The NHL trade deadline is just two days away, and the Boston Bruins are expected to be involved in one form or another.
In anticipation of deadline day, here are a few thoughts on the Bruins.
— We discuss this at length on the esteemed “NESN Bruins Podcast,” but there’s been plenty of chatter about if the Bruins should trade for a goalie.
The vote here is no.
Tuukka Rask’s health obviously is concerning, but Jaroslav Halak shouldn’t be on the COVID-19 list forever. For one, if Rask’s injury for some reason is a long-term issue, no goalie the Bruins would acquire in a trade would be able to replicate what Rask offers.
Then, you have to consider that most likely any goalie that is being traded is going to be a waivers-eligible player. It’s unlikely Boston would carry three goalies on its active roster, and in order to send the third goalie down to the taxi squad, they would have to go through waivers.
Passing a goalie through waivers this season hasn’t been easy: Anton Forsberg (multiple times), Alex Stalock, Troy Grosenick and Eric Comrie all have been claimed.
The netminder most often mentioned in trade rumors is Jonathan Bernier. It just doesn’t seem worth it for the Bruins to give up an asset or two for him, only to have to risk him to waivers when/if Rask and Halak are healthy.
We’ve seen good things from Jeremy Swayman and Dan Vladar. And while they shouldn’t supplant a healthy Rask or Halak, they are proving to be more than capable contingency plans.
— We’ll get into this more in our forthcoming “under the radar players the Bruins could pursue” piece, but one drum we’ve been beating for a long time is that the Bruins should pursue Andreas Athanasiou.
We’re going to go ahead and reignite that now.
He has eight goals and seven assists in 30 games with the Los Angeles Kings, with whom he signed a cheap, one-year deal with during the offseason. He’s not much of a defensive player but he’s a great skater who loves to shoot and can play a physical game.
He makes sense as a winger option that can play pretty much anywhere in the top nine. Plus his cap hit ($1.2 million) is low-enough that the Bruins could acquire him and still make a few other moves.
— The Bruins defense has been put through the wringer this season, so we’d be shocked if Boston didn’t make a move for a depth defenseman.
For one, it doesn’t seem like a big-time blueliner is out there to be had — short of David Savard — especially with the Nashville Predators turning a corner, thus making Mattias Ekholm increasingly unlikely to be moved.
But the Bruins have been left shorthanded so many times and forced to patch things together on the back end that we’d be shocked if they didn’t go after someone who represents an upgrade over Jarred Tinordi and Steven Kampfer.
— Who exactly that would be, we don’t know. Brandon Montour or Colin Miller could be options, maybe Dmitry Kulikov. We’ve floated the idea of Alex Goligoski before. It sounds like a lot of teams could be sellers, so there probably are guys available nobody knows about.
— We’ll wrap it up with this nugget from The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun: “The sellers outnumber the buyers right now as far as I can tell. I’ve got this weird feeling that prices may crater come Monday and some decent players may be available for cheaper prices.”
That could be fantastic news for the Bruins. We keep thinking back to the Bruins’ trade for Marcus Johansson in 2019, which cost Boston a second-rounder and fourth-rounder. That third line with Johansson, Charlie Coyle (also acquired that deadline) and Danton Heinen was one of the Bruins’ steadiest lines that postseason, and Boston didn’t have to give up a ton to make it happen.
The Bruins never were positioning themselves to be sellers, but there’s even more incentive now to be buyers, and big ones at that, if LeBrun’s inkling is correct.
