Bruins’ Don Sweeney Reveals How COVID-19 Pause Will Impact Trade Deadline

COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in a lot of plans for the past year, including the NHL’s and Boston Bruins’ schedule.

Many players have tested positive for the virus or entered the league’s health and safety protocols.

The Bruins recently have been impacted with Sean Kuraly contracting the virus and four other players in protocol that forced the postponement of two games last week.

The NHL trade deadline is April 12, and it’s unclear just what the Bruins will do when the day comes. Boston is struggling with secondary scoring and sits in the fourth and final playoff spot in the East Division as of Monday night.

B’s general manager Don Sweeney met with the media Monday to give updates on Thursday’s game against the New York Islanders (that’s still slated to go on), Brandon Carlo and the trade deadline.

When asked if this recent COVID-19 pause will impact any moves that could be made at the deadline, Sweeney gave a pretty blunt answer.

“We’re meeting as groups to decide based on our discussions with other teams and ultimately, as I’ve said before, the health of our group and how well we’re playing will sometimes determine it, as well as the availability of players you might like to add,” he said. “There’s all sorts of variables associated with it, and I can’t tell you whether or not we’re going to make a move in any direction because as I’ve said before, we’d like to. But a little bit of the health for our hockey club may dictate that. We’re facing more compressed schedules through the next 28 games, and it’s going to be against a war of attrition. In the playoffs you have a war of attrition, but I think the balance of the schedules is going to represent some of those challenges.

“And some players are getting an opportunity, we’re testing depth, we’ve played twelve defensemen over the course of 28 games. And obviously, several forwards are getting an opportunity. We’d like to be healthy and fully evaluate, but that might not be possible as well. It is a factor of what we’re trying to do and what we’d like to do. But I think all teams are dealing with it.”

The Bruins are dealing with a slew of injured players, but all of them are making progress in their return to game action.