The first big move of the Bruins’ offseason has arrived.
Boston has traded goalie Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for forward Mark Kastelic, goalie Joonas Korpisalo and a 2024 first-round pick (25th overall).
The Senators will retain 25% of the rest of Korpisalo’s contract, which has four years left with a $4 million average annual value. The Bruins will be on the hook for $3 million per year.
Ullmark is entering the final year of his contract and carries a $5 million cap hit, but the Bruins need to sign Jeremy Swayman to what is expected to be a long-term, big-money extension. Keeping both for a combined salary of potentially $12-13 million always seemed unlikely given that the Bruins have other needs they need to address this summer.
The Senators had emerged as the most aggressive suitors for Ullmark, especially after the New Jersey Devils acquired Jacob Markstrom last week, leaving Ullmark as the clear top goalie remaining on the trade market.
According to multiple reports, Ullmark and the Senators do not have an agreement in place for a contract extension. That likely kept the return for Boston lower than it could have been.
Kastelic, a 25-year-old center, had five goals and five assists in 63 NHL games last season. He is a physical, bottom-six player who is good defensively and strong on faceoffs (56.3% career). He is signed for $835,000 this year and will be a restricted free agent after the season.
Korpisalo, 30, showed promise during his time in Columbus and Los Angeles, but struggled mightily after signing with Ottawa last summer. He went 21-26-4 this past season with an .890 save percentage and 3.27 goals-against average as the Senators wound up with some of the worst goaltending in the NHL, necessitating a move to upgrade the position this summer.
The 25th overall pick that the Bruins acquired was actually originally their own. They traded it to Detroit for Tyler Bertuzzi, and the Red Wings then sent it to Ottawa in the deal that landed them Alex DeBrincat.
The 30-year-old Ullmark spent the last three seasons in Boston, with his best year coming in 2022-23, when he won the Vezina Trophy as the top goalie in the league. Ullmark followed that up with another strong – if not quite as dominant – season in 2023-24, going 22-10-7 with a .915 save percentage and 2.57 goals-against average.
Ullmark was also the subject of trade rumors leading up to the trade deadline in March, with reports indicating that he exercised his 15-team no-trade clause to block at least one potential deal. At the time, Ullmark made it clear that he wanted to remain in Boston and didn’t want to uproot his family.
Since then, however, a trade became more and more likely. Ullmark started just one game in the playoffs as Swayman took over and ran with the starting job thanks to one terrific outing after another. Ullmark, on the other hand, did not have the best playoff track record in Boston, posting a 3-6 record with an .887 save percentage across three postseasons.
While the Bruins were happy to rotate Ullmark and Swayman in the regular season to great results, this spring made it clear that continuing such a rotation in the postseason was not and would not be in their plans, thus making Ullmark expendable as they turn the net over to Swayman.
The Bruins reached a deal with one candidate to back up Swayman earlier Monday, signing Brandon Bussi to a one-year, two-way extension that carries an NHL cap hit of $775,000. Bussi will compete with Korpisalo and fellow Providence Bruin Michael DiPietro.
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