The fan reaction to the Linus Ullmark trade was swift and vitriolic.

And it was also understandable. But it was far too overwrought and, frankly, a little detached from reality.

Don’t get me wrong. Taking back Joonas Korpisalo’s contract from the Ottawa Senators that has four years left at $4 million a season does not seem like the best allocation of cap space – even with the 25% salary retention from Ottawa – for a team that needs to reload a good chunk of its roster, and some high-end talent to boot.

A real kick in the pants would be if Jeremy Swayman’s new deal comes in at such a price – some have speculated it could be as high as $8 million, depending on term – that the B’s are spending significantly more on the position that they did last season ($8.475 million), minus the recent Vezina Trophy winner.

To these eyes, the play would have been to give Brandon Bussi, who signed for a mere $775,000 shortly before the trade went down, and then sign a veteran backup (think Keith Kinkaid). Don’t hand Bussi the job, but give him a chance to earn it.

There’s also the real possibility of turning a divisional opponent into a divisional rival. The Sens, who’ve given the B’s their share of problems despite not being a playoff team the last couple of years, are better now than before the trade, plain and simple.

So, no, taking back Korpisalo’s contract is not ideal.

But is this deal as apocalyptic as the frothing-at-the-mouth set has imagined it to be? Of course not.

First off, the B’s got the first-round pick they were seeking, the 25th overall selection (originally theirs) that was given up in the Tyler Bertuzzi trade at the 2023 deadline. A quick perusal of the B’s prospect pool makes it clear that this is not a minor concern. Years of going for it at the deadline, coughing up high picks, have taken their toll. They need more top prospects and they need them now, not a year from now. Two of their top players in Providence, Fabian Lysell and Georgii Merkulov, are highly skilled but smallish forwards. The jury is very much out on whether they’re built for the rigors of the NHL game.

The return of fourth-line center Mark Kastelic might – repeat, might – be more than meets the eye. Not only is the 6-foot-4, 226-pound Kastelic willing to drop the gloves with the league’s heavyweights, he took 349 draws and won 54.9% of them last year. After the departure of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Tomas Nosek, that’s an area that fell off, especially in the playoffs. The B’s pro scouting staff has also earned a benefit of the doubt, particularly with bottom six players.

And what of Korpisalo? Yes, he had a bad year in Ottawa after signing the five-year, $20 million deal, so much that the Sens were quickly ready to move on from him. But has he been a better goalie in the past? Yes. He played well enough in Columbus for the Los Angeles Kings to obtain him for their playoff push two years ago, and he was good enough to earn that Ottawa contract.

And it’s not totally unlike the position the B’s were in back in 2018. The B’s were already paying Tuukka Rask $7 million a season but they wanted to lighten his workload a bit, so they went out and signed Jaroslav Halak to a two-year deal worth $2.75 million a season.

At the point in his career, Halak was a more accomplished netminder than Korpisalo has been, but his days of being a No. 1 were over. His acquisition at the time was met with a collective shrug. All the goalie pairing did that season was win the Jennings Trophy as the league’s best tandem and finish one win away from a Stanley Cup.

Again, Korpisalo is not Halak. But he has shown flashes, notably in the 2020 bubble playoffs when he posted a 1.90 GAA and .941 GAA in nine games. In a small sample size two seasons ago in LA, he had a .921 save percentage and a 2.13 save percentage in 11 games. In the right circumstance, he can be an effective goalie.

This is the first move of what could be several significant ones this summer, considering the cap space available. It was hardly a home run. But let’s see where all the pieces to the puzzle fit before after July 1 before we deem the Bruins’ offseason a disaster, shall we?