Surprise statement about a possible major trade involving Brad Marchand

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Elias Adaime
May 3, 2023 (1:10 PM)

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The surprising elimination of the Boston Bruins earlier this week against the Florida Panthers hurts the organization in many ways. The Massachusetts team is at risk of losing not only their captain, who could retire this summer, but also seven other key pieces of the team.

These losses could push general manager Don Sweeney to change course in his strategy and opt for a rebuild, especially when looking at the team's salary cap situation for the next few years. To date, the Boston team already has $72.9 million committed to the payroll for the 2023-2024 season, and that's for just 14 players.

Sweeney will have to trade some high salary players if he wants to complete a somewhat competitive roster. On this topic, Marc-Olivier Cook from the website DLC suggests that the GM could explore trading Brad Marchand.

It's an extremely surprising statement, but if we dig deeper into the analysis, it could make absolute sense.

The Bruins forward is not getting any younger, now 34 years old, and still has a fairly affordable contract for what he brings, at $6.125 million until the end of the 2024-2025 season. There's no doubt there would be interest in him throughout the NHL.

Trading Marchand, if the team is indeed rebuilding, would also allow the Bruins to recover several draft picks. They have given up many in recent years to acquire rental players.

As you can see below, the organization does not have many high picks for the next two drafts.

A rebuild centered around David Pastrnak, who is tied to the team until the end of the 2030-2031 season, could make a lot of sense. Add in Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, and Pavel Zacha, to name just a few, and the core for the next few years is quite well stocked. That's not to mention the return Sweeney would get for Marchand, which would surely be interesting for the future!