Don Sweeney and the Bruins made an expected, but big move Monday night, trading away goaltender Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators.
The rise of 25-year-old goaltender Jeremy Swayman as the number one option for the Bruins in net meant that Ullmark’s days were numbered. After reportedly trying to deal Ullmark at the deadline to the Los Angeles Kings this season, the Bruins found their partner and moved on from one-half of their lauded goalie rotation.
In return, the Bruins received a 2024 first-round draft pick (No. 25), along with veteran goaltender Joonas Korpisalo and forward Mark Kastelic.
Two former Bruins, Mike Milbury and Andrew Raycroft, weighed in on the trade Tuesday morning on The Greg Hill Show and Gresh & Fauria, respectively.
Milbury, who gave the trade a B- grade, told Greg Hill that the trade was not “a steal by any stretch of the imagination.” Listen to the full segment above.
“They downgrade their second goalie, but he’s OK, and they pick up a chip with Kastelic who can play on the fourth line – he needs to get his wheels going a little bit better – and they roll the dice with a first-round pick. … It’s not a huge haul,” Milbury said.
Hill asked Milbury whether he thought Sweeney, who was “in a pickle” given Ullmark’s no-trade list, did the best he could.
"The position he was in was the position he was in because he put himself in that,” Millbury said.
“He gave him half the league not to trade him. I guess LA was one of the teams you couldn’t trade him to, so you got to live with that. That’s the price you pay when you’re dealing with a free agent. You sell your soul to the devil when you try to sign these guys. Usually, you overpay and give them more protection than maybe they should have gotten.
“In the end it all works out. I think Swayman should be the number one guy. I think Korpisalo is certainly a 1A, 1B, he’s a seasoned professional. I wish it was a little less on the money side. If I was one of the Bruins goaltenders in the organization, I’d be not particularly happy today.”
Raycroft had a much more positive outlook on the return the Bruins got when appearing on Gresh & Fauria. Listen to the full segment above.
“The trade market for goaltending is just different,” Raycroft said. “There’s a lot of guys that can play goal and it has to be a right fit, it has to be the perfect fit.
“If you thought they were going to get a top-10 pick for Linus Ullmark, a guy who played 40 games last season, didn’t play any games in the playoff run basically, you’re really reaching. And if you’re upset about it, that’s kind of your own fault for setting expectations not in a proper place.”
Raycroft saw the move by the Bruins as a solid return for a move that Sweeney had to make.
“[Ullmark] needed to go play somewhere else and they found a way to do that, open up some cap space,” he said. “They got a backup goaltender now, they got a veteran guy who was and has been very good in this league to help Swayman and keep that tandem going. And they got a guy up front that’s big and strong and who’s fought the toughest guys in the National Hockey League.”
“It's a win for me because you had to trade Linus Ullmark. It just wasn’t going to work to have him come back. And the longer the deal doesn’t get done, the less places there are for Linus to go, the harder it is.”
Raycroft also agreed with Christian Fauria that Ullmark’s pedigree as the winner of the 2023 Vezina Trophy for the Bruins set unrealistic expectations for the trade.
“Listen, the trophy’s nice and amazing, the All-Star Game last year, the 40 wins, his season was incredible a year and a half ago but that was a year and a half ago,” Razor said. “I understand the Vezina Trophy, but I don’t think that registered with the teams that wanted or didn’t want Linus. It was about what he’s done over the last 12 months, which is really good and he played really well. The Bruins didn’t have as much leverage on this as what was the perception with some people.”
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