Winners and Losers of the Bruins-Senators Linus Ullmark-Joonas Korpisalo Trade
Two historic things happened on Monday, June 24, 2024.
The Florida Panthers, via Game 7, won the Stanley Cup for the first time in their 30 years of existence. Also, the Ottawa Senators made a positive roster transaction.
The Senators acquired Vezina-winning goalie Linus Ullmark from the Bruins for depth forward Mark Kastelic, goalie Joonas Korpisalo and the 2024 No. 25 overall draft pick. Ottawa will retain 25 percent of Korpisalo's salary.
The 30-year-old has four years left on his $20,000 million deal, so the Bruins will end up paying $3 million per year. Although cheaper than Ullmark, Korpisalo has been a disappointment for the Senators, amassing a .890 save percentage and -16.1 goals saved above expected, according to Moneypuck.com in what was supposed to be a much better 2023-24.
Meanwhile, Ullmark has one more year left on this contract at a $5 million salary cap hit. He ended last season just as solid as his Vezina-winning 2022-23, with a .915 save percentage, 2.57 goals-against average, and 14.8 goals saved above expected.
It's an inevitable downgrade for the Bruins, but they've acquired a first-round pick they've desperately needed. Was it worth it?
Winners: the Ottawa Senators, for Once
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Are you telling me the Senators were able to unload Korpisalo and 25 percent of his contract and acquired recent Vezina winner Ullmark in the process? Granted, they surrendered a 2024 first-round pick, but they've had enough prospects cooking for a minute now and have been expected to inch closer to the playoffs the past few seasons.
Ottawa's youth movement had particularly high expectations last season as folks hoped the emerging key players would put it all together. It didn't happen for plenty of reasons: perhaps the kids just need a little more time, the Shane Pinto gambling incident took him out for half the season, the goalie tandem of Korpisalo and Anton Forsberg wasn't the best-case scenario or even a decent-case scenario management was banking on, and the East was a gauntlet.
The good news? Ullmark is the perfect stabilizer to directly alleviate the most pressing issue of the bunch, and Pinto had a great end -- along with a great attitude -- to last season.
Losers: The Bruins' Active Roster
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The Bruins are objectively worse without Ullmark, no matter how good Jeremy Swayman is. The tandem was the strongest element of the roster after Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci's retirements, and other cap-space casualties. Looking back at the past two seasons in all their historic, complicated glory, none of it had been willed into existence without this tandem.
This was especially evident in the playoff losses. The defensive lapses were palpable all over the ice, and Swayman and Ullmark prevented countless egregious turnovers from ending up in Boston's net. Having a true 1a, 1a tandem is so rare that perhaps that was the source of constant confusion surrounding these past few Bruins seasons.
How are they doing this? How aren't they doing this (last season's playoff collapse)? How are they even qualifying for the playoffs while losing their top two centers and not replacing them?
The answer to most of the Bruins' recent mysteries is this: They had two of the five top goalies in the entire league for the past two seasons. It wasn't realistic to keep both of them, and keeping Swayman was the right choice. But it makes the team objectively worse, and it'll make the past few years make more sense.
Winners: the Future of the Bruins
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The Bruins haven't had a first-round pick in two years. Their tortured prospect department has been well-documented. They've got close to nothin' when the vague future comes, and that vague future started coming when Bergeron and Krejci retired and the Bruins' front office lacked both draft and cap capital.
The Bruins weren't supposed to hang on the season before Bergeron's retirement, or the season after it, but by the power of Goalie Hugs and constantly trading your first-round pick, they did. To some degree, you have to hand it to Bruins GM Don Sweeney for not totally blowing it up. He understands Boston is a demanding market, and he fed into fan demands by helping keep the team relevant.
But it was getting to a breaking point with both dilemmas and pulling from an area of strength to get some cap space and a first-rounder is a pragmatic move from Sweeney. Perhaps the Bruins could have made out better if an Ullmark extension was in place, but for reasons currently unclear, that wasn't the case.
The last time the Bruins selected at No. 25, they picked David Pastrnak.
Bruins fans have become so used to Sweeney going all in for the current roster, and Ullmark is so beloved, that the move was going to sting regardless. But the Bruins have used the current-roster-first strategy forever in the Sweeney era, and they haven't won the Stanley Cup since 2011. They don't have any first-rounders left to give, they don't have money left to spend, and they have put up a fight every season for the past decade. There's nothing wrong with seeing that for what it is.
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It's a Draw: the Bruins Social Media Team
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The Bruins have an awesome social media team, highlighted by breakout talent Elaine Cavillari's work on TikTok this season and the collective effort with the Centennial content this year. This is absolutely no shade to them.
But imagine one of your most lovable franchise players, 1/2 of the best goalie tandem in the league, gets traded away. Now imagine an incredibly rare Stanley Cup Final Game 7 with historic implications happening an hour later. I'm just saying, if it were me sending out the tweet, I'd be thrilled to have an immediate distraction from the comments.
But news dump giveth, and news dump taketh away. The Bruins' social team gained in avoiding vitriol that shouldn't have been directed towards them in the first place, but they lost the Goalie Hug.
Dang it, we all lost the Goalie Hug.
Pour one out.
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