Fluto Shinzawa just posted a few minutes ago that Torey Krug is likely going to have to prepare for free agency. Which kind of shows you the teams direction and though process on replacing him with grz. Next years d lines are going to be interesting.

Bruins don’t have cap space for Krug, even if he signed a team-friendly deal

you should probably look at the teams space they do have the room lol.

~18m in space. having to really only sign grz, debrusk, bjork, kuhlman, senyshyn, zboril, jfk if he comes back. nobody on that list gets more than 4 a year right now. that being said krug even at a discount will still be overpaid to be a pp qb. That being said i dont want krug at what his cap hit will be.

Not many contenders will have enough space to sign him. Maybe WSH could squeeze him in if they let Holtby and a couple other UFAs walk. Krug-Carlson would be a crazy offensive pair. More realistically I think NJD could be in on him - they have tons of cap space, he wouldnt have to move far, and they do have a young core so maybe they can start being competitive soon

DeBrusk is a legit second line guy who could push Marchand or Bergeron in the coming years. I can see another team making him an offer. If a team is willing to overpay him, I see 6mil as the max

jake debrusk was on pace for 44 points this year... you think thats worth 6m aav right now?

Hes definitely not worth 6M yet. Hes a middle 6 guy with top 6 upside. I think something around 4M is more likely

I think plenty of teams could give him the bag. i could see him coming back on a 1 year deal for a slight raise with the bruins as a last hoorah sorta deal. but outside of that i dont see nor do i really want the bruins to sign him.

I think you can look at the kapanen and johnsson deals from last year and he gets the kapanen deal. or something in between. 4 years is the only term the bruins shouldnt do as that walks him straight to ufa.

Boston is in a good enough spot to where they can afford to let Krug walk, even if they do have the cap space.

I feel Grzelcyk can easily step into Krug's role on the 2nd pair and still be successful. Krug didn't play against top lines regularly so it shouldn't be too much of a step up for Grz. The real test would be on the PP where Krug thrived. McAvoy looks primed to take that spot, but if they want to keep him on PP2 to reserve his minutes for 5v5 and the PK, Grz can step in and just feed the puck to the Big 3 and just remain competent.

Lauzon, Vaakanainen, Zboril or even John Moore should be able to play 3rd pair minutes, so it's not like they're completely barren if they let Krug walk, which I think they should.

That was exactly what i was getting at i think they might try and bring krug in for a 1 year deal but i think he goes elsewhere for that long-term deal.