Connor McDavid, welcome to the Boston Bruins.
It may sound insane now. And, hell, it will almost certainly sound insane when McDavid (most likely) re-signs with the Oilers sometime before July 1, 2026. But that is what is potentially on the table for the Bruins — and the rest of the NHL, for that matter — come next summer. And according to one NHL insider, it may be why the Bruins opted to avoid big spending this past July 1.
“If some of these guys who are supposed to be free agents next year [hit the market], whether they get one or not, I think Boston wants to have the opportunity to take a shot at one of those guys,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on his final episode of ’32 Thoughts’ for the summer. “So, if you’ll notice, they didn’t really do much to hamstring themselves in the future.”
If we were to compare classes, there’s no denying that the projected 2026 free agent class beats the bag out of what the league had to offer this past July 1. While this year’s market was headlined by Brock Boeser and Nikolaj Ehlers, next July’s free agent frenzy could feature … *takes a deep breath* … McDavid, Cale Makar, Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor, Kirill Kaprizov, Artemi Panarin, Adrian Kempe, and Martin Necas. It actually gets even deeper than that in terms of quality scoring help behind those elite talents, but you get the picture here.
Feb 2, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Golden Knights center Jack Eichel (9) celebrates his goal against the Rangers during the first period at Madison Square Garden. (Danny Wild-Imagn Images)
It also checks out with where the Bruins have been for the last few years, too.
When the club came up short in 2023, they knew that they were going to have to go through a reset of some sort, but always had eyes on adding a legitimate superstar to the fold once they were out of cap jail.
I mean, at this time last year, we were all talking about the possibility of the Bruins luring an all-world center like the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby or Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl hitting the open market and coming to the Bruins to be the perfect linemate for David Pastrnak or Brad Marchand. Before that, we had pie-in-the-sky hopes of Aleksander Barkov leaving the Panthers and testing the open market before captaining a budding dynasty down in Sunrise.
These dreams are nothing new. And while it’s always admirable and critical to the human experience to dream, it’s a hard way to build your future. Especially when we’ve been down this road before and seen how it has played out.
Odds are most of these players we’ve mentioned are going to re-sign with their current clubs. It’d be fun if they didn’t, and the league would actually build up some outside-the-diehards interest for the NHL in the sports world if there’s a ton of movement next July. But that’s proven to be something of a pipedream.
Even McDavid, while obviously frustrated after back-to-back Cup Final losses, seems like a relative long shot to leave the Oil despite the non-answer he gave in June when asked about his future in the only NHL city he’s called home.
“This core has been together for a long time and we’ve been building to this moment all along. The work that’s gone on behind the scenes, the conversations, the endless disappointments and some good times along the way, obviously. We’re all in this together, trying to get it over that finish line,” McDavid said at Edmonton’s break-up day following their second straight Finals loss to the Panthers. “With that being said, ultimately, I still need to do what’s best for me and my family. That’s who you have to take care of first.”
Even when speaking about potential uncertainty, McDavid prefaces the comment with the journey he is on with the Oilers.
Nov 11, 2021; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid (97) during the second period against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden. (Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports)
But let’s say the Bruins do want to get involved in negotiations for an elite talent should that talent decide to test the open waters.
Just how feasible is that plan?
A positive for the Bruins is that their core pieces are locked up. Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, and Jeremy Swayman are all here for the long haul, and 2025 first-round pick James Hagens is the X-factor who’ll eventually report to the club on a highly-affordable entry-level contract. That alone allows the club to take a big-dollar swing without worrying about having to jettison a core piece due to cap constraints a year or two later.
Another positive comes from the fact that the cap will go up yet again in 2026, too, giving the Black and Gold even more money for a big addition.
So with that said, let’s talk about the negatives. And let’s do that going beyond the obvious of “most of these guys might not hit the open market.”
Yes, the cap is going up. But it’s going up for everybody, not just the Bruins. They won’t be the only ones able to ‘take a swing’ at the market’s star players. And they probably weren’t the only club thinking that it’d be in their best interest to save some cap space and commitments for next year. This is not some next-level, 4D-chess kind of thinking on the part of the Bruins.
And though the Bruins have kept their options financially, they haven’t done it at a top-tier level, really. Among the 32 NHL teams, Boston’s $19 million plus in projected cap space next summer ranks 31st, with only Carolina slated to have less. And this is where we come back to what the Bruins did this July, with a combined $12.65 million tied up in bottom-six forwards Mikey Eyssimont, Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly, defenseman Henri Jokiharju, and backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo. All of whom have term beyond 2025-26.
It’s small potatoes when signed, sure. But it all adds up, and the doomsday scenario is that it’s all enough to cost you a star. At the very least, and in the now, it’s almost $13 million less the Bruins have to play with in sweepstakes that could get absurd in terms of the money that is thrown around.
But, like this entire premise, is a potential problem that the Bruins have kicked down the road to next summer at the very earliest.