The Boston Bruins seem determined to start the season with the forward group currently under contract, with perhaps a little wiggle room for a veteran training camp invite a la Danton Heinen last season.
That means it will either be a veteran more familiar with third-line work like Trent Frederic or Morgan Geekie who will be getting a top-6 look alongside Charlie Coyle and Brad Marchand, or a young internal organizational prospect like Fabian Lysell or Georgii Merkulov could be tapped for the prime forward spot.
But there are still other options out there around the NHL if Don Sweeney and the Bruins front office decide they want to be a little more aggressive about it. One of those options is a young, unsigned restricted free agent who supposedly wants a new address after skating the last three seasons with the Los Angeles Kings.
Arthur Kaliyev is a 23-year-old Uzbekistan winger who was a second-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft (33rd overall) and has managed 35 goals and 71 points in 188 games for the Kings over parts of the last four seasons. Kaliyev is coming off his entry-level contract and his worst season in Los Angeles after managing just seven goals and 15 points in 51 games with a minus-3 rating.
The previous two seasons Kaliyev averaged 14 goals and 28 points, though he’s dropped to 56 games played and 51 games played the last seasons after suiting up for 80 games for the Kings as a rookie forward in 2021-22.
Kaliyev certainly checks off some of the boxes as a 6-foot-2, 210-pound right wing who put up huge offensive numbers in the OHL for the Hamilton Bulldogs, and was good enough that he only logged 40 games in the AHL before getting bumped up to LA. Sweeney has admitted that they might be a little light in the goal-scoring department on the wing after losing offensive catalyst Jake DeBrusk in free agency, and coming off a postseason where they only averaged a paltry 2.38 goals per game.
Prioritizing a hard-nosed, heavy and physical defenseman like Nikita Zadorov over some offense on the wing in NHL free agency was a conscious choice by the Bruins, and it could be something they’ll have to revisit at some point during the season.
“You probably sacrifice chasing something on the wing as a result of [prioritizing Zadorov in free agency],” said Sweeney. “You're really prioritizing getting a center, as I mentioned, and going into free agency, you're gonna enter an uncomfortable zone, right? You just are what's it going to take to sign a player that you're fortunate enough that they want to come? The [salary cap] pie is only so big. That's what happens.
“Somebody is going to have to [step up on the wing]. The ice time is going to get distributed. The two guys [in Marchand and Coyle] that maybe they play with if you need the top line together are pretty damn good hockey players. Somebody should be happy to be getting that opportunity. I'll keep an eye out towards maybe something that presents [itself]. Certainly, if it doesn't now, [then] during the course of the season if there's a void there.”
Kaliyev could be a player with some intriguing offensive upside, though in cold, hard NHL numbers he hasn’t really done anything more statistically than guys like Frederic or Geekie did for the Black and Gold last season.
The real sticking point for all this daydreaming about a young winger like Kaliyev is the salary cap when it comes to the Bruins. The Bruins currently hold approximately $8.6 million in salary cap space, per our friends at PuckPedia, and a large amount of that cap space is going toward a number contract for unsigned RFA goaltender Jeremy Swayman.
Presumably the final AAV for Swayman will come in the $7-8 million range and that doesn’t give the Bruins a lot of spending power for an unsigned RFA like Kaliyev that’s likely to command a $2-3 million contract once he’s signed, sealed and delivered. This is exactly the kind of potential forward acquisition that isn’t going to work cap-wise for the Bruins now because they had to take on the Joonas Korpisalo contract in the Linus Ullmark deal.
But that’s not the only cost as the Bruins would need to kick in some kind of prospect/pick package to deal for the disgruntled forward, who reportedly has requested a trade out of Los Angeles. As we all know now after learning that DeBrusk twice requested a trade during his time with the Boston Bruins, that doesn’t necessarily mean a trade is going to happen when a team still owns a player’s rights during his RFA years.
Jake Debrusk said he requested a trade out of Boston two separate times 👀⬇️
— The Cam & Strick Podcast (@CamandStrick) July 16, 2024
🎧: https://t.co/usZ5iG0XAe
📺: https://t.co/GuP11qYYgV pic.twitter.com/abQGIpVIv5
The more sensible short-term solution for the Bruins is to sign Swayman and bank the remainder of salary cap space to start the season, throw out a couple of training camp invites to qualified veteran candidates like Kailer Yamamoto or Blake Wheeler, and then take the first few months of the next NHL season to give everybody a look playing in a top-6 role. If there’s an in-house solution then a creative option or a trade that might require salary cap adjustments could be explored, but there’s really no reason to pursue that option over the ones they already have in place.
In other words, this humble hockey writer will believe that Kaliyev is a bona fide option for the Bruins when it actually happens. It makes more sense to stick with the status quo and reassess in the middle of the season rather than make salary cap and asset concessions now for a player that’s at an NHL crossroads with the Los Angeles Kings team that drafted and developed him, particularly with the uncertainty of a Swayman contract still hanging over the collective heads of the Black and Gold.
