Morning Skate: Shopping

It is Wednesday, my dudes.

The Bruins have plenty of questions to answer this summer, chief among them whether or not Patrice Bergeron comes back.

That will obviously dictate how the rest of the offseason looks, but at this point, it doesn’t seem terribly likely that the Bruins will be big spenders when free agency opens.

Per Bruins Cap Space, the Bruins currently have a shade over $4 million in cap space next season, assuming Chris Wagner is in the AHL again (that figure excludes Bergeron too).

The B’s could free up some space by moving Jake DeBrusk ($4 million) and a guy like Mike Reilly ($3 million) or Matt Grzelcyk ($3.7 million).

(That $3.8 million Foligno deal continues to be a head-scratcher.)

But overall, things are looking pretty tight — there’s not much room in the budget to go shopping for a free agent center like the above-pictured Claude Giroux (I just used him as an example, as I kind of doubt he’d want to play here).

So it looks like if Bergeron returns, the Bruins are kind of going to just...run it back with the same group, barring some trades.

2C by committee, maybe hope a kid steps up, etc.

Anyways, I guess this is my ramblings on “I didn’t realize cap space was this tight.”

Don’t mind me.

Today’s discussion topic

What are your expectations for this offseason: major roster shake-up, or “re-sign Bergeron and just try again”?