The trade deadline is quickly approaching. If you’ve followed the National Hockey League for some time, then you know what’s coming: trade rumors, many quite credible and others less so, are flying around left and right. As far as the Boston Bruins go, the most prevalent trade rumor has linked the Bruins with the Colorado Avalanche.
Gabriel Landeskog is presumably on the trading block in Denver, and reports have shown that Avalanche GM Joe Sakic is interested in Boston’s young defenseman Brandon Carlo.
Once again the Landeskog/Carlo discussions have kicked up between B’s & Avs & once again Bruins should just say no https://t.co/Ht3TIOuaiA
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) February 13, 2017
Boston’s defensive outlook is very strong for the future. They have some very promising prospects that could develop into a powerful defensive core a little way down the road. With the trade deadline approaching, the Bruins are going to feel pressure from across the league to move one of their young defensemen (in all likelihood Carlo). Considering the state of the Bruins, however, management should be very hesitant to pull the trigger on trading away one of their young defensive prospects.
Short-Term Upgrade Won’t Help B’s
The Bruins, as I predicted before the season, are a playoff bubble team. Since firing Claude Julien a week ago, Boston has won three straight and find themselves back in the thick of the Atlantic Division playoff race. That being said, it’s a stretch to consider this team a real contender for the Stanley Cup at this point, which is exactly why they should hold onto their young defensemen.
Landeskog, who has found himself at the center of many Bruins trade rumors, is undoubtedly a talented player. On the other hand, he isn’t a franchise player. When you dig into his production numbers, you’ll find that Landeskog isn’t worth the price tag that Sakic is asking for on the market. Quite frankly, Carlo and company have much more to offer to the Bruins than Landeskog does.
Looking beyond Landeskog, there are certainly other teams who would like to add some young defense to their roster. Boston should be one of the first places they’ll look. The B’s have a plethora of young defensemen who are — or will soon be — transitioning to the NHL game. The list is awfully impressive – Brandon Carlo, Colin Miller, Charlie McAvoy, Jakub Zboril, Jeremy Lauzon, and so on. Boston has a very promising defensive core in the works, and they should do everything they can to make sure that the future plays out the way they’d like it to.
Plain and simple, Boston’s future looks much brighter than the present. The only reason the B’s would sacrifice their future would be to provide the “finishing touch” to an already Cup-caliber team, which they just don’t have. Dumping one or more of those prospects for anything less than a franchise player would be ill-advised.