The Bruins were at the center of plenty of chatter and rumors leading up to the first round of the NHL draft on Tuesday, but it wound up being a quiet night.
They didn't make any trades -- for picks or players -- and didn't have any picks of their own after trading their first-round pick to the Ducks along with David Backes and his salary in the deal that landed them Ondrej Kase in return.
General manager Don Sweeney acknowledged there was talk, though, saying he had some conversations before the draft about what it might cost to get into the first round. Nothing came to fruition, however, and Sweeney couldn't or wouldn't say if anything was particularly close.
"We ultimately didn't land, so you'd have to ask the other team how receptive they were," Sweeney said. "Teams generally are monitoring the pick and the player pool that they have a choice to choose from at that particular time and what the cost associated with the discussions you're having. Obviously, it didn't come to fruition, so I can't handicap what it may or may not have been."
The Bruins will be busier on Wednesday when the draft resumes at 11:30 a.m. with Rounds 2-7. They go into the day with a second-round pick (58th overall), third-round pick (89), fifth-round pick (151), sixth-round pick (182), and seventh-round pick (213).
Sweeney said the Boston staff is excited to make some picks in what they view as a deep draft, and he applauded the group for its draft preparation, which was more challenging this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and lots of remote rather than in-person work.
"Our guys are now excited," Sweeney said. "They sat around all night monitoring and getting excited about the potential players that we're going to have the opportunity to draft [Wednesday]. And we need to do a good job. They've worked awfully hard prior to the shutdowns of the leagues and certainly, since then, they've covered a lot of ground and a lot of meetings.
"And they've done a good job, put us in a position to have a really solid list. We feel the draft is deep and we'll find good players when we pick and possibly, if I do my job, I can try and accumulate a few more picks. Again, it remains to be seen. But again, some of the teams control a volume of those picks and we'll see where we land."
There were a few draft pick trades around the league in the first round, and the Canadiens also executed a trade just before the draft when they dealt Max Domi and a third-round pick to Columbus for Josh Anderson.
Sweeney said he expects some more pick trades on Wednesday, but noted that player-for-player trades tend to take a back seat during the draft.
"I think there will be some pick movement [on Wednesday]," Sweeney said. "You saw a little bit of it in a couple trade-back scenarios. I think teams were certainly trying to get into the first round. You saw a few teams are certainly controlling some of the volume of the picks, but they hold the cards in that matter. The trade talk, player for player and the money movement as we discussed before continues, but obviously it becomes a little more muted during the draft around those two days."
Of course, the biggest player trade the Bruins are reportedly discussing is one that could bring Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson to Boston. Ekman-Larsson and his agent have set a Friday deadline for a trade to get done with either the Bruins or Canucks, the only two teams for which the 29-year-old Arizona captain has agreed to waive his no-trade clause.
Asked directly about Ekman-Larsson for the first time, Sweeney unsurprisingly wouldn't get into specifics.
"I'm reading a lot about it," he said. "I certainly can't comment on any other player on any other team. Conversations were had and I've made it pretty clear that I'm not going to talk about any players that may be discussed on our own team. It's our jobs as general managers to make sure that we're aware of who is available and try to have those types of conversations that might benefit your own club, and that's what the other teams are doing."
Teams are also continuing conversations with their pending free agents. They have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to extend qualifying offers to restricted free agents, and then free agency opens at noon on Friday.
Torey Krug remains the hottest topic on that front for the Bruins, but Sweeney said Tuesday night that nothing had changed there since Monday, when he said the two sides hadn't "had any progress."
