- 7/2/2025
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00:00guys scott mclaughlin what's up what's going on guys uh lot lots is up development camp free
00:06agency big trade for victor arvidsson very exciting stuff uh yeah how would you uh let's
00:12put a grade on it how would you grade uh bruins free agency one day in feels like they're done
00:16i think it's a good time to grade it so how would you grade it uh d oh c minus i don't know
00:23go with your first instinct d i like that yeah as you graded a d why
00:27they didn't uh they didn't address the single biggest need which is a bona fide top six score
00:35now we can get into why like there wasn't much out there the entire free agency market dried up
00:41before it even started because everyone just re-signed with their current teams but nonetheless
00:47that was a need that needed to be addressed and wasn't unless victor arvidsson just magically finds
00:53the fountain of youth and plays like he did in nashville in like 2018 so you said there there
00:59wasn't much out there i think that's a fair categorization but somebody who's still out
01:02there is nikolai ehlers are we saying that right we've been going back and forth okay ehlers why did
01:09he seem to not be a candidate for them to sign so i don't think he would have come to boston i think it
01:16was frank sarah valley who had a report yesterday that he was looking at warmer weather markets uh
01:23didn't hockey player maybe he didn't want to be in like a big media market so that takes out boston on
01:28on both fronts i i think the bruins knew they were not going to be able to get him so they weren't going
01:35to wait around so those uh between he and besser and besser re-upped in vancouver there wasn't a lot
01:41out there why arvidsson and why jano great question um arvidsson because he was cheap to get
01:50it only took a fifth round pick because the oilers had to move salary uh you know he's had two tough
01:56years he two years ago he was off to a really good start with the kings and then he had a back injury
02:01a lower body injury last year he missed some time taking a shot off the foot uh and just didn't have
02:08a very good season in edmonton 15 goals and 67 games he ends up kind of in and out of the lineup
02:14at the end in the playoffs just didn't click uh you know he kind of talked about that when we talked
02:20to him yesterday and said he feels like he has a lot more to give and he can bounce back and the
02:25bruins need that um but yeah the reason they got him is because he was available and he was cheap and
02:30he is at least a middle six winger which is something they just really needed uh jano i don't really
02:37get that one i know why they did it so just to interrupt do you get do you not get why they went
02:42after him as a a talent or do you not get the contract like the term on the contract in particular
02:48uh i i get why they went after him as a player that the style he brings he he is one of the most
02:54physical players in the nhl he's i think i looked it up over the last four years i believe he's sixth
03:00in the nhl and hits and he's second in fighting majors so he'll drop the gloves as well so i get that
03:06they wanted a little more of that in their bottom six they want guys who can protect some of the young
03:11players that they're gonna have to turn to at some point um five years for him is just way too much i
03:18mean this is a guy who yeah four years ago had you know breakout season and looked like he was going
03:23to become sort of one of the premier modern power forwards and then he hasn't scored more than seven
03:29goals in any of the last three seasons like you know he had what 12 13 points last year i mean
03:35that's that's a fourth liner that you just gave five years and 3.4 million dollars a year to i i just
03:42i don't think that's where you allocate resources on your roster no matter how much you like
03:48the toughness that he brings i think we all agree that it seems like they ignored the biggest need
03:55that they had which was as you said it's top line scoring or just at least putting together a second
04:01line so what do you think the philosophy that they have with building the team is right now are they
04:07looking at next year are they punting on next year what do they think that they're rolling out there
04:13with they claim they're not punting on next year they claim that they want to be back in it i don't
04:19really see how that happens with this current roster i always thought this was going to be a little bit
04:24longer of a process you don't sell the way that they sold at the deadline and then bounce right
04:30back the next summer it just doesn't happen like look at teams that sell to the extent that they sold
04:34if you're lucky it's two to three years like that's if things go well you might be back in it in two
04:41years uh they just had too much to do this offseason but i think what their philosophy was was
04:49we are at least going to be harder to play against we are at least going to be a harder out every night
04:54we might lose two to one but we're not we're not gonna have those five one six one losses that
05:01happened way too often next season they don't want to get embarrassed and like that's obviously an
05:06extremely low bar yeah that standard is don't be embarrassing but still lose obviously they don't
05:13want to lose i put that on a t-shirt that's a bruins 2025 put that on a t-shirt that's me putting my
05:19own opinion on it on how this season's probably going to go is i think they're going to play a lot
05:22of low scoring games and lose by one goal a lot um but their thinking is okay marco sturm's coming in
05:29part of what he's being tasked with is reform our defensive structure which was there for about a
05:37month after joe sacco took over last year and otherwise was completely absent they had no structure
05:42last season they were a mess more nights than not so they want to re-establish that they want to be
05:47more physical and they think they want jeremy swamin to bounce back they want their defense to be
05:53better they just want everyone kind of on the same page and have something have a foundation to build
06:01off and then i guess at some point next year they're gonna add the talent on top of it that's that's that's
06:08the hope just i'm sorry from because you you are the hockey expert but you also cover other sports
06:16here doesn't this feel a little patriots 2024 ish 2023 24 like it feels a little like to borrow a term
06:27from our friend tommy curran a breakfast ball like they're saying we're bringing in our new coach we
06:32understand you can't fix everything in one year we're not doing a ton in free agency we're bringing
06:38in bodies we're re-signing some of our guys that we had last year on a dreadful team and don't worry
06:44it's going to be a longer process not to mention bringing in somebody who was a former player who's
06:49now a first time nhl head coach yeah it i think there are similarities there to the patriots and i but
06:57i think what their hope is and we'll see if marco stern and his staff are capable of this their hope
07:03is that last year was the gerard mayo year where everything's kind of just a mess and marco stern is
07:08their version of mike rabel where at the very least it's going to be a professional program and guys
07:13are going to be ready to go and ready to work and there's going to be a clear vision in place starting
07:18day one of training camp that's the hope as you said marco stern is a first-time nhl head coach so
07:24whether he's actually capable of that where we're all about to find out are they does he have input
07:30on picking players like i know sweeney is ultimately in charge of that but did he have input on arvidson
07:35and and to a lesser degree you know i don't know how much they they overlap but he definitely
07:38overlapped with arvidson yeah he definitely overlapped with arvidson so i'm sure there was
07:42some input you know ultimately you're not sweeney's not making final decisions based on what coaches are
07:48telling him but yeah if someone's played for that coach before they're going to consult him i
07:53think in marco stern's introductory press conference he mentioned needing a better
07:59transition game needing more cleaner offensive zone entries and that is something that victor
08:04arvidson can help with like he's a good transition player he's a good skater he can gain the offensive
08:09blue line he shoots a ton which has been another point of emphasis for them even going back to late
08:15last season don sweeney would talk about being shot ready and needing to shoot more and like we all saw
08:20how many periods do they have one two shots on goal and it's like someone's got to shoot the puck
08:24so they did bring in some guys who at least shoot the puck now not really the finishers we'll see how
08:30many goals they score but they're at least going to shoot more so when you look at the process that
08:36the bruins are in right now let's say whatever the 100 mark of putting together the full roster
08:43for the first game of the season what percentage in that process would you guess that they're at
08:49right now i think they're pretty close like they they're probably not doing a whole heck of a lot
08:55the rest of the off season there there might be some moves here and there they have about two
09:00million dollars in cap space they could still entertain trading yonas corpus allo that could
09:05free up another two million if they go with michael dph as the backup and like maybe you can use that to
09:10make one more move sign but who's gonna be out there at that point like what's gonna be left
09:14to free up cap space a couple of months from now so like there are going to be teams that need to
09:19clear some cap space just to finalize their roster like the florida panthers is going to be one of
09:23them right now they're over the cap so you're saying trade like a trade not not scraps and free agency
09:29but see who needs to move out some salary what's available and maybe you take on a three million
09:34dollar guy or something so like that could be another third liner but it's not i don't think i would
09:41be pretty shocked if there is a big move coming for like that top six guy that we're talking about
09:47nice uh well good get excited for the bruins uh how real was the martian uh reported interest on
09:54the bruins end uh real i think they were i think they were interested uh i don't know what they would
10:00have offered for a contract or you know how serious they would have been about being the highest bidder
10:04but they wanted to talk to him what do you what do you make of him i know you know uh state taxes
10:10come into this florida versus massachusetts i understand that but what do you think of him
10:14taking five and a half million or whatever it was a av over six years from florida as opposed to what
10:20the bruins were offering him here at the end sounded like something uh in the vicinity of uh three by six
10:26maybe he wanted closer to seven he turned down the bruins then he took this now from florida what do you
10:31think of that i think it i think all that really mattered for him was the total value of the
10:36contract so he's getting 32 million dollars i think if he had gone to market the price would
10:41have been something around four years eight million a year so same total value 30 like this is going to
10:48be his last contract almost no matter what and obviously now that it's six years it definitely is
10:53because locks them up until he's 43 so i think he was willing to work with the panthers on
10:59a lower aav if they throw on all the extra years and he gets the money anyways do you think he's
11:05actually going to play out the full contract i can't i can't see i mean he he is a he's a workout
11:11freak like he keeps himself in shape he said before he wants to play into his 40s so i think he'll play
11:16three or four years of it but i he's not the kind of player that tends to play till 43 like that that
11:24would surprise me uh circling back to the draft and what the bruins did particularly at the
11:29top what'd you think of the hagans pick loved it i think it was best player available i i wrote it
11:35leading up to the draft that best case scenario was going to be hagans falling to them um because
11:41that had become sort of a big talking point leading up to the draft that he might slide you know
11:47chicago at three utah at four they were looking for bigger players because they already have you know
11:52a little bit of a smaller number one center for both those teams and then it was well nashville and
11:58philly might they might like hagans but they might like other guys and all of a sudden it seemed
12:02something that would have been impossible to predict even a month and a half ago suddenly seemed like a
12:08very realistic possibility and i think it's if you're the bruins like it's the the best you could
12:14hope for it's it's very lucky for them to have had the pin ping pong balls bounce against them
12:21slide two spots in the draft order and still end up with the player that in my mind and in a lot of
12:28experts minds was still clearly one of the top five players in the draft so what do you think his
12:33timeline looks like in terms of him going back to bc for a year maybe being in providence when when do
12:40you think in this very early stage you would project him to actually be with the bruins i i think he
12:46should go back to bc for his sophomore season i think he probably will although that's not finalized
12:51yet uh but yeah he he should be one of the best players in college hockey this year if he goes back
12:58bc will have another really good team it's a good situation uh and i would expect that if he goes back
13:05he has the kind of season everyone expects he signs after the season and probably gets his first nhl
13:11games in april before the end of the regular season so why why do you fall to seven like what
13:17like it's it's great that he was there at seven and you call it a best case scenario why did so many
13:21teams pass on him if it's such a no-brainer because he's five foot ten and a half and not six feet which
13:27is a magic number in nhl team's eyes i think if he was six feet he probably goes third or fourth and no
13:34one thinks twice about it like i said like chicago has connor bedard at the top of their lineup they didn't
13:39want another under six foot center utah has logan cooley under six feet they didn't want another
13:44one so it's like teams have this idea that you can only have one center under six feet on your roster
13:50apparently so they passed on him nashville goes for physicality with brady martin um philly goes for
13:57the wing with porter martone so that that's the biggest one i mean he doesn't have the size like
14:02yeah he didn't he maybe didn't have the freshman year at bc that people expected in the sense that it
14:07wasn't macklin celebrini or jack eichel but he was still a point per game that is still a really
14:14good season for this can't be emphasized enough an underage freshman he should have been a senior in
14:20high school last year he was a freshman at bc playing in the toughest conference in the country
14:24just very he was a point per game was he just very smart he got accelerated yeah nice nice that's the uh
14:30that's yeah that's the uh nhl draft uh track well as bad as free agency uh appears to be for the
14:38bruins you graded it again a d you're locked in on that scott uh so as bad as that appears to be
14:43i like their draft because they they felt like they got out of their comfort zone and drafting a high-end
14:50uh offensive player even if they're undersized that's been a blind spot for them you just said it
14:55they don't have a lot of high-end skill outside of posture knock they don't have it and so getting
15:00away from oh we need a defensively responsible two-way guy or we need a guy who has size he needs
15:07to be six six or something like that you know getting away from that i think was promising i don't
15:13know when we're going to see the returns on that i don't know if sweeney's going to get to see the
15:17returns on that but i think that was promising that i felt good about yeah it was a noticeable change
15:23and both sweeney and um ryan nato their director of amateur uh scouting note noted that like said
15:33like yeah we were able to take some swings on offensive upside and that that is a refreshing
15:38change for them because it's something they've done so infrequently you're right like they would
15:42constantly draft you know the the two-way responsible player um they might take chance on size like a dean
15:49letourneau but yeah they went went for skill like higgins is all skill will more their second round
15:55pick is is a skill player who who again dropped to them and they to their credit was smart enough to
16:00say yeah we'll take them top guy ranked on the top 40s they're at 51 sure like we'll take a shot
16:06the defense when they drafted looked like reaches like based on rankings but they're offensively skilled
16:12guys you know and sweeney said like we can teach them defense that is just a refreshing change to
16:19hear because usually it's like well we'll take the defensive guys and then they'll learn off hope
16:25they learn off right and it almost never happens like if a guy isn't producing at lower levels
16:30usually they don't learn offense as they get older yeah no it's refreshing to do something like that
16:35where you say oh a player dropped to us based on the rankings let's take him as opposed to oh we're
16:39going to take zach seneshan at pick 15 uh so that's scott mclaughlin weei.com you can check
16:45out his work there scott if you could just say pure pucks for me can you say that pure pucks
16:49nice pure pucks with scott here on jones and keith mego in for keith we'll get back to your phone call
16:54617-779-7937 more on the bruins and their underwhelming start or is it all of their free agency
17:02right after trending with billy lane
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