Morning Skate: Follow up

The first day of free agency is over! And...exhale.

It certainly was a wild one across the league, with big contracts being thrown about with reckless abandon.

Johnny Gaudreau signing with the Columbus Blue Jackets was inarguably the wildest move of the day; I’d argue it’s one of the most surprising free agent signings in recent NHL history.

The hometown team kept its business relatively simple on Wednesday, as a lack of cap space limited what the B’s could do.

They addressed some organizational needs with the depth signings of Connor Carrick, AJ Greer, Dan Renouf, Vinni Lettieri, and Keith Kinkaid.

While it’s easy to get snarky about moves like this when other teams are landing big fish, it remains important to keep your farm system stocked to ensure that the development of your younger players continues.

The big looming question now: will they or won’t they?

It seemed like the returns of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci were all but done deals, but it appears there’s still a decision to be made for Bergeron.

It does still appear more likely than not that both return, but stranger things have happened.

The Pavel Zacha trade was an interesting one for the B’s as well - it could end up being a straight salary dump is the B’s don’t sign the RFA to a new deal, though early indications are they intend to keep him.

Zacha could be Bergeron/Krejci insurance too, as he could play center (though he’d be a steep downgrade from either of those guys).

Anyways, yeah. Now that the dust has settled, we all wait to see what happens next.

Today’s discussion topic

Any moves around the league strike you as particularly good ones yesterday?

Vincent Trocheck to the Rangers seems like a great pick-up for them.