After a season that included trips to the IIHF World Championship and Olympic Games, Martin Bakos has now signed his first NHL contract. The Boston Bruins announced today that they’d signed the Slovakian forward to a one-year, two-way deal that carries a $700K cap hit.
Bakos, 28, is an extremely skilled forward who has been playing in the Slovak, Czech and Russian professional leagues for almost a decade. This season he recorded 40 points in 52 games, while scoring another 10 goals in Champions League matches. He wowed hockey audiences all over the world this spring with an incredible shootout move against France, and could inject some more skill into the Bruins organization.
It’s interesting to see where he is positioned for the Bruins, as 28-year old forwards with a long career in the European professional leagues rarely come to North America looking for a spot in the minor leagues. Whether Bakos can make an impact at the NHL level though is still to be determined, especially with a group as deep as Boston’s forward unit. With more young players ready to make their mark this season, Bakos would need to have an incredible camp to step into a full-time role with the Bruins in 2018-19.