Just to reset the cap situation as we go into the final week and a half. This is the Bruins current roster:
Marchand - Bergeron - DeBrusk
Zacha - Krejci - Pastrnak
Hall - Coyle - Smith
Greer - Frederic - Foligno
Grzelyck - McAvoy
Lindholm - Carlo
Forbort - Clifton
Zboril
Ullmark
Swayman
IR: Lettieri
LTIR: Nosek
Burried: Reilly ($1.875 million), Wagner ($225,000)
Cap Space as of 2/21: $1 million
That cap space is from Nosek's LTIR. He has been skating and is due back relatively soon. I also suspect they will call Lauko or Koppanen up today for the road trip since they don't currently have a spare forward and are headed to western Canada. If they do that, the cap space dwindles to ~$250,000 depending on who the call up is.
Nosek's injury is not season ending so they will need to make moves to fit him back in. His cap hit is $1.75 million. They will need to demote the extra player (assuming they call one up) and then clear about $750,000 to activate him.
In terms of moveable money, they have ~$6.5 million in dead/moveable cap charges on the roster. $1.137 million for Zboril, $3.1 million for Craig Smith, $1.875 in cap charge for Mike Reilly ($3 million total cap hit in the NHL), and the $225.000 for Wagner ($1.35 million NHL cap hit).
That's basically where they are today. Some of the names floated around are Chyrchun ($4.6 million), Gavrikov ($2.8 million), Barbashev ($2.25 million), Kane ($10 million). The Bruins are basically going to need to match salaries to make things work. They also would probably prefer to clear more out than they take in so they have room for end of year call ups and also pay the bonus charges for Krejci and Bergeron. It's going to be a tricky situation to navigate.