrogged him in the pecking order, signed a one-year deal with Panthers on July 1 for $775,000 ($400,000 guaranteed). Happy instead with Daniil Tarasov as Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup, Florida placed Bussi on waivers last week and he was promptly claimed by Carolina … Individual NHL team rosters finalized prior to official puck drop Tuesday night totaled 726 players, 195 of whom (26.9 percent) were Americans. Still leading the way: Canada (304, 41 percent). Of the 29 players to dress for the 1971-72 Cup-winning Bruins, all but two were born in Canada: Doug Roberts (United States) and Ivan Boldirev (Yugoslavia). Their next Cup-winning season, 2010-11, counted 20 Canadians among the 31 Bruins who dressed that season, while six were Americans (including MVP Tim Thomas) and five from Europe/Scandinavia … The Bruins will make their lone visit on Thursday to Vegas, where former teammate Jeremy Lauzon is back working under coach Bruce Cassidy’s watch. Lauzon, who has become one of the league’s perennial top hitters, was dealt in June from Nashville in a package that sent Nicolas Hague to the Predators. As of Saturday morning, Lauzon’s nine hits in two games were second only to Nikita Zadorov (10). Lauzon, 28, is on an expiring deal that carries a $2 million AAV — a figure that he reasonably could triple if he keeps up the beat as he approaches July 1 free agency.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.