Don Sweeney Shares Key Insight Into Bruins’ Trade Deadline Plan

The Bruins in recent years made splash moves ahead of the NHL trade deadline with hopes of bolstering their Stanley Cup championship chances.

But Boston is in a different spot this campaign, which thus will change its view on wheeling and dealing.

Following Saturday night’s overtime home loss to the Anaheim Ducks, the Bruins found themselves a point back of an Eastern Conference wild-card spot. Boston very well could reach the playoffs, but as the sportsbooks showcase, the club’s chances of hoisting the Cup in June aren’t very high. So, Don Sweeney doesn’t anticipate much activity before March 7, but the Bruins general manager isn’t ruling anything out yet.

“I think historically we’ve been pretty aggressive when our team’s been in a position. I think we’ll take a much more cautious approach as we approach the deadline,” Sweeney told reporters, per a team-provided video. “That being said, if there are opportunities to improve our team now and certainly moving forward – whether that’s positional shifts that other teams are trying to identify that we may have a strength at – we’ll look at all opportunities to improve our team now, but even more importantly, moving forward.”

Sweeney also was asked point-blank if there’s a chance the Bruins could either trade away or acquire NHL players.

“Yeah. It’s just stuff that happens during this period of time,” Sweeney told reporters. “It may plant a seed for the draft and beyond. There will be a lot of conversations with people asking what possible moves we can make. Just going to take a little more cautious approach in terms of being as aggressive as we’ve been in the past.”

The B’s, who haven’t missed the postseason since the 2015-16 campaign, have 24 games left on their regular-season schedule. Next up is Tuesday night’s clash with the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden.