The NHL trade deadline came and went today so let’s take a look at what the Bruins did and where the team stands with 17 games left in the regular season. 

The first move the Bruins made was to trade Luke Toporowski and a conditional 6^th round pick to the Minnesota Wild for left winger Pat Maroon.  In theory I like this trade.  First off, the Bruins didn’t give anything up to get Maroon.  Toporowski is 23 years old and not much of a prospect and who cares about a 6^th round pick.  Maroon is the type of player the Bruins could use in that he plays with a lot of grit and snarl.  He’s the type of guy that will throw his weight around and stand up for his teammates and is more than happy to drop the gloves.  He is not much of an offensive player, though he did once score 27 goals in a season with Edmonton, but he has a specific role to play and he plays that role as well as you can.  He’s a 4^th liner that will piss off the other team as he has done plenty of times with the Bruins.  To the point where Jack Edwards once got in trouble because he made fun of Maroon’s weight.  Even in today’s game you need a guy like this on your team. 

Maroon’s other big attribute which he will be bringing to the Bruins is his championship experience.  Pat has won the cup three times with two different teams.  One of those times was against the Bruins when he was a member of the St. Louis Blues.  His numbers in the playoffs are actually pretty good for the number of minutes he played.  He is also considered a great locker room guy and a real glue guy.  He is the type of guy you love when he’s on your team and despise when he’s on the other team.   

The problem with this move is that Maroon is injured.  He had back surgery and is still 2 to 3 weeks away from playing again.  A bad back is the worst injury you can have in sports.  Even if he heals up totally, how long is it going to take him to get back into game shape.  If he takes the full 3 weeks to start playing again, he will only have about 7 games left in the season.  That should be enough time to assimilate himself with the team, if all goes well.  Hopefully it will be enough time for him to get back into playing shape.  With a bad back, you really can’t do anything and well, if announcers are making fun of your weight, how good of shape were you in to begin with?  If the Bruins can get the guy Maroon was before the injury by the time the play-offs start, this will have been a solid trade. 

The second trade the Bruins made was for Defenseman Andrew Peeke.  The 6’3” 215-pound former Columbus Blue Jacket was acquired for Jakob Zboril and a 2027 3^rd round pick.  In other words, nothing of value.  Because of that, I really can’t complain about this move.  However, I really can’t get excited about it either.   Now, hockey isn’t like other sports for me, I don’t really know the average player on other teams besides the Bruins, so I have no idea if I have even ever seen Peeke play.  What this means is I can’t really say if he is good, bad, or other.  Peeke is 25 years old and is under contract for three seasons (2 more after this one) at 2.75 mil per year.  While it’s great they traded for someone with term left instead of just a rental like they have done in the past (and with Maroon), my first red flag here is that if you are the Blue Jackets, why are you trading a young defenseman who is under contract for 3 years at a solid number?  He has to suck, right?  If you look at his stats, um, yeah, he sucks.  He is known as a defensive defenseman so his offensive numbers are not impressive at all.  But that would be fine if he was very good on defense.  My second red flag for Peeke is that his plus minus numbers are terrible.  He played 80 games last season and his plus minus was minus 41.  Ugh!  The season before that he played all 82 games and was a minus 14.  Now, Columbus is exactly the ’82 Islanders.  Everyone was a minus last season.  But on a team of suck, Peeke’s plus minus was the worst.  This season he has only played 23 games.  From what I can tell, he was not injured this season so it must have been a benching.  Again, by the 21-32-10 Blue Jackets.  I mean, he has to suck, right? 

With that said, I am all for giving a guy a change of scenery and there are a lot of players who play better on good teams than they do on bad ones.  He is still young and he has good size.  Statistically Peeke is very good at blocking shots and does do his share of hitting.  That’s more in line with what the Bruins need than another offensive, puck moving guy.  Maybe the Bruins can find the best in him.  He was a 2^nd round pick.  Maybe the Blue Jackets were expecting too much of him.  Maybe they wanted him to be a top line defender.  Now with the Bruins he will be a 3^rd pairing defenseman.  Hopefully that role will fit him better and he will be more effective in it.  I love when teams find guys who didn’t fulfill big expectations on one team and put them in lesser roles on their team.  It works well in many cases.  Let’s hope this is one of them.   

Now what kind of a team are Peeke and Maroon joining.   There’s an old saying in sports.  It goes “You’re never as good as you are at your best and never as bad as you are at your worst.”  Or something like that.  That’s how I feel about the Bruins this season.  They got off to another hot start but since the All Star break, they have been struggling.  My feeling is that they are somewhere between the two.  Coming into the season I thought the Bruins were probably a middle of the pack play-off team.  They got off to that unexpected hot start with the goalies standing on their heads and a much healthier defense playing well.  The offense, though, was average.  I say average knowing they are 10^th in the league in goals per game but aside from Pastrnak, they have no other players, including Marchand, who you expect to score on a nightly basis.  Since the break, the offense is still average but the goaltending and defense has come back down to earth.  Thus, so has their record.  They have had a ridiculous stretch of not being able to protect a lead and cannot stop the other team from scoring when they pull the goalie.  This has led to a bunch of over time games, where the Bruins are awful.  Being awful at 3 on 3 and the shootout actually isn’t an issue as they don’t exist in the playoffs and if you get to OT in the regular season, you gained a point.  For a team struggling to make the play offs those extra points are big, but after their hot start, the Bruins don’t really need them.  As of this typing, the Bruins still have the second-best record in the East and their magic number to make the playoffs is 21 points.  I think.  I am almost sure.  It’s a lot harder to figure out Hockey magic numbers than it is other sports.

Why has there been this return to earth by the Bruins?  Some of it has to do with injuries to their defense.  Forbort was injured early in the season and since he came back, he had been terrible.  It turns out he was never healthy.  Today Sweeney said he is going on Long Term IL and will need 1 or 2 surgeries.  His season is probably over.  Lindholm is due back from his injury tomorrow (Feb 9^th).  He has played this whole season like it’s the playoffs.  That’s not a compliment.  Maybe we will be lucky and that will mean he will play in the playoffs the way he usually plays in the regular season.  Which is to say, excellently. 

Aside from the defense breaking down physically, the main problem the Bruins have is a lack of talent.  At least high-end talent.  Aside from Pastrnak, who is a top 5 guy in the league, Marchand, McAvoy, and the Goal tenders, every one else on this team is a JAG.  Just another guy.  They are not bad players.  They are just average.  And you can’t have a team of just average guys and contend.  This happens in sports a lot where you look at a team and think these guys would really help a ton of teams if they were dispersed throughout the league, but together, they just aren’t good enough.  The little high-end talent they have is good enough to get them to the playoffs but it’s just not enough to make them real contenders.   Pastrnak, Marchand and Coyle are the only 3 guys in the top 104 in goals.  Coyle has matched his career high (21), Trent Fredrick tied his career high (17), and Morgan Geekie has blown away high career high with 15 goals.  These guys are playing at the absolute top of their games and while pretty good, not great.  The Bruins need more great.   Don’t get me wrong, they don’t need to get rid of these guys, they need to add to them.  Specifically at the center position.  Poitras’ injury only magnified that need. 

The defense doesn’t put up many points except for McAvoy but that is the least of their problems.  Their biggest problem is getting the puck out of the zone and clearing out the front of the net, especially in the last 5 minutes of games.  Maybe Peeke will help that.  Hopefully Maroon will from the forward spot.  Just like the forwards, outside of McAvoy everyone else is just a JAG.  Lohrei may become a high-end player (I think he will) but he is not there yet.  The rest of them, are average at best. 

As far as the coaching goes, I just don’t know what Montgomery is supposed to do.  He has been burdened with the goalie rotation.  I don’t know what he is supposed to do there (although Swayman seems to be taking the lead and getting slightly more chances in net lately).  And his roster just isn’t good enough.  Now, I wish he would set the lines and keep then for a few games to see if they can develop some chemistry but I have been saying that with every coach they have so I don’t know if that’s really something that happens nowadays.  It did look for a while that Monty had lost the room.  That would mean he has to go.  But the last three games make it seem as if that’s not true.  So who knows without actually being in the room.  Like I said before, hockey isn’t my best sport so maybe I am missing things that he does poorly.  I haven’t heard anyone else complain about his coaching really, well, one guy but I don’t usually put much into what he says unless he’s talking about cigars.

How did the Bruins get to this place?  Easy, Sweeney and Neely have a fear of young goaltenders.  The obvious move in the offseason was to trade one of the goalies (preferably Ullmark) for a high-end player or cap space that would have allowed you to acquire a high-end player either in the off season or at this trade deadline.  The Bruins are so up against the cap that they can’t even bring minor leaguers up from Providence unless someone is injured.  Ullmark and Grzelcyk were easy guys to dump in salary cap moves but Sweeney wouldn’t do it.  Now the deadline comes and the only way they can even trade for Peeke is because Forbort went on LTIR.  I know people don’t want to just give away a player as good as Ullmark but you cannot play 2 goaltenders at the same time and cap space in the NHL is very valuable.  That is what they would have been acquiring if they moved him for some drat picks and/or some middling prospects.  The trade wouldn’t have been Ullmark for say a 3^rd round pick, it would have been Ullmark for a 3^rd round pick and whoever they used the cap space on.  That would have made them better.  

Of course, none of this matters now that the trade deadline has passed.  The team the Bruins have now is the team they will have for the rest of the season.  Are they better now than they were before the deadline?  Maybe a little. Are they good enough to win the Cup?  Probably not.  But teams get hot and go on runs all the time in the NHL and with their goaltenders, there’s always a chance for that.  Maybe if they get favorable match ups, they can surprise everyone.  Hopefully the fact that the team did add at the deadline will energize the players and we will see the team that started the season head into the playoffs.