There are a lot of questions entering NHL free agency. Can the Bruins find answers at No. 1 center and right-shot defenseman?

The NHL’s free agent market, its doors to swing open Wednesday at noon has looked for months as if the pickings will be slim. They grew slimmer as the weekend approached, particularly with this past Wednesday’s sign-and-trade that delivered former Boston College Eagle Alex Tuch from the Sabres to the Capitals.

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Until then, the 30-year-old Tuch was arguably the most attractive unrestricted free agent, though Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, two Stanley Cup wins in his back pocket, might have objected to such a suggestion. Although, the stellar stopper will be 38 by the start of the upcoming season, and while his game may be ageless, his birth certificate says otherwise.

Tuch, a key component in the Sabres this spring finally ending their protracted playoff nightmare, hit the jackpot, landing a whopping eight-year/$84 million payout. He’ll be expected to carry the Capitals’ goal-scoring mantle once Alex Ovechkin departs (date still TBA), a daunting task for any mere human. Tuch’s career high for goals in a season, keep in mind, is 36.

The Great 8, with an NHL record 929 goals and counting (maybe?), cracked the 40-goal level each of his first five seasons and did it another nine times over the next 16 seasons. No one’s ever picking up that mantle. Tuch has never played with that weight on his padded shoulders, true of everyone else who’s ever played the game. He can only hope the D.C. fan base has that reasoned perspective.

During his pre-draft/pre-UFA news conference on Wednesday, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney again underscored his club’s need for more scoring and help at right-side defense. They were the same priorities headed into the March trade deadline. Better luck this time, perhaps?

The Bruins, above all, need a No. 1 center, which had Sweeney explaining that he’s OK for now with the No. 1-by-committee approach that again didn’t get the job done last season.

What else can Sweeney say about it other than … uncle?! Three years after the departures of mainstays Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the lack of a bona fide No. 1 pivot remains the lingering hiccup in the Black and Gold offense and the club’s quest to be a serious Cup contender.

The upcoming UFA grab-all does not hold a quick fix. Aged Penguins center Evgeni Malkin might have provided a helpful one- or two-year patch, but he removed himself from the market in late May, agreeing to extend his stay in the Steel City for another year at a club-friendly $5.5 million. Less than 30 days later, Tuch pinned up his $10.5 million average annual value.

Price wise, this could be the most fickle, impossible-to-predict market in league history, largely because the salary cap has been boosted to $104 million for 2026-27. Clubs are awash in dough and cap space. It appears they’re not going to be shy with their spending.

Another veteran forward, 38-year-old Claude Giroux, could bring the Bruins a short-term boost. He is a right-shot right wing, but also a faceoff beast (799 faceoffs, 63.1 percent win rate last season). By no means a full-fledged center and not a guy who’d typically be on the Bruins’ radar. But the former Flyer was both durable and dependable the last four seasons with the Senators. For the right price (around $3 million AAV?), he could be a valued add, especially if fellow right wing Viktor Arvidsson can’t be wooed back to Causeway Street.

One name not being mentioned, mainly because he’s under contract, is Hingham native Matty Beniers. We bring him up because Sweeney’s better option to find a No. 1C is the trade market. Beniers, only 23, just wrapped up his fourth season with the Kraken and his production has been underwhelming and stagnant the last three. His game last season looked prime for a change of scenery.

Now, granted, the entire Kraken offense was underwhelming the last three seasons. Jordan Eberle led the pace last season with a paltry 55 points. Jared McCann was top man the year before with 61. Ditto the year before with 62. We can only assume the Kraken try to score goals, but the case evidence looks a bit flimsy.

Beniers as a No. 1C? His production doesn’t reflect it right now. He sure looked as if he was on his way to that lofty perch his rookie season, winning the Calder Award as top freshman with 24-33–57. His best production since, though, was 50 points this past season. He has averaged 43 points the last three campaigns. He signed a huge deal as he exited his entry-level contract and still has five years remaining at a $7.14 million AAV. That’s on the cusp of being economical in the $104-million-cap world.

If Sweeney could pull off a swap, the Bruins would be betting that a return home would provide the air to lift Beniers’s wings. That’s a gamble, but what move is risk free? Exhibit A: the seven-year$54.25 million deal Sweeney forked over two years ago to bring 29-year-old Elias Liindholm here as a promising UFA hire. Lindholm since has been hindered by injury in each of his two seasons and is now but a No. 1C committee member alongside Pavel Zacha and Fraser Minten, hoping to halt the unremitting offensive hiccup.

To get Beniers no doubt would mean surrendering Minten along with a Round 1 pick. Minten would be with his third NHL team, perhaps happy to be playing just a three-hour drive south from his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. The Bruins might have to add another draft pick or a young body (Mason Lohrei?), a high price to pay, but with potential high reward.

The right-side defenseman, ideally to play in the top four, could be had in UFA Rasmus Andersson. He was traded from the Flames to the Golden Knights in January. He’s 29 and is expected to field myriad long-term offers that nearly double the $4.55 million AAV of his expired deal.

Ex-Capitals star John Carlson, born in Natick, remains out there as a primo right shot blue liner, at age 36. It was a shock to see him wheeled to the Ducks at the March deadline. He delivered for Anaheim pretty much as hoped (at the cost of surrendering Round 1 and 3 draft picks) and now gets to pick his spot after some $90 million in career earnings (per puckpedia.com).

From a Bruins perspective, what’s most intriguing about Carlson is his career power-play production: 49 goals and 278 points. He enters each advantage shot-ready at the point. In roughly half as many career games (573 vs. 1.159), Charlie McAvoy, the Bruins power-play quarterback, has recorded 16 goals and 99 points on the advantage. The Bruins could use Carlson’s extra pop and attack mentality.

The market continued to shift through the weekend. More would-be free agents closed in on terms to remain with their clubs. Another couple of sign-and-trades would be no surprise prior to Wednesday, though not with attached $84 million payouts.

Rumors of restricted free agent offer sheets being tendered surfaced yet again as the weekend approached, but history shows those have been scarcer than 60-goal scorers. When the dust settles Wednesday night, the 32 teams will have combined to guarantee a mountain of contracts worth in excess of a half-billion dollars. It’s the annual great roster reset — prices guaranteed to soar, the debate around winners and losers guaranteed to linger.

Despite moving Tuch to the Capitals and also wheeling primo blue liner Bowen Byram to the Blackhawks, Sabres GM Jarmo Kekalainen told the Buffalo media, “I think we’re in really good shape.”

Uh … OK. Just a couple of flesh wounds, that’s all. Yeesh. Just when it looked like good times were back in Buffalo.

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Rest assured Kekalainen didn’t pick up that kind of ain’t-the-world-just-ducky mentality in his days as an aspiring Bruins forward (1989-91).

Amid the departures, however, Kekalainen locked down Zach Benson, the hiss-’n-vinegar left wing, to a seven-year/$52.5 million extension. Benson, 21, and Josh Doan, 24, acquired just a year ago from Utah, will be counted on heavily if the Sabres have real hope of sustaining momentum after last season’s delightful performance spike.

The Capitals added another impactful forward to join Tuch, trading for Blues right wing Jordan Kyrou, whose production dipped (18-28–46) last season after three seasons of 30-plus goals.

Blues GM Doug Armstrong, in the buildup to the draft, framed the uptick in trade action across the league as a 32-team stampede to the treadmill, the pace going from a leisurely 2.5-mile-per-hour stroll to an 8-m.p.h. sprint. UFA day always has the GMs sitting in blazing saddles.

Mike Grier, the Sharks GM who grew up in Holliston and starred at Boston University, tied the hyperactive trade market directly to the outlook for Wednesday.

“This free agent class … ,” mused Grier, whose Sharks improved immensely last season, “ … might not excite a lot of people.”

Grier wheeled skilled young forward William Eklund, the No. 7 pick in the 2021 draft, to Ottawa, as the lead asset in a three-player package that brought back the No. 9 pick ahead of Round 1 of the NHL Draft Friday night. The Sharks went into the night with pick Nos. 2, 9, and 27 — the first time in Sharks history they approached draft night with a trio of Round 1 picks in hand.

Grier originally held the No. 20 pick, but flipped it for Buffalo’s No. 27 in order to acquire defenseman Michael Kesselring from the Sabres.

The Blackhawks on Tuesday handed over the No. 4 pick to acquire Byram, as well as ex-Boston University forward Jordan Greenway, from the Sabres. Picks in the top 10-12 slots are considered gold. It was the first time in nearly 20 years (2008) that a club dealt away a pick in the top five.

Byram, who just turned 25, was the No. 4 pick (Colorado) in the 2019 draft and he went to the Sabres in the March ‘24 deadline deal that shipped Casey Mittelstadt (now a Bruin) to the Avalanche. Byram is well worth the No. 4 pick. He helps fill a large hole in the Blackhawks lineup that was created when they dished Seth Jones to the Panthers, a deal that brought back BC product Spencer Knight as Chicago’s new franchise goalie.

Byram reportedly made clear to Kekalainen that he would not re-sign upon reaching UFA status next July. He arrived in Chicago with one year left on his deal ($6.25 million) and is now poised to sign a hefty long-term extension in the $10-million-per-annum range. The lowly Blackhawks have pinned up six consecutive playoff DNQs and have won but a single playoff round (a Round 1 qualifier in the 2020 bubble) since their last Stanley Cup win in 2015. Byram could prove to be the back-end connective tissue that resets the franchise.

Former Bruins short-timer Garnet Hathaway was shipped from Broad Street to Sunrise on Thursday, with the Flyers agreeing to retain half of the $2.4 million AAV that remains on the final year of his contract.

“He’s ecstatic,” said Matt Keator, the gritty forward’s longtime agent. “He loves [Brad] Marchand … couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

The move affords Hathaway, 34, a reasonable chance to get his name on the Stanley Cup, his quest since entering the NHL with the Flames in 2015-16, less than two years after graduating from Brown.

The already-stacked Panthers last weekend boosted their odds of winning the Cup for a third time in four seasons when acquiring Brady Tkachuk in a trade with the Senators. Now they have the stout Hathaway to provide third- and fourth-line support, in part to deal with any toxic waste the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady, prefer not to handle. They can use those hands for scoring.

“[Hathaway] tells me they’re already calling themselves a pack of rats,” said Keator. “He says they’re the five most punchable faces in the NHL.”

The crusty quintet includes Sam Bennett, Marchand, the Tkachuk brothers, and Hathaway, who recorded a career-high 132 penalty minutes in the first of his three seasons with the Flyers. He signed as a UFA in Philadelphia after his brief run in Boston in the 2022-23 season, which ended in a Round 1 loss to … the Panthers.

For those new to the rink, there’s a rat legacy that goes back 30 years with the then-expansion Panthers. In their third season (1995-96), with Doug MacLean as bench boss, they made it to the Cup Final, which the Avalanche closed out with a sweep.

The Panthers spent their early years playing at the downtown Miami Arena, long before moving to their current digs closer to Fort Lauderdale. In early-0ctober ‘95, a rat scurried into the Panthers locker room, prompting captain Scott Mellanby to grab his stick and smack the four-legged interloper with a one-timer.

The story, and legend, grew from there, with Panthers fans routinely hurling plastic rats onto the ice in moments of celebration.

Could it be that the five-man Rat Pack revives the tradition?

Claude Julien, who remains the most recent coach to have his name on the Stanley Cup with the Bruins (2011), early this month signed a two-year deal to coach the Zurich ZSC Lions in the Swiss National League. Julien, 66, spent the last two seasons behind the Blues bench, first as an assistant to Drew Bannister, and then under Jim Montgomery. The Blues opted not to retain Julien and fellow assistant Mike Weber, allowing “Monty” to craft his staff, leading Julien to sign his deal in Switzerland. It’s the first non-North American stop of Julien’s long career. An avid bike rider, he’ll have to do some serious pedaling south to get wheels on the Swiss Alps … Bobrovsky could end up back with the Panthers, but would have to take a steep discount from the $10 million AAV he banked the last seven years in Sunrise. Signed as a UFA by then-GM Dale Tallon, “Bob” truly was the start of the turnaround for what had become a near-forgotten franchise. Then came Bill Zito as GM, followed by Matthew Tkachuk angling his way there toward the end of his deal in Calgary … It looks and sounds as if ex-UMass Lowell goalie Connor Hellebuyck will be headed out of Winnipeg, destination TBD. Bet here, if it happens: San Jose, where the Sharks are on the precipice of snapping their seven-year run of postseason DNQs. Hellebuyck, 33, is on the books for five more years at $8.5 million per and would be in for a healthy pay boost if he landed with, say, Vegas or Florida, where there are no state taxes … Columbus GM Don Waddell will meet soon, perhaps this week, for a discussion with star blue liner Zach Werenski. Goal: to find out if Werenski cares to stay after his deal, with a $9.58 million AAV, expires in two years at age 30. He’s about the closest version there is to Scott Niedermayer in today’s game — smooth, efficient, prolific. Understandable if he wants out after 10 years of exemplary service and only 29 playoff games. Werenski would be an ideal get for any team, but especially the Kings, in the wake of franchise center Anze Kopitar exiting to retirement.

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