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With tight playoff races in both conferences, there are many teams without a clear agenda heading into deadline day.
The Bruins are one of those teams. An early-season coaching change hasn’t done much to jumpstart general manager Don Sweeney‘s club, as an 18-13-3 record under interim head coach Joe Sacco still has them one point out of a playoff spot with negative games in hand.
With a subpar possession game, unusually below-average goaltending, and a captain on an expiring contract, Boston isn’t in a good position to be the aggressive buyers they’ve routinely been at recent deadlines.
Pending UFA forward Trent Frederic is the likeliest candidate. Whether he’s shipped out as part of a true selling move or a retooling swap remains to be seen, but in any event, the 26-year-old is likely more valuable to Boston as a trade chip than as an extension candidate through what looks to be a few questionable seasons.
The versatile middle-six grinder has been drawing interest for weeks now, which should only be growing as Mikael Granlund has already come off a thin list of rental forwards with usability at center.
However, Frederic is amid a major offensive regression, posting seven goals and seven assists in 52 games after a career-best 18-goal, 40-point showing last year. That comes despite Frederic averaging a career-high 14:05 per game, most of which has come at even strength.
He’s been deployed on the second power-play unit with quarterback Hampus Lindholm missing extended time but hasn’t seen much use shorthanded despite what his reputation as a checking piece may indicate.
Frederic does rank second on the team with 142 hits, though, and his $2.3MM cap hit won’t likely require retention for most interested parties.
That, plus his effectiveness as a strong secondary scoring piece in the prior couple of seasons, should net Sweeney a solid return as he looks to restock his draft and prospect cupboard and rework his roster.
Big-bodied wingers Justin Brazeau and Cole Koepke are also pending UFAs and have provided far more value to the Bruins this season than their league-minimum two-way deals would predicate.
Brazeau, in particular, has found a niche, checking in as one of the team’s six double-digit goal scorers with 10 and 20 points through 51 games. He’s seen usage higher in the lineup, particularly with Elias Lindholm and Brad Marchand, and has a 6’5″, 220-lb frame while carrying above-average possession impacts. If his play holds, he’d be an upgrade on nearly every contender’s fourth line and could even check in as a top-nine piece on a few.
Koepke has cooled off after a hot start to the year but has still been part of one of the league’s best shutdown lines this year with John Beecher and Mark Kastelic. The 26-year-old has 12 points in a career-high 47 games, and the trio’s 1.28 xGA/60 ranks second in the league among qualified trios, per MoneyPuck.
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