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4 Bruins thoughts with deadline week here |
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Ty Anderson
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The lights haven’t completely turned out on the 2024-25 Bruins, but boy, is it getting dark.
After finally ending their winless skid with a 3-2, grind-it-out win over the Penguins in Pittsburgh, the Bruins responded in the most 2024-25 Bruins way possible by getting shutout by the Wild the next day in Minnesota. A Wild team that had lost three straight and allowed 14 goals over the course of that three-game slide, no less. One step forward, one step backwards. Again and again, rinse and repeat. That’s been the story of this season.
By now, the path for the Bruins feels clear, and it felt clear before Don Sweeney’s team went on to lose three of four games following a Feb. 23 press conference with the media.
And here are four thoughts on the week ahead for the B’s…
The ‘Untouchables’ list for the Bruins
Let’s start with who the Bruins should not entertain offers on this deadline.
Up front, top-line winger David Pastrnak is truly your only untouchable. Barring the Oilers or Avalanche calling you and offering you Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, or Nathan MacKinnon, there’s not a trade out there for the Bruins that replaces what Pastrnak brings to this team or at the very least brings comparable value.
On the backend, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm are untouchable because they’re injured and because I’m not sure the Bruins have the horses in house to replace them. And with the cap exploding, their contracts have a legitimate chance to age extremely well. I would also throw Mason Lohrei in as a conditional untouchable in the sense that the Bruins need to see how Lindholm’s knee responds before they make a call on Lohrei in the sense that he may ultimately have to be their Lindholm replacement if the knee is truly cooked.
And in goal, it’s too early to bail on Jeremy Swayman, even with his 2024-25 struggles. The Bruins’ track record of bailing on young players too soon is one that haunts this club to this day, and there’s no sense in the Black and Gold doing it to themselves at this point in time.
On Brad Marchand’s future in Boston
His current injury situation aside, I still continue to have a hard time seeing the Bruins parting with Brad Marchand ahead of the trade deadline or parting with him at all. Marchand has made it clear that he wants to stay here, and the Bruins have said that they want to re-sign him. Of course, the other side of the coin there is that the sides have been in talks all year and have still yet to come to terms on an extension. For two sides that have known each other for almost two decades, that feels somewhat notable.
If the Bruins do decide to trade Marchand, this is a player that the Bruins cannot move for anything less than a first-round pick. Period. If Mikael Granlund is fetching first-round picks, then Marchand is netting you one. The market should fetch the Bruins that at the very least.
To be more precise, if I’m the Bruins and trading Marchand, I’m aiming for something closer to the package that the Flyers got for Claude Giroux in 2022, which was a young roster player, a third-round pick, and a first-round pick.
One team that I believe would love to find a way to add Marchand: Vegas.
Trent Frederic likely to be moved by Bruins
Like Marchand, Trent Frederic is currently on the shelf with an injury, which seemingly complicates his situation. But the word around the league is that the Bruins are still going to move on from Frederic by Friday’s trade deadline. It’ll be interesting to see what the Bruins can get in return for the pending unrestricted free agent, and if the injury ultimately limits the return from what would’ve been two weeks ago.
Sending Frederic to St. Louis would make a ton of sense. He’s from the area, and it would allow him to reunite with ex-Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery, who absolutely loved Frederic’s game and certainly got the most out of him during his two-year stint in Boston.
Moving on from Frederic is probably the right call for the Bruins, especially with Morgan Geekie and Mark Kastelic by all means replacing him in the aggregate, the latter of whom is beginning an extension next year while the former is a pending restricted free agent. But it also further highlights the problems with drafting what you intentionally view as third-line talent with first-round picks, which is what the Bruins did with Frederic in 2016. There was an obvious limitation to Frederic’s scoring abilities, and it always felt like maximizing it would come as a result of an unsustainable shooting percentage.
Ideally, the Bruins are netting a second-round pick and maybe a prospect in exchange for Frederic. That should be doable in a market that saw Gustav Nyquist go for a second.
How cutthroat will the Bruins get?
Ask around the league and people will tell you that the Bruins are open for business on just about anybody that someone’s calling about. That means more than rentals. But selling more than rentals requires being a bit cutthroat, and it’ll be interesting to see how willing Sweeney, who’s always operated with more of a slow-and-safe mindset, is to be that guy this deadline. And who could feel the wrath of that with a phone call and a trade outta here.
Up front, I would honestly wonder about a player like Charlie Coyle. Listen, I absolutely love Charlie Coyle the person. I think he’s a straight-up wonderful human being and his leadership as a stand-up guy often goes under the radar. But he just turned 33, and odds are, last year was as good as it’s gonna get for Coyle and for the Bruins when it comes to his on-ice production. With this year and next at $5.25 million, Coyle could be a strong short-term non-rental for a legitimate Stanley Cup contender seeking middle-six pop.
If I’m the Bruins, I’m also trying to see if anybody out there wants Joonas Korpisalo. Spending $11.25 million on a goaltending tandem where the $3 million guy plays 20-25 games a season isn’t a worthwhile investment when the Bruins have the holes they have, and with Michael DiPietro pushing for an NHL look with a stellar year down in Providence.
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