Bruins acquire winger Tyler Bertuzzi in trade with Red Wings

The Boston Bruins have acquired winger Tyler Bertuzzi from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for a 2024 protected first-round pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick. As part of the deal, the Red Wings will retain 50 percent of Bertuzzi’s salary.

According to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, Bertuzzi, who is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in July, and the Red Wings hadn’t had any contract negotiations since December. After last year, it looked like a big payday was in store for Bertuzzi, but this injury-plagued season may have hurt his value on the open market.

Two separate broken hands have limited Bertuzzi during the 2022-23 season, but when healthy, he’s a tenacious forechecker with the ability to find the back of the net. Due to his poor injury luck this season, Bertuzzi has scored just four goals and notched 10 assists in 29 games.

Bertuzzi has shown that he’s capable of much more, even as recently as last season. In 2021-22, he scored 30 goals and added 32 assists in 68 games. That was a career year for him, but he also eclipsed the 20-goal mark in two consecutive seasons from 2018 to 2020.

In his 305 career NHL games, Bertuzzi has amassed 88 goals, 114 assists, and 202 points.

This deal gives the Red Wings more draft capital for a pending free agent, and they have the flexibility to be aggressive in making upgrades this offseason.