It might not seem significant on paper, but the Boston Bruins made another small-scale move this week that could pay healthy dividends for them down the road.
It was a late Friday afternoon trade with 24-year-old Swedish defenseman Victor Soderstrom coming to the Bruins and the B’s shipping big Providence defenseman Ryan Mast and a 2025 seventh-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks. The 5-foot-11, 184-pound former first-round pick (11th overall) spent last season in Sweden skating for Brynas IF Gavle after bouncing up and down between the NHL and the AHL for the Arizona Coyotes organization over the previous four seasons.
The righty-shooting Soderstrom was never able to stick with the Coyotes before bolting that troubled organization last season for his home country of Sweden, but did post a goal and 11 points along with a minus-7 rating in 53 NHL games for the Coyotes over the course of four seasons.
On its face this could be written off as another depth move similar to when the Bruins brought in young defensemen Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula a couple of years ago, a pair of players that logged some NHL time while serving more as strong P-Bruins blueliners rather than players capable of making an impact at the NHL level. In other words, they were depth guys, though it should be said that Regula was missed in Providence last season after he was claimed on waivers by the Edmonton Oilers.
It was actually a strange year for Regula, who never played a single AHL game last year after coming off right knee surgery, was claimed by the Oilers, then signed a two-year, two-way contract extension about a month ago to stay with that organization.
But when it comes to Soderstrom, the player brings some right-handed defenseman depth to a team that sorely needed after losing Regula, trading away Brandon Carlo at the NHL trade deadline, having Ian Mitchell facing salary arbitration if they hold onto his rights and facing UFA status with a player in Henri Jokiharju that played pretty well for the Black and Gold after arriving in trade with the Buffalo Sabres at the deadline.
That’s a lot of right-handed D-man question marks behind a player in Charlie McAvoy who has missed 56 games over the last three seasons due to an assortment of injuries.
This could be another “diamond in the rough” situation as when they signed Morgan Geekie after he was non-tendered by the Seattle Kraken, or when they picked up useful NHL players like Parker Wotherspoon, Justin Brazeau or Cole Koepke that were being blocked from the NHL by other organizations.
Shoring up their defensive depth surely wasn’t No. 1 on Boston’s offseason priority list as they’ve mentioned adding a few players up front on multiple occasions, but it’s also not an area they’re going to sleep on either after struggling defensively last season when both McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm went down with injuries.
“We'll have to address [some of the NHL roster players traded away at the NHL trade deadline] from the outside and probably bring in a little bit more experience, as I referenced, on the wing, to spread the scoring ability around. We lost quality people and quality players,” said Don Sweeney at the end-of-season press conference. “That's what made it so professionally and personally painful at the deadline because they've been successful, they're going to continue to be successful. But it's opportunity for somebody else to come in as you reference to take over those minutes.”
It's interesting that Soderstrom declined to re-sign with the Coyotes to go back to Sweden last season and was named the top defenseman in the Swedish Elite League after finishing with nine goals and 37 points in 49 games last season. Soderstrom was involved in a trade going from Arizona to Chicago along with Shea Weber’s contract and Aku Raty in early March, but it seems as if the Blackhawks might not have been an ideal spot for him either with some young Blackhawks defensemen expected to win NHL roster spots this season.
McAvoy and Andrew Peeke are the lone returning right-shot defenseman under contract for the Bruins for next season at this point, so it clearly felt like a good situation for Soderstrom to finally establish himself at the NHL level.
Mast was a sixth-round pick for the Bruins in 2021 and had five assists in 37 games for the Providence Bruins last season, but was not getting playing time with the P-Bruins when the Calder Cup playoffs arrived last spring. He’s a big body and has one year left on his current contract with the Black and Gold, but has not developed into the stay-at-home NHL defenseman, and possible Brandon Carlo replacement, that the Bruins envisioned him to be when they drafted him a handful of years ago.
The trade gives the Bruins flexibility to not bring back some of their P-Bruins defensemen and allows them to be a little less desperate for a right-shot defenseman as NHL free agency approaches in a couple of weeks, and at pretty much zero cost given the draft pick and the prospect involved in the deal.
But don’t expect this to be the end of the wheeling and dealing for the Boston Bruins as they look to remake their NHL roster and add pieces that are going to kick start a retooling of the team under a new head coach, and a general manager admitting that the franchise is entering a new era in their Original Six history.
“[The Marco Sturm coaching hire] was a pivotal moment for our franchise to learn about re-shaping our team, to go through the process of hiring a coach who was committed to re-establishing and renewing our identity and to hiring a coach that was committed to playing with the structure, having an understanding of player development, values communication and culture within our locker room, and understandins the game has evolved offensively and our players and our personnel.
“We need to do that. We need to do a better job of that organizationally, we need to be committed to do that without sacrificing what our fan base [expects], and also to have a coach who understands our fan base and values the same things of being an incredibly hard out each and every night and understands what winning [is about] and enjoys winning.”
The Soderstrom trade doesn’t move the needle much in June, obviously, but it’s a smart hockey trade that could pay dividends for the Black and Gold next season if the Bruins are correct with whatever advanced scouting they’ve done on the player.
