The NHL trade deadline has come and gone. The Bruins made a couple moves, but nothing of the blockbuster variety.
Skate Pod: Reacting to Bruins' trade deadline
They acquired veteran winger Pat Maroon from the Minnesota Wild for AHL forward Luke Toporowski and a 2026 conditional sixth-round pick. Then they got right-shot defenseman Andrew Peeke from the Columbus Blue Jackets for defenseman Jakub Zboril and a 2027 third-round pick.
There was plenty of chatter about something bigger possibly being in the works for Boston, from the resurrected Elias Lindholm talk to rumors of a Linus Ullmark trade, including one that Ullmark may have used his no-trade clause to block (more on that later). Ultimately, none of those came to fruition.
“We felt comfortable where our team, in the last three games, has played,” general manager Don Sweeney said. “Certainly taken a better direction. Credit to the staff for sort of getting their attention and getting the players responding. [Thursday] night's game probably indicates where playoff hockey is going to start to take a turn to.
“We tried to address the depth of our club in particular areas. We needed to also give the group a push. … For our group and the work that they’ve put in this year, we're trying to put together the best, most competitive team we can. And that was the direction we decided to go today, and continued to add to our group.”
Here are five thoughts on the Bruins’ deadline and how they look after it:
1. Embrace being underdogs
As of Friday night, the Bruins are tied for the second-best record in the NHL, just one point behind the league-leading Florida Panthers. You’d be hard-pressed to find too many people around the league who believe they’re actually the second- or third-best team.
On FanDuel, the Bruins now have the eighth-best Stanley Cup odds at +1200, behind the Panthers, Edmonton Oilers, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights, Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars and New York Rangers.
That feels like a much more accurate reflection of how they stack up than the standings do. Those teams all made more significant additions than the Bruins did, and most of them already looked like more complete teams on paper.
If the season ended today, the Bruins would face the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. They would be favored in that series, and rightly so after beating them twice this week by a combined score of 8-2. But they would be pretty big underdogs in a second-round series against the Panthers, the team that knocked them off last year. This year’s Panthers are more talented than last year’s Panthers, and this year’s Bruins are less talented than last year’s Bruins.
And you know what? The Bruins and their fans should embrace that role reversal. There’s something to be said for an underdog mentality and no-one-believes-in-us mindset.
Realistically, this was always going to be something of a transition year for the Bruins. Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Taylor Hall, etc. were big losses. They had to fill out their ragtag forward lineup with cheap veterans (James van Riemsdyk, Danton Heinen) and guys who weren’t even issued qualifying offers by their former teams (Morgan Geekie, Jesper Boqvist). They still have questions at the center position. They didn’t have the cap space or assets to answer their rivals’ deadline moves.
All reasons to count them out. Or, all reasons for them to have a chip on their shoulder.
2. You can’t blame Ullmark for reportedly nixing a trade
ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reported on Friday that the Bruins thought they had a trade involving Linus Ullmark, but that the Boston netminder “essentially nixed” the move “in large part based on geography.” Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli tweeted that he heard there was something close with the Los Angeles Kings, while Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on NHL Network that he heard there was at least one Eastern team involved, too.
Ullmark has a 16-team no-trade clause, and this is why players negotiate for those: so they can’t be traded to a team or city where they don’t want to go. It seems pretty silly to me that there are fans and media members upset at Ullmark for using something the Bruins agreed to give him.
There are all kinds of reasons a player may not want to go to certain destinations, from the quality of the team, to who the coach or GM is, to the size of the market, the passion of the fan base, the climate, tax laws, American vs. Canadian dollars, and more. Some European players prefer to be on the East Coast because a flight from there to their home country is about half as long as a flight from the West Coast to Europe.
If you want to criticize the Bruins for giving Ullmark a half-league no-trade clause in the first place, fair enough. They may not have been able to sign him without it, though. Either way, criticizing Ullmark for utilizing it seems pretty misguided to me.
Sweeney, for his part, declined to comment when asked if Ullmark had blocked a trade.
“I'm not ever going to get into a conversation with what I may have talked to Linus about,” Sweeney said. “I’ve acknowledged we've explored different situations, and we had opportunities to move different players, but I'm not getting into the intricacies of what's in somebody's contract at this point in time.”
The Bruins will likely explore trading Ullmark again this summer, especially with Jeremy Swayman due for a raise, and they will still have the no-trade clause to contend with.
3. Let’s see the playoff goalie rotation
So, the Ullmark-Swayman tandem remains in place for at least the rest of this season. Now what?
Presumably, head coach Jim Montgomery and goalie coach Bob Essensa are going to continue to rotate them down the stretch. They did it last regular season, they’ve done it for 65 games this season, and I don’t really see why they would stray from it in the final 17 games.
Then comes the big question: Will they continue to rotate in the playoffs? Last year they didn’t. They decided to try to ride Ullmark, and it backfired. Ullmark struggled as the first round went on, and the Bruins wound up switching to a cold Swayman for Game 7.
Montgomery said earlier this season that he would be more open to rotating in the playoffs this time around. Sweeney gave a diplomatic answer when asked about the possibility on Friday.
“Ultimately, we go through it as an organization and the final decision for who plays in every situation comes from the coach,” Sweeney said. “He’ll ultimately make that decision with input from all of us, and most importantly from Bob. Where it stands right now, the rotation has worked, but I don't think they're opposed, and if a guy's got the ability to take us on a run, let him run.”
My two cents: If both goalies play well down the stretch and the rotation remains in place, use it in the playoffs. I was on the record even before the playoffs started last year in saying that I thought it was a mistake to go away from something that had been working so well, especially when neither goalie had a track record of being able to handle a workhorse load. Don’t make the same mistake again.
Obviously, if one guy is playing much better than the other, then sure, ride him. I’ve also been consistent on that and will remain so.
4. It’s hard not to like the Maroon move
It’s possible that Pat Maroon winds up making no impact whatsoever. He underwent back surgery in early February and is expected to be out at least a couple more weeks. There’s no guarantee he’ll get back to 100%, and there’s no guarantee he’ll be one of the Bruins’ 12 best forwards once he is back.
All that said, I think this was a trade worth making. The Bruins have been rotating through fourth-line and 13th-forward options all season. It can’t hurt to mix in a veteran who’s won three Cups and who brings size, physicality and still a little bit of offensive jam.
"He's a three-time Stanley Cup champion," Montgomery said. "He's a gregarious person. I just remember last year, he came in here and he wanted to start something right away. He brought emotion into the game right away and he ended up in a fight five seconds with [Garnet] Hathaway. So, he's kind of player that brings a little glue to a locker room and on the bench."
The Bruins could use all of that, and there’s really no downside here. If it turns out Maroon isn’t healthy enough or good enough, then you just don’t play him. They gave up very little to get him. Toporowski is a solid AHLer, but his production has declined this season, and there’s little to suggest he has an NHL future. A sixth-round pick is nothing, and the Bruins actually get it back if Maroon doesn’t play a playoff game this season.
5. Peeke is a risky gamble
Hand up: I’m not a fan of the trade for Andrew Peeke. His play in Columbus leaves a lot to be desired, and a lot to be fixed. And if the Bruins can’t fix him, they’re stuck with him for two more years after this at $2.75 million per year.
Yes, Peeke is big and physical. Those are desirable attributes. But he brings almost nothing to the table offensively or in transition, and his defensive analytics haven’t been good, even taking into account that the Blue Jackets are a horrid defensive team. There’s a reason his ice time dropped down to 15:37 per game this season and he has frequently been a healthy scratch.
Among the eight semi-regular defensemen Columbus has used this season, Peeke ranks eighth in Corsi-for percentage (45.6%), eighth in on-ice goals against (3.58 per 60 minutes), seventh in expected goals against (3.19 per 60), and eighth in high-danger chances against (14.13 per 60).
You would hope and expect that a player of Peeke’s profile would at least protect the front of the net – an area where the Bruins could use help – but that has not been the case, a point further illustrated by the bottom left on the HockeyViz heat map below, where red (more shots) is bad.
Peeke turns 26 next week, so there could still be room for growth. The Bruins obviously believe there is more than what he’s shown in Columbus, and that they have the coaching and development staff to get it out of him.
“He was in and out of the lineup, and then he jumps back in and plays 20-some-odd minutes against Edmonton [editor’s note: it was actually 17:59],” Sweeney said. “That’s a pretty good challenge. That means he’s got to get his own level of confidence up that he can do it each and every night. He might be in and out of the lineup, he might not. It’ll be merit-based.
“But we feel really good that he brings a different element. Kevin [Shattenkirk] has played really well, if he's gonna go into that spot, Brandon [Carlo], whoever it's gonna be. Charlie [McAvoy] has missed games this year, Brandon's missed games this year. I think we feel comfortable in how he can go up and play and elevate.
“Confidence is probably the right word. Systems and structure is going to be the next thing that we're going to really hammer down in terms of getting him up to full speed in terms of how we play and the structure that we want to play with, and we feel comfortable that we'll be able to do that and he'll buy into what he needs to do to be that player.
“Two years ago, he was playing with [Zach] Werenski most nights and 20 minutes. Change of coach, change of systems, some players respond, some players don't. It's incumbent upon us and our staff to make sure that we've made the right decision and the player’s fully bought in.”
That’s all well and good, but the Bruins are now paying Peeke real third-pairing money for two-plus years whether he and they get his game on track or not. And if they don’t, that commitment may prevent them from signing or trading for a better third-pairing defenseman.
Maybe Sweeney and co. will be right and Peeke will turn into a rock-solid mainstay for the next couple years and I’ll look silly for ever questioning this move. But right now, it just seems like an unnecessary gamble.
For more Bruins talk, be sure to tune in to Sunday Skate with Andrew Raycroft, Scott McLaughlin and Bridgette Proulx, every Sunday 9-11 a.m. on WEEI 93.7 FM, WEEI.com, and the Audacy app.