Why the Boston Bruins Targeted Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov in NHL Free Agency

Why the Boston Bruins Targeted Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov in NHL Free Agency

out of the vast array of available NHL free agents why did the Boston Bruins Target Elias Lindholm and Nikita zadorov your locked on Bruins your daily podcast on the Boston Bruins part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day [Music] what is up Bruins fans and welcome back to the locked on Boston Bruins podcast I’m your host Ian McLaren and this is a Daily Show where we discuss all things spoked be today is Tuesday July 2 and I want to thank you so much for making lock on Bruins part of your daily routine free and available on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day and today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel as uh the Major League Baseball season is pretty much the sole point of Focus right now FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily that’s right there’s something for everyone every day all summer long visit fanduel.com lockon to get started and before we get started a quick reminder you can find the podcast on social media at locked NHL Bruins and you can find me my hockey thoughts dad jokes at ianc McLaren and I had a lot of thoughts yesterday July 1 as NHL free agency began and it became clear that the Bruins were going to be targeting two specific players that they were indeed able to sign now before we start we will be getting into a whole wide range of topics over the next month there is a ton to talk vot including the free agents that left the Boston Bruins and signed elsewhere a bunch in Vancouver uh there’s updates on Jeremy Swan to tackle there’s what the Bruins are still lacking that we need to talk about a whole bunch of stuff coming up as we remain daily through the month of July but today we’re focusing on Elias Lindholm and Nikita zadorov as Boston’s uh primary free agent signings on Tuesday now Don Sweeney after the dust had settled said that these are two players that they targeted and identified independently with the scouting staff because they check off boxes that they feel can help them win when it matters most uh he said the Bruins have been very competitive over the past couple of Seasons they’ve had great success in the regular season but not the success they expect in the playoffs and these types of players should help in that regard uh we’ll talk also about Max Jones and Riley tufty uh who will help Shore up the team’s death but right now we’re focusing on lindol who signed a seven-year 7 point 75 per season million contract uh he last played for the Vancouver Canucks of course he was traded there by the Calgary Flames a fifth round sorry a fifth overall pick in 2013 he’s entering his 12th NHL campaign he will turn 30 on N uh December 2nd he was born in 1994 and he’s coming off a season in which he scored only 15 goals and recorded 44 points in 65 games between the flames and the Canucks but he did have a pretty good playoff Sweeney acknowledged lindol doesn’t feel like he played as well as he was capable of last season and he did step up his game in the playoffs I believe he did have five goals 10 points in 13 games there’s a better opportunity for him in Boston to play with an elite player in David poock a top six role he’ll be the bumper on the power play and um you know Sweeney said they have been pursuing this guy for a couple years really and way back in the draft they identified lindome as a player with a lot of Patrice Bon qualities um The Scouting staff has been following him watching him grow again it’s been about a two-year pursuit of lindol and they had questions as to whether he would ever get to free agency they pursued him in trades last year with the Calgary Flames uh they had chances at the deadline he said Sweeney said but it didn’t materialize so when he became available as a free agent he’s the guy that they immediately uh wanted to Target and you know lindome acknowledged the fact that he has some berson in his game he doesn’t want to be compared to berson necessarily which is completely Fair uh but you can’t deny that that exists in his game that he is a very good two-way player um and he’s a guy that can help this team immediately whether the contract will age well we’ll have to see um ly holes said as soon as Boston came in it was exciting for himself and his family he was pumped he believes it’s a good fit and uh you know playing in the league for a long time you look at Patrice berson as much as possible he doesn’t want to compare him to berson but he thinks he can bring a little bit of what he did the Bruins are hoping he can bring a lot of what he did and ultimately the goal is to come in and win a Stanley Cup um lot of history a lot of great players in Boston he’s heard a lot about the city the players the families and um he’s excited obviously to play alongside David poock um lindol of course is strong in the faceoff dot as well 53.5% for his career 56.4% last season that was a big factor in the series against the Florida Panthers they did not have reliable guys in the faceoff Circle and um Charlie Coyle you know he’s kind of slotted in the third line Center spot but he did have a great year last year Pavo zaka did as well maybe he will move to the wing so that you still have Coyle zaka and now linol all in the top six Matt ptra we’ll touch on him later on this week back at development Camp healthy um he could perhaps jump into the top six lindol though has played Topline roll situations [Music] um back in Calgary with Johnny godo Matthew kachuck and he is a guy that will slot in and play with David poso to form Boston’s new best line so why did the Bruins Target Lind well of course they see his defensive responsibility they see him uh proficient in the faceoff Circle they see that he has had some good um offensive seasons in the past he did have that one 41 goal 40 assist season a couple years ago he did have a season where he finished second in suy Trophy voting 42 goals and 40 assists I should say he did have another season where he had 27 goals and 78 assists uh for his career he’s got 557 points in 818 games so you average that over an 82 Game season he’s averaging about 56 points per season over the course of his career which kind of lines up with what Coyle and zaka achieved last season that was my one complaint with this signing is that you kind of already have similar guys to Lind Holm in Coyle and zaka um and ly Holmes turning 30 here would it have been better to Target someone with more offensive upside that’s really what the Bruins are lacking we’ll touch on that later in the podcast but the Bruins clearly had targeted Lind Holm for quite some time Sweeney said they had been watching him since his draft year as a guy who um could become what they had in Patrice berson that was back in 2013 the Bruins did not have a first round pick that year they had traded it to Dallas for yir yogger Jason Dickinson was picked 29th overall they weren’t going to sniff the uh fifth overall selection lindol does rank third in his draft class class for total points behind only Nathan McKinnon and Alexander barov uh it’s the length of the contract for me it’s his age already close to 30 but for the time being to begin this deal it’s going to be it should work out pretty well for the Boston Bruins now let’s move on and discuss uh Nikita zadorov as the podcast continues ah it’s the summertime now Canada day is come and gone Fourth of July is later this week the sports just aren’t sportting as we like them to and there’s fewer games FanDuel however is letting you keep the sports going whenever you want all you have to do is open their app dream up bets anytime you’re in the mood this summer FanDuel is hooking up all customers with boosts and bonuses every single day all you have to do is download the FanDuel app or go online use promo code locked on NHL and oh sorry promo code locked on and start making the most out of your summer again all summer long you can get boosts and bonuses you can bet on the Red Sox over under uh for today against the Miami Marland is set at eight runs so put some money down on that see what happens get boosts and bonuses at FanDuel use promo code uh locked on to get those daily boosts and bonuses fanduel.com lockon FanDuel is the official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball thank you so much once again for making lock on Bruins part of your daily routine free in available on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day while you’re on YouTube check out locked on sports today part of the uh locked on Universe all the latest news opinions and Analysis and uh you can get it free 247 on YouTube and the Amazon Fire TV channels app the other significant signing that the Bruins made on Monday was Nikita zador of a uh 29y old defenseman who last year played for both the calvary flames and the Vancouver Canucks uh he signed a six-year 30 million contract with the Bruins and will help stabilize the left side and allow for some development for Mason lorai in less pressure situations uh he’s a huge blue liner he was selected 16th overall back in 2013 uh played 11 NHL Seasons again a product of that 2013 draft in which the Bruins did not have uh a first round pick uh and he will continue his career with the Boston Bruins after spending last season partly with the Vancouver he played for Calgary Chicago Colorado and had been drafted by the Buffalo sabes five of his seasons were spent in Colorado he had six goals 20 points and 75 games between Vancouver and Calgary last season uh his career-high goals is 14 22 points is his career high um in terms of overall production but his presence and his intimidation Factor on the blue line is what the Bruins were value there he said Don Sweeney said that um playing a lot of top four minutes in the playoffs against top guys comes with a bit of swagger and zadorov has certainly seen his game grow probably get a little more defined in what he’s capable of doing early in his career he was a lot of nights tried to make an impact and he made it for both teams at times Sween he acknowledged like all young players do that are overaggressive in that sense but now he really understands his game what he brings to the table uh he’s very excited and obviously um he might have a chance to play with Charlie McAvoy and that is uh going to be a pretty booming pair lyol even said in his uh Zoom availability that he was looking forward to being on the other side of Charlie makoy hits uh as a member of the Boston Bruins Zadora was very intent when he found out the Bruins had interest and that’s why they’re excited to bring him in uh he’ll be able to compliment a number of different partners on the back end uh playing for Daryl Sutter in Calgary was really important for him Sweeney said getting him into an understanding of what he’s capable of doing each and every night uh he had good playoff experience with Vancouver they started to see the player that he’s capable of being his game continues to evolve and um Sweeny believes Jim Montgomery will be able to get a lot out of him um dorov said there were a few teams in the mix they had a long conversation with Vancouver and he said why did he choose the Bruins he said everything the culture in the organization um uh he said he hadn’t heard a bad thing in his 11 years of about the Bruins culture about the team and the players who play have come and gone there uh so he said it pretty much it was a no-brainer for him when he found out the Bruins were interested to come to play for an original six team um when he played in his first year they had zido Cho Patrice Bron uh all the guys that helped the Bruins win a Cup in 2011 go to the final in 2013 and and um you know he was asked Point Blank if he models his game after Zid oara he said it’s hard he’s not even close to his level but um he does get the inevitable big Z and he said straight up please do not ever call me big Z again because he’s not even close to half of the big Z he was unbelievable one of the best defensemen of all time and definitely a lot to learn from him he’s still around and he was one of his role models growing up because he had the same kind of physical play and size and he wants to learn a lot from him so uh that could be a good sign for sure um he was drafted as more of an offensive guy and he had some offensive upside in junior when Buffalo picked him in the first round he was running some power play in Buffalo and Colorado and um now he doesn’t rely so much on the offensive part of his game he uh worked a lot with Rick toet who helped him hone the details of playing defense and um the Bruins he thinks he can fit into their game kind of that Simplicity moving the puck up jumping in where necessary but being uh defensively aw A Ware and responsible and um he should be an asset for the Boston Bruins on the back end do we love the $5 million aav do we love the fact that he’s again gonna be 30 next year not necessarily but uh these two guys do have experience playing together a of course um but they had acknowledged um yeah lindol and zadorov had acknowledged that it would be a great place to play together and it worked out perfect it’s their third team in the past four or his third team in the past four years and hopefully he’s able to stay there for a while again both guys pushing 30 uh but they do have experience playing together in Vancouver and Calgary and as a pair as a tandem they should come in and hit the ground running again it’s difficult to come in into a new organiz ation and not have that familiarity with some of the guys but at least they know each other and will be able to hit the ground running overall I think I’m pretty comfortable with these contracts I think Lind home may be a bit I would have liked to have seen him come in closer to to seven million um you saw Stephen stampco sign in Nashville for four years at eight million I was pretty outspoken about wanting to pursue him obviously there needs to be mutual interest when it comes to free agent signings who knows if Stam Coos had any appetite but the Bruins still do lack some scoring and while Sweeney says lindol and zadorov should help them in the playoffs I I fully agree with that they will be harder to play against and they certainly are yeah more difficult uh to score on with these guys in the lineup a former staly finalist a huge body on defense it allows like I said Mason lorai to not have the pressure of being in the top four maybe can run the second power play unit get some more sheltered minutes as impressive as he was it’s good not to throw him right into the fire right away but the Bruins still need some scoring points the reason they lost to the Panthers wasn’t necessarily because they’re not a great defensive team they weren’t able to generate shots they weren’t able to generate offense they still need that offensive punch and that’s something that we’re going to talk about uh later on this week as to what they still need but lindol zadorov in a vacuum those are two good signings they were two guys that were highly sought after in free agency they get them as a package deal uh and and they should make this team better straight up you can quibble about the term about their ages about the cap hits but at the end of the day uh these are two very good players who will make the Bruins harder to play against full stop the Bruins added a couple other guys who will challenge for uh some roster spots and we’ll discuss those two guys here as the podcast uh continues a lot was made of Boston’s pursuit to get back into the first round of the 2024 entry draft they selected Dean lerno 25th overall we talked about how the Bruins now have two guys who are drafted high in the 2013 NHL draft in the first round and they also signed a couple guys who were drafted in the first round of the 2016 NHL entry draft uh they signed on Monday uh first max Jones to a two-year contract worth $2 million a $1 million average annual evaluation and he was selected 24th overall in 2016 played the first six seasons of his career with the Anaheim Ducks uh he had 15 points in 52 games last season after setting career highs and goals nine and point 19 in 69 games the season before uh Sweeney said Jones really covets the opportunity to come to Boston he’s been an intriguing player uh not just because of where he was drafted but his size his ability to for check the ability to possess pucks he shown a willingness to get to the net he can finish a little bit more if he’s pushed up the lineup and play with guys they’re that’s what they’re going to find out in terms of Max so this is a guy that uh could be a value signing he was you know highly touted coming out of uh the the NHL draft uh he plays both sides he has that possession game that Jim Montgomery wants to have um he is good on the four check and is a guy that they see could perhaps have some value uh there on a rather lowrisk uh potentially High reward deal he uh wasn’t the most prolific scorer in junior he played for the London Knights and the Kingston front knacks he had UH 60 or sorry 52 points and 63 uh games in his draft season uh the knights did have a winning team that year and he was um further down the depth chart behind Mitch Marner Matthew kachuck Christian Dvorak actually led the team in scoring that year uh again his best years have been over the past couple uh in and out of the lineup but he did have nine goals in 69 games in 2022 23 and the Bruins think they could have something there uh a guy who just didn’t quite pop with the Anaheim Ducks perhaps perhaps he will be able to find his game with uh with Boston they also signed Riley tufty a Winger who was drafted uh 25th overall in 2016 and again they’re looking for Value here from guys who didn’t quite pop with their respective teams this was the draft in which uh the Bruins selected Charlie McAvoy 14th overall Trent Fred went 29th overall after Jones and tufty tufty uh appeared in um only five games with the Colorado Avalanche last season he was drafted by the Dallas Stars originally bounced back and forth between the AHL and NHL he had uh 19 goals 35 points in 63 games in his final seon season in the Stars organization playing with the ahl’s Texas Stars played five games for the ABS last season with a goal and an assist 67 games with the Colorado Eagles 23 goals and 22 assists for 45 total points and again he’s a guy that perhaps could compete for some playing time in the bottom six likely destined for the AHL but you never know uh Jones probably has a bit more upside but again you value so many people put value on getting first round picks developing players and then having them pop as members of your organization but there’s also something to be said for looking back and seeing if there’s value from recent drafts guys that were taken higher that still have some potential that could indeed um benefit from a change of scenery and given a an opportunity could become something uh tufty was a multicategory stud in the AHL and never quite able to uh catch on in Colorado or in Dallas but this is a guy who has some upside and um has some potential could use his size a bit more by all accounts he is 66 236 pounds uh but he has been unable to hold an NHL role despite a few call-ups from Dallas and Colorado so maybe the Bruins can mine something out of him at the end of the day the Bruins got the two big fish that they were after in lindome and zadorov it appears as though they are done for the time being we will discuss tomorrow on the podcast the latest with Jeremy Swan that has yet to be announced and uh we’ll discuss why we’ll discuss what’s next we’ll discuss what the holdup is and uh maybe touch on some of these other depth signings that they made as well um in terms of Cole Ki Jeff Veil some of these guys that you may have heard about yesterday lindhome zadorov the Bruins believe they are the perfect fits uh time will tell if they’re contracts age well but for now I’m pretty happy with uh what they were able to get what they bring to the Boston Bruins I do believe this team could be better than last season but there also are some holes on the roster there also are some areas where they need to improve what they’re going to be looking at internally and we’ll discuss that again later this week looking at opportunities for Fabian lysel and Georgie merkulov that now exist that’s it for today’s episode my friends thank you so much for joining me here on locked on Boston Bruins please do subscribe to keep up on all the latest uh on YouTube on your favorite podcast app and we’ll be back tomorrow to discuss anything else that breaks today as well as the latest with respect to Jeremy Swan take care friends [Music]

The Boston Bruins landed the two free agents they were most keen on, signing center Elias Lindholm to a 7 year deal worth $7.75 million annually along with defenseman Nikita Zadorov to a 5 year contract worth $6 million annually.

Locked on Boston Bruins host Ian McLaren discusses why General Manager Don Sweeney targeted these two players specifically, and why they’re both being compared to (but don’t want to be compared to) Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara.

The length and value of the deals may be higher than we want, and these players are both nearing 30, but they should make the team better in the near term.

Plus, the Bruins are hoping to get value out of 2016 first round picks Max Jones and Riley Tufte.

Later this week we’ll touch on Jeremy Swayman, the now former Bruins who signed elsewhere, and what Boston still needs to fill out the roster.

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