With the NHL draft and free agency looming the next 10 days or so, the Bruins took care of a necessary piece of business on Monday.
The club announced they signed defenseman Mason Lohrei to a two-year extension worth an annual cap hit of $3.2 million. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Lohrei was scheduled to become a restricted free agent on July 1. He will still be an RFA when the deal is up.
The deal allows the player time to continue to grow his game and it also gives the Bruins a couple of years to assess what exactly they have in the slick, offensive-minded defenseman before they make a decision on whether they want to make it a long-term relationship. There is a hope that he’s far from a finished product.
“I feel great about it. I’m happy to have it done and be locked in here for another two years,” said Lohrei by phone, adding that both sides were focused on a bridge deal as opposed to a long-term contract.
In 2024-25, the 24-year-old Lohrei was thrown prematurely into the deep end when Hampus Lindholm suffered what would be a season-ending knee injury in November. With Charlie McAvoy also having his season ended with a shoulder injury/infection in the 4 Nations Faceoff, Lohrei wound up leading the B’s defensemen in scoring with 5-28-33 totals. His average time one ice jumped from 16:57 his rookie season to 19:32 last season.
But he did have his troubles in the defensive zone, as evidenced by his league-worst minus-43. While his gifts in the offensive zone are undeniable, it remains to be seen if he can become a legitimate top-four NHL defenseman.
As difficult as the season was at times, Lohrei believes the experience can only be beneficial to him.
“I think (it will help) a ton,” said Lohrei. “That’s the role that I want to play and I just want to keep building my game until I can do that night in and night out for 82 (games) plus the playoffs. It’s really just invaluable. When the team’s struggling and I’m struggling, it sucks to go through but to look back and have that experience, you’ve got be grateful for it and you have to learn from it. Take this summer and improve on a lot of things and come back next year even hungrier.”
Lohrei is currently on the campus of his old high school Culver Military Academy, focusing on strength-building and improving the quickness of his feet to help him better defend. He’ll return to Boston next week to resume workouts at Warrior Ice Arena.
Lohrei said the Bruins’ new head coach Marco Sturm gave him a call a couple of days after he was hired.
“He said it’s a fresh start for everybody and we just both stressed how excited we are about the group that we have and I’m excited about being able to work with him,” said Lohrei. “He was obviously a great player and I’ve heard great things about him as a coach. One of my best buddies in college (Tate Singleton) played for him a bit last year in Ontario so, yeah, I’ve heard great things and I’m happy to be able to work with him.”
The Lohrei signing gives the Bruins approximately $23 million in salary cap space, per puckpedia.com, and they still have their biggest in-house matter to take care of in RFA Morgan Geekie, who shattered his previous personal bests with a 33-24-57 totals last season. Geekie, who had signed a two-year deal worth $2 million a season in the summer of 2023 after not getting a qualifying offer from the Seattle Kracken, had already taken a big step forward in offensive production in ‘23-24 with 17-22-39 totals.
How much will the Geekie deal be worth? Late season projections by AFP Analytics had him pulling down a four-year deal worth just under $6.6 million. While that’s just a projection, the same outfit was not too far off on a projected Lohrei bridge deal, which AFP Analytics estimated that a short-term deal would come in at just under $3.05 million.
The Geekie contract is not the only one the B’s have to get done. They still have to make decisions on whether to qualify RFAs John Beecher, Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko. Also, they’re still down a top-four defenseman in the wake of the Brandon Carlo deadline deal. They obtained UFA-to-be Henri Jokiharju at the deadline but it’s not yet clear if that was just a stop-gap measure. Jokiharju’s agent JP Barry said in an email to the Herald on Monday that the two sides are still talking but nothing is done yet.
The B’s are also expected to be involved in the free agent and/or trade market. They have the No. 7 pick and two second rounders in the this weekend’s draft as well as an extra first rounder in the next two drafts, so they have some cards to play if they choose to do so….
The new inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame will be announced on Tuesday and two former Bruin captains could head the list as Zdeno Chara and Joe Thornton are eligible for the first time.
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