Despite signing a two-year, $1.63MM extension with the team this summer, Michael DiPietro’s tenure in the Boston Bruins organization appears to be numbered. In his recent rendition of 32 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said, “I have no doubt teams will be looking hard at [him]. There will be teams this week curious to see what the Bruins do.”
The news isn’t surprising, as reports in mid-June indicated that teams were interested in signing DiPietro last offseason before the Bruins worked out an extension with him on the eve of free agency. Still, Boston has not indicated that they’ll want to carry three netminders on the roster for the bulk of the 2025-26 campaign, and DiPietro is unlikely to move past Jeremy Swayman or Joonas Korpisalo on the depth chart barring injury.
It wasn’t all that long ago that DiPietro was an impressive prospect coming out of the Canadian Major Junior system. Throughout his four-year career with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, DiPietro managed a 98-53-13 record in 174 games with a .913 SV% and 2.52 GAA, while backstopping the Spitfires to a Memorial Cup Championship in 2017. DiPietro was selected 64th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2017 NHL Draft.
The native of Windsor, Ontario, struggled to advance in the Canucks system, although he had strong seasons with the Utica Comets and Abbotsford Canucks in the AHL. Vancouver pulled the plug on DiPietro’s tenure with the organization fairly quickly, including him in a package to the Bruins for Jack Studnicka earlier on in the 2022-23 campaign.
As alluded to, DiPietro has come into his own with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. Particularly last season, DiPietro earned a 26-8-7 record in 40 games with a .927 SV% and 2.05 GAA, with four shutouts. The season was impressive enough for DiPietro to earn the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award as the league’s top netminder and AHL First All-Star Team honors.
Similar to Arturs Silovs’ meteoric rise through the AHL last season, and subsequent trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins this past offseason, any team with a need at the backup goalie position would be interested in giving DiPietro an opportunity at the NHL level. Unfortunately, that market is fairly limited, as most teams have filled their backup position through some form or another throughout the offseason.
Still, the Calgary Flames, Columbus Blue Jackets, Edmonton Oilers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Vegas Golden Knights may all have lukewarm interest at the very least. Further, if an unfortunate injury arises to another goaltender as the preseason wraps up, that would create another void that DiPietro could conceivably fill.