NHL trade grades: Bruins send Linus Ullmark to Senators

Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporterJun 24, 2024, 09:02 PM ET

CloseRyan S. Clark is an NHL reporter for ESPN.

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

June 19 saw Jacob Markstrom dealt to the New Jersey Devils and Darcy Kuemper land with the Los Angeles Kings.

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 in exchange for Joonas Korpisalo, Mark Kastelic and a 2024 first-round pick that was originally the Bruins’ first-round that they parted with in a previous trade. The Senators agreed to retain 25% — or $1 million per year of Korpisalo’s $5 million contract, which has four more seasons remaining.

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

Simply put, Senators GM Steve Staios isn’t playing.

It was just last offseason when the Senators signed Korpisalo to a that five-year deal worth $5 million annually. That move, along with signing Vladimir Tarasenko in free agency to replace Alex DeBrincat, who they traded to the Detroit Red Wings, were among the moves that created the belief the Sens were going to be in position to 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 then-GM Pierre Dorion, and replaced him with Staios, who is the president of hockey operations, adding interim GM to those duties before he became the team’s full-time GM on Dec. 31.

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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…


Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/story/_/id/40425119/nhl-trade-grade-2024-linus-ullmark-bruins-senators-draft-picks

Author : Ryan S. Clark

Publish date : 2024-06-25 02:04:35

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