Bruins overpay for Tanner Jeannot on Day 1 of NHL free agency originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Bruins have not fared very well in NHL free agency during Don Sweeney’s decade-long tenure as general manager, and his latest contract is a head-scratcher.

The B’s and left wing Tanner Jeannot have agreed to a five-year, $17 million contract, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The deal carries a $3.4 million cap hit.

Jeannot is a physical player (sixth-most hits in the league over the last four years) who can sometimes add a scoring punch, but he has not been a productive offensive player for a while.

Jeannot scored 24 goals with the Predators during the 2021-22 season, but he has scored only 20 goals over the last three years combined. The 28-year-old left wing tallied 13 points (seven goals, six assists) in 67 games for the Kings last season.

Tanner Jeannot, signed 5x$3.4M by BOS, is a physical low-event depth winger who does practically nothing with the puck and punishes opposing players who try to do things with it. #NHLBruinspic.twitter.com/YWKsvs03Zs

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) July 1, 2025

A $3.4 million cap hit is a steep price for a player with one 10-goal season in his career and who will probably fill a bottom-six role for the Bruins. He also isn’t likely to be much of a factor on the power play or penalty kill.

Sure, the salary cap is expected to go up significantly in the coming years, but every dollar counts. And unless Jeannot rediscovers his goal-scoring form from the 2021-22 campaign, this contract will not age well.

The Bruins were one of the league’s worst offensive teams last season. They cannot afford to use up valuable cap space on players of Jeannot’s caliber.

Giving him a five-year deal was an odd move as well. A two- or three-year contract would have made more sense.

The Bruins now have around $5.3 million in cap space after signing Jeannot and trading for Edmonton Oilers left wing Viktor Arvidsson earlier on Tuesday.

After a long saga with several curveballs and rumors, the Vegas Golden Knights have finally got their man, completing a sign-and-trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which will see Mitch Marner sign with the Golden Knights on an eight-year, $12-million AAV deal, and Nicolas Roy join the Maple Leafs. 

Over the last couple of days, the Golden Knights and the Maple Leafs have been working hard to complete the sign-and-trade, which has opened up cap space for the Golden Knights, allowing them to sign Marner. The 28-year-old will play his first NHL games outside of Toronto after scoring 221 goals and 741 points in 657 career games.

His time with the Maple Leafs ends on a sour note, but the former fourth overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft was once hailed as the next homegrown talent who could help lead the Maple Leafs to win a Stanley Cup alongside Auston Matthews and William Nylander. With several playoff failures and fans growing frustrated with playoff shortcomings from Marner, he's decided to venture out of his comfort zone. 

Marner is one of the best pure playmakers in the NHL and will likely spend the next eight years next to Jack Eichel, who is now eligible for a contract extension. Eichel and Marner have career highs in goals of 36 and 35, both of which will likely increase once the pair benefits from each other's stellar playmaking. 

Heading the other way in the deal is Roy, a versatile 28-year-old forward who has been everything the Golden Knights have needed in their bottom-six. Prior to joining the Golden Knights, Roy had played just seven NHL games, but he leaves the franchise with 362 games of experience. With the Golden Knights, the 6-foot-4 center scored 68 goals and 166 assists.

OFFICIAL: The Vegas Golden Knights have acquired Mitch Marner from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for Nicolas Roy 🔄

Details: https://t.co/R9Dl2l7ZBA#VegasBornpic.twitter.com/euh3G8Q9IN

— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) July 1, 2025

With the Maple Leafs, Roy will be the third-line center they have been missing. Although he's a career 47.7-percent faceoff winner, the Maple Leafs have lacked a right-handed center, and he will fill that void nicely.

With two seasons left on a $3-million cap hit, Roy will provide the Maple Leafs with immense value and will be dearly missed in Vegas. 

In all, the Golden Knights and general manager Kelly McCrimmon have once again been the most aggressive team in chasing the top fish to improve their team. 

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Report: Golden Knights Acquire Mitch Marner From Maple Leafs In Eight-Year DealAfter nine years with the Maple Leafs, Marner is officially headed to Vegas.

The Toronto Maple Leafs made their trade of Mitch Marner official on Tuesday morning.

After more than a year of speculation about the star player's future, the player signed a seven-year extension worth $12 million per season with the Vegas team. The team announced that the player will wear his favorite No. 93, in their official announcement of the deal.

VIVA MITCH MARNER 🤩 pic.twitter.com/Aq9Wp87cjA

— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) July 1, 2025

Marner wore No. 93 during his time in Junior with the London Knights and the number is still associated with his social media handles despite the fact that he wore No. 16 with the Maple Leafs. The number was a dual tribute. The first being for his favorite player growing up, former Maple Leafs captain Doug Gilmour, and it was also the birth year for his older brother.

The No. 93 in Toronto is currently retired in Gilmour's honor. 

Report: Maple Leafs Trade Mitch Marner To Vegas Golden Knights, Agrees To Eight-Year Deal Worth $12 Million AAVMitch Marner is on his way to Las Vegas.

Marner leaves Toronto as the club's fifth-leading point-getter of all time with 221 goals and 520 assists in 657 games. Had he stayed in Toronto, there was a good chance that his No. 16 could be retired someday. Now, his exit is being compared similar to that of Vince Carter with the Toronto Raptors when he requested to be moved.

In the end, time healed all wounds and Carter's number was eventually retired. Perhaps after some time, the same will happen for No. 16.  But we'll see. Marner's first game back in Toronto next season will certainly be a must-see for a lot of reasons.

(Photo credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images)

'I Would Love To Play My Whole Career Here': Inside Steven Lorentz's Three-Year Extension With The Maple LeafsToronto Maple Leafs forward Steven Lorentz is staying at home. Report: Maple Leafs Lose Out On Brad Marchand Who Signing Six-Year Extension With PanthersBrad Marchand reportedly won't be hitting NHL free agency after all. Maple Leafs Trade for Matias Maccelli: Why Toronto Acquired Winger From Utah MammothThe Toronto Maple Leafs have acquired Matias Maccelli from the Utah Mammoth in exchange for a conditional third-round draft pick in 2027, which will convert to a second-round draft pick in 2029 if Maccelli record at least 51 points in the 2025-26 NHL season.

After losing Ryan Poehling in the Trevor Zegras trade, the Philadelphia Flyers need another reliable two-way center.

While Zegras may very well end up converting back to center full-time, he's not the guy the Flyers want playing high-pressure defensive minutes, and especially not on the penalty kill.

There are a quite a few interesting veteran options for that archetype of player on the NHL free agent market this year, but the Flyers, just like at the goalie position, will face hot competition from Stanley Cup contenders.

Names like Radek Faksa, Nick Bjugstad, and Nico Sturm would be fantastic stopgap options, but with a little extra searching, the Flyers can find themselves a more permanent replacement in Joe Veleno.

Veleno, 25, is a former first-round pick who is set to be bought out by the Seattle Kraken after being traded by the Chicago Blackhawks for Andre Burakovsky last week.

Veleno was, of course, already traded once this season, with the Detroit Red Wings bringing in Petr Mrazek and Craig Smith and sending Veleno to Chicago.

All in all, the 2024-25 season was a tougher go for the former 30th overall pick, although Veleno's five points in 16 games with Chicago was markedly better than the 10 points he had in 56 games with the Red Wings.

Coming into the year, Veleno was fresh off a career-high 28 points with the Red Wings, emerging as a strong penalty killer and a physical presence.

Veleno's GAR card above is similar to Poehling's before he joined the Flyers; Veleno's is more well-rounded, while Poehling was in the 80th percentile of defense due to some elite penalty kill play.

If the Flyers are in on Veleno, they'll get some intel from defenseman Jamie Drysdale, who won the 2019-20 IIHF U20 Men's World Championships with Veleno and Canada a few years back.

Going back another year, Veleno played with Flyers forward Owen Tippett and former Flyers center Morgan Frost on the 2018-19 U20 Canada team.

The 25-year-old is having a two-year, $4.55 million contract cut short with the buyout, so it's unlikely Veleno will cost the Flyers much more than something in the range of $1 million. 

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound forward has thrown over 100 hits in each full season of his NHL career and is a respectable 46.6% for his career in the faceoff dot.

The combination of size, potential, physicality, and versatility should be attractive to a smaller Flyers team, and Veleno is much more seasoned than Rodrigo Abols, for example.

He should be one of their top targets heading into the start of NHL free agency Tuesday.