BOSTON (AP) – Felix Potvin agreed to a contract Wednesday with the Boston Bruins, who hope he will be the front-line goaltender they lacked last season.

Potvin joins his fifth team for his 13th NHL season.

“Felix has been a solid NHL goaltender for a number of years,” Bruins general manager Mike O’Connell said. “He’s won playoff rounds, and he gives us another veteran with experience.”

Potvin, 32, spent more than six seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs before going to the New York Islanders, Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings. He has a career record of 254-252-79 with a 2.78 goals-against average and 28 shutouts in 607 games.

He played 42 games for the Kings last season with a 17-20-3 record, 2.66 goals against average and three shutouts before a knee injury on January 28 ended his season.

The Bruins have not won a playoff series since 1999. Potvin’s career playoff record is 35-37 with a 2.64 goals-against average and eight shutouts in 72 games, including consecutive appearances in the conference finals with Toronto in 1993 and 1994.

The Bruins have had had unsettled goaltending for years. Byron Dafoe seemed to bring stability but the team balked at his contract demands and allowed him to leave as a free agent after the 2001-02 season.

Last year, after neither Steve Shields nor John Grahame was impressive in the net, the Bruins traded holdout Kyle McLaren in a three-way deal that brought Montreal backup Jeff Hackett to Boston. Hackett missed 12 games, including the first two games of the playoffs, with a broken finger and became an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

The Bruins also used Andrew Raycroft and Tim Thomas in goal last year. The team’s goals-against average was 2.85, 25th in the league.

AP-ES-09-03-03 1512EDT