NHL trade grades: Bruins send Linus Ullmark to Senators - ESPN

With a relative dearth of top-flight goaltending options available in free agency this offseason, the NHL goaltending carousel has been spinning with trades.

Last Wednesday, Jacob Markstrom was dealt to the New Jersey Devils and Darcy Kuemper landed with the Los Angeles Kings.

On Monday, the Boston Bruins finally found an answer regarding Linus Ullmark's future, and they did it just before the start of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Boston traded Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for Joonas Korpisalo, Mark Kastelic and a 2024 first-round pick. The Senators agreed to retain 25%, or $1 million a season, of Korpisalo's contract, which has four more years remaining.

Which GM did better in the swap? Here are our grades for both teams.

Simply put, Senators general manager Steve Staios isn't playing.

Just last offseason, the Senators signed Korpisalo to a five-year deal worth $5 million annually. That move, along with signing Vladimir Tarasenko in free agency to replace Alex DeBrincat after his trade to the Detroit Red Wings, helped spur hope that the Sens would reach the playoffs for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

About that.

The Senators went through a hellscape for reasons that had everything and nothing to do with their on-ice performance. New owner Michael Andlauer moved on from GM Pierre Dorion, replacing him with Staios, the president of hockey operations who added interim GM to those duties before becoming the permanent GM on Dec. 31.

Since then, Staios traded Tarasenko to the Florida Panthers and now has moved on from Korpisalo and replaced him with a Vezina Trophy winner.

And maybe the wildest part of all? The conditional 2024 first-round pick the Senators received from the Red Wings in that DeBrincat trade was the same one they sent to the Bruins to get Ullmark.

Retaining $1 million from Korpisalo's salary while taking on Ullmark's cap hit for one season leaves the Senators with $11.3 million in space. Shane Pinto is their most notable restricted free agent, while Dominik Kubalik, who came over in the DeBrincat trade, is a pending unrestricted free agent after scoring 11 goals in 74 games -- his lowest total in his five NHL seasons.

Or, to frame it this way: Most of the work Dorion did to improve the roster last offseason could be gone if Kubalik doesn't re-sign. That would leave the Senators with just prospect defenseman Donovan Sebrango and a 2024 fourth-round pick that was also involved in the deal.

The Senators have seven forwards under contract, which makes the need to manage their cap space even more crucial. That creates questions about whether Staios and his front office staff could be inclined to use another trade to free up any additional cap space.

But that's also what makes the idea of them having Ullmark for this season even more alluring. Both Ullmark and Anton Forsberg, who combine for $7.75 million in cap hits, are going to be pending UFAs at the end of the 2024-25 season, and that provides additional flexibility. The Senators could look to re-sign one, both or neither of them before their deals expire. No matter the choice, it leaves the team with options in the event a Ullmark-Forsberg tandem doesn't yield the results the Senators are seeking.

Any potential trade involving Ullmark forced Bruins general manager Don Sweeney to address two details. The first would be finding the strongest possible value for the 2023 Vezina Trophy winner. The second would be finding the sort of deal that allowed the Bruins to shed Ullmark's $5 million salary cap hit ahead of next season.

What they received in return allowed the Bruins to get their first-round pick back so they could have something for the future, while also having players for the interim with a backup goalie in Joonas Korpisalo and a bottom-six forward in Mark Kastelic.

The biggest challenge facing Sweeney, or any GM in this situation, was always going to be leverage. Ullmark provided any franchise that wanted him a legitimate No. 1 goaltender. But that came with the understanding that the Bruins needed to make a move to clear cap space; accordingly, their bargaining power was only going to be so great. That said, the Bruins were able to get even more savings by having the Senators retain $1 million of Korpisalo's salary for the next four years.

Moving on from Ullmark is a decision that Cap Friendly projects will give the Bruins $21.599 million in cap space. Their biggest priority is to re-sign Jeremy Swayman, who went from working in tandem with Ullmark to overtaking him. Swayman is a pending restricted free agent who could sign for well north of $5 million per year, considering the Pittsburgh Penguins re-signed Tristan Jerry to a five-year deal worth $5.375 million per year last summer.

Getting a new deal done for Swayman comes as the Bruins also have five pending unrestricted free agent forwards and three who are defensemen. Whatever money is left over can be used to address those areas along with others such as getting additional top-six help.

That's the financial aspect of parting ways with Ullmark.

In terms of how it will work in practice? The Bruins are banking on the fact that Korpisalo can carve a place within their structure like Ullmark did when he arrived from Buffalo.

Kastelic's arrival gives them an 11th forward under contract for next season. At 6-foot-4, he gives them even more size up front while providing a bottom-six depth option who scored five goals and 10 points in 73 games for the Senators.

And if the Bruins keep their first-round pick, this will be the first time since 2021 they will have selected a player. Since 2018, the Bruins have used their first-round pick just twice, and that was to take John Beecher in 2019 and Fabian Lysell in 2021.