It’s no secret the Boston Bruins need another top-four defenseman if they are going to be a Stanley Cup contender anytime soon.

Sure, they also need another elite forward to take some scoring pressure off David Pastrnak. If you look at the recent Stanley Cup champs, they all have at least two game-changing forwards.

But a strong blue line is obviously quite important, too. And generating offense from the back end is something the Bruins must do a lot more next season to take the next step in their journey toward being a true contender. Zero defensemen for the Bruins scored a goal or tallied more than two points in their six-game first-round playoff series defeat to the Buffalo Sabres.

One player who could address several of these concerns is actually playing in the Stanley Cup Final right now: Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Rasmus Andersson.

Game 1 of the Cup Final, which Vegas won 5-4 over the Carolina Hurricanes on the road, was a great example of how far the B’s have to go to build a blue line that generates enough offense and shot volume to compete at the highest level. Two defensemen for the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb) had three-point performances in the series opener. Four of the six defensemen who played for the Hurricanes tallied at least one point.

The Bruins reportedly were interested in Andersson before the trade deadline this past season. He was ultimately dealt from the Calgary Flames to the Golden Knights in January.

Should the Bruins make another run at the Swedish blueliner if he hits the free agent market July 1?

Yes, they absolutely should.

Andersson is not a perfect player, but he has a lot of skills the Bruins desperately need on the blue line.

He consistently creates scoring chances for himself and teammates. He shoots the puck a lot, and many of his attempts get through traffic and hit the net.

Andersson scored a career-high 17 goals this season, which ranked eighth-most among all defensemen. He also dished out 30 assists. He has scored at least nine goals in each of the last five seasons.

Charlie McAvoy led Bruins defensemen with 11 goals this past season. No other d-man on the team had more than seven. McAvoy also led Boston blueliners with a career-high 61 points. No other Bruins defenseman tallied more than 26. Creating offense from the blue line can’t be a one-man show. Andersson has posted 39-plus points in four of the last five seasons. He has tallied 30-plus assists four times over that span, too.

Andersson isn’t just an offensive defenseman, though.

He plays well over 20 minutes every game — 23:35 per game for the Golden Knights in the playoffs so far — and contributes over a minute each night to both the power play and penalty kill. He’s an all-situations player who plays against the other team’s top forwards.

Andersson is also a right-shot defenseman, and the Bruins very much need another player who can play on that side of the blue line. McAvoy fills that role on the top pairing, but after him it was Andrew Peeke, Henri Jokiharju and sometimes Mason Lohrei (a left-shot) on the right side.

One potential downside to signing Andersson is he’s already 29 years old, and giving a long-term, expensive contract to a player about to hit 30 is a risk. He should still have several good years remaining, but what will the second half of the contract look like? AFP Analytics projected Andersson’s worth to be an $8.74 million salary cap hit on a long-term deal.

The Bruins are projected to have around $15.4 million in salary cap space this offseason, per PuckPedia, so they can probably afford Andersson, but a cap hit around $9 million would be a major investment. The Bruins already have a bad contract with Elias Lindholm’s deal ($7.75 million cap hit through 2030-31). Another bad deal in that range would be a problem.

But if the Bruins want to maximize the window of their core, especially what’s left of Pastrnak and McAvoy’s primes, they need to make some sort of bold move to upgrade their most glaring roster weaknesses.

The B’s really need a top-four defenseman, preferably one who plays the right side. Andersson checks both of those boxes.