Rumors are rumors. Make no mistake about it. There are reasons these things get out. Yesterday I wrote that a source told me Pastrnak could be involved in a blockbuster... Shortly after my blog Brian Lawton of the NHL Network tweeted out...
Word of this was met by Bruins fans with...well lets just say "A raging heat of 1 million Suns." Bruins fans are worried that they have been here before.....and they have..Seguin, Hamilton....Young stars shipped out because of a variety of issues..and for every bit of gossip involving the personal lives of players...those moves were probably made because of money...
So Bruins fans went rightfully nuts. And the Bruins heard that response LOUD and CLEAR I am told..
This was followed by a story by Joe Haggerty, who i have always found to be among the most accurate and tied in writers in Boston...
Despite the rumors, Bruins currently have no appetite to trade David Pastrnak...they should be committed if they did https://t.co/cA9Pn7nWkF
Haggerty made some great points and his credibility is beyond question..The following statement is perhaps the most dead on...
"By all accounts the Bruins currently have no appetite for trading Pastrnak, and this first volley of rumors would appear to be more about message-sending in negotiations rather than actually shipping out another elite young hockey player. If the trade stuff goes beyond that, then Don Sweeney, Cam Neely and the rest of the Bruins organization will begin destroying all the goodwill they built up with a pretty solid end kick to their season last year."
So how do these rumors get out there?
Whenever I hear about a potential star possibly getting moved I first look at who's telling me...and why they might be telling me? I of course can't reveal exact sources, but if this was "just" coming from a Boston source I would draw it up to a major breakdown in contract negotiations...and I do believe that is occurring here...
However this rumor did not only come out of New England...and that points to exploration...When a source from another team tells me they are hearing this my ears perk up.. Because I have been at this for more than a decade now and I have seen this before...I heard this same kind of rumor about Jonathan Drouin several months before anything appeared to be drastically wrong.
So where does that leave us?
We can only speculate right now....but Pastrnak is NOT Sequin. He is one of the best young Bruins and had a great year, but he fell short in the playoffs in a very real way. He is NOT a 7 or 8 million dollar a year player....yet.
The only thing I feel we can say for sure...If, and I emphasize "IF," the Bruins wanted to know how their fanbase feels about trading Pastrnak..they sure know more today than yesterday...and Pastrnak's negotiating power may be much higher today than it was yesterday...in my opinion...
We will discuss this and more on the Podcast at 1pm ET
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