The Celtics took the Boston headlines on Wednesday. Don Sweeney had a busy day of his own.
The Bruins moved goalie Joonas Korpisalo to the Rangers largely to clear money, then sent a 2027 second-round pick and a conditional 2028 third back to New York for defenseman Will Borgen. In free agency they signed Connor Clifton and re-signed Jordan Harris. All of it followed the previous Friday’s trade for Utah winger JJ Peterka.
Boston came out of the day with roughly $5.3 million in cap space and more defensemen than it can dress.
The moves he didn’t make
What Sweeney avoided says as much as what he did. No Darnell Nurse trade. No contract anywhere near what Jacob Trouba got at four years and an $8.25 million cap hit, or Rasmus Andersson at seven years and $8.5 million, or Mason Marchment at five years and $6.75 million.
That is a deliberate posture in an offseason that has not behaved like previous ones. A climbing salary cap and more player leverage have made trades the preferred currency this summer, and Sweeney chose value and flexibility over a headline signing.
The individual pieces hold up on their own. Peterka is a faster, more dangerous replacement for Viktor Arvidsson, who took a two-year, $10 million deal in Detroit. Borgen should be an upgrade on Andrew Peeke as a second-pair right side. Clifton has a real path to the third pair ahead of Henri Jokiharju.
Add what Boston already gets from David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman, plus whatever Fraser Minten and James Hagens turn into, and the case that this roster improved over the past few weeks stands up fine.
The part that doesn’t add up
Whether it improved enough is the harder question, and the Atlantic is not a forgiving place to find out. Florida is still Florida. Washington is back in the picture.
The blue line is where the math breaks. Boston added Borgen, signed Clifton and re-upped Harris without moving Jokiharju or Mason Lohrei. No team opens a season with six or seven million dollars in defensemen sitting in the press box.
Sweeney knows it. Asked whether another defenseman could be moved, he pointed to where other clubs sit, the conversations he has already had, and Charlie McAvoy’s six-game suspension to start the year.
Lohrei carries trade value as a young defenseman. So does Casey Mittelstadt, a middle-six winger on an expiring deal. Either move would open more room.
There is an argument for sitting still, too. Sweeney has said he wants to extend Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov, and cap space is what makes that possible. He also demonstrated with Peterka that he will move fast when the right deal surfaces.
“I have some work to do, to continue to add to our club,” Sweeney said.
The strategy reads as staying competitive without absorbing another contract the club will come to regret, the way it regrets Elias Lindholm’s, while waiting for the young players to arrive in numbers. That requires patience, and patience gets expensive if the team slides instead.
Sweeney described his group as a 100-point team, which is both a compliment and the whole problem. Camp opens in September.
