With Brandon Carlo signed, Don Sweeney’s work is done — for now - The Boston Globe
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney finally put away his 55-gallon drum of midnight oil Tuesday morning, tying up Brandon Carlo, the last member of the club’s free agent class this summer, to a deal that will pay the towering, talented young defenseman an average $2.85 million the next two seasons.
Sweeney is happy, his roster full now, with just enough salary-cap room remaining (approximately $1.2 million) to buy his swashbuckling troops a round of drafts and hot cheesy somethings at TD Garden.
Sweeney, his roster complete and hopeful that his club can wring out just one more playoff win than it did last June, won’t have much time to rest. With the puck set to drop on the new season Oct. 4, he has 10 roster players, including top-scoring blue liner Torey Krug, on target to become free agents as of July 1.
Even before shift No. 1 of the 2019-20 season, more midnight oil, please. That is half the roster.
“There’s no prioritization from the standpoint of one player being in front of the other player,” said Sweeney, asked how he’ll proceed with the group, seven of whom are pegged to be unrestricted free agents.
“It’s just, you know, having the ability to communicate that you have to make those decisions, maybe based on [finances] sometimes, and maybe based on who’s potentially coming along to replace those players.”
It is obvious, however, that Krug, who is Carlo’s blue line partner, has to be considered Job 1 on Sweeney’s Summer 2020 to-do list. Krug is the power-play quarterback and has emerged the last couple of seasons as one of the game’s overall premier back-end diminutive dynamos.
