whether the Bruins should give him a huge raise<\/a> on a long-term deal. But there’s no denying that his current contract, which expires after the upcoming season, has been a bargain.<\/p>\nZacha set career highs with 30 goals and 65 points last season. He has scored 20-plus goals in three of the last four seasons after failing to hit that mark in the first six years of his career (all with the New Jersey Devils). <\/p>\n
Zacha’s offensive production and versatility have made him a valuable player for Boston at a premium position. He is the team’s best center despite being paid less than $5 million per season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
3. Morgan Geekie, Right wing<\/p>\n
Contract: $5.5 million salary cap hit, expires after 2030-31 season<\/p>\n
The Bruins have signed Geekie to two different contracts since 2023, and both were great deals for the team. The first was a two-year, $4 million deal from 2023 through 2025. His current contract is a six-year, $33 million deal. <\/p>\n
Geekie scored a career-high 33 goals in a contract year in 2024-25, and then after getting paid, he scored a career-high 39 goals last season. Geekie ranked 15th in goals scored in 2025-26, and 202 players will have a higher cap hit than him next season. <\/p>\n
A 30-plus goal scorer making less than $6 million against the cap is very strong value for the B’s. He doesn’t kill penalties and won’t lock anyone down defensively, but his offensive production far exceeds his salary.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
2. Jeremy Swayman, Goaltender<\/p>\n
Contract: $8.25 million salary cap hit, expires after 2031-32 season <\/p>\n
The Swayman contract was criticized at the time it was signed. It took a while to get done — Swayman didn’t sign until shortly before the 2024-25 opener and missed training camp — and then he didn’t play well that season.<\/p>\n
But he bounced back in a significant way last season and was named a Vezina Trophy finalist for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There’s been a lot of discussion about whether you need a high-paid goalie to win the Stanley Cup in today’s NHL. Some people say you don’t need to spend big at the position anymore. Well, if the Colorado Avalanche or Edmonton Oilers had devoted more cap space on a top-tier goalie, they’d probably have more Stanley Cup titles over the last 10 years. Six of the last seven Stanley Cup Final series have featured at least one goalie with a cap hit of $8.5 million or higher.<\/p>\n
Swayman is a top-five goalie and covered up a lot of Bruins mistakes last season, and his performance as a starting netminder in the playoffs has been very impressive. His contract will be an absolute bargain if he continues to play at (or near) the level he did last season. <\/p>\n
1. David Pastrnak, Right wing<\/p>\n
Contract: $11.25 million salary cap hit, expires after 2030-31 season<\/p>\n
Pastrnak is one of the top seven or top five offensive players in the sport, and he’s still in the prime of his career. In an era when elite forwards are starting to make $17-18 million per season, having Pastrnak signed for just above $11 million per year for five more seasons is crazy good value for Boston. <\/p>\n
His cap hit is the 17th-highest in the league, per PuckPedia. Not bad for a player who has finished top 10 in Hart Trophy voting three of the last four years (and a finalist in 2022-23).<\/p>\n
Pastrnak has tallied 314 points over the last three seasons, which is the fourth-most among all players during that span. Only Nikita Kucherov (395), Nathan MacKinnon (383) and Connor McDavid (370) have contributed more. Pastrnak’s 116 goals in that span are the sixth-most, and his 197 assists are the fifth-most. The superstar right wing isn’t just an elite goal scorer. He is a world-class playmaker, too, coming off a season in which he set a career high in assists with 71.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL’s salary cap is rising, and so are contracts. A few weeks ago, the Anaheim Ducks matched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,5789,54993,64076,575,407877,85],"class_list":["post-835959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-bruins","tag-david-pastrnak","tag-jeremy-swayman","tag-nhl","tag-nick-goss","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}