BHN Daily: Don Sweeney Must Act Now And Not At NHL Trade Deadline

If the absolute stinker his listless and seemingly unmotivated team laid in a 4-0 loss to the New York Rangers Saturday doesn’t convince Boston Bruins General Manager not to wait until the NHL Trade Deadline to make a move, nothing will!

As my partner in crime Joe Haggerty wrote Sunday morning, it’s time to shake up the Bruins’ roster with a trade. Not at the NHL Trade Deadline when prices will skyrocket but now. It’s become painfully clear that somehow, despite having the epitome of work ethic in their leadership group of captain Patrice Bergeron and alternate captains Brad Marchand and David Krejci, a Club Med atmosphere has developed amongst the transitional leadership group of Charlie Coyle, Chris Wagner, and Sean Kuraly. The conduits from the captaincy trio are not leading by example and delivering the message to the younger players and too many nights there are too many passengers.

Only one season into their contracts they signed back on November 27, 2019, there is a solid chance that either Weymouth’s Prodigal son or the Mayor of Walpole could find themselves playing away from home again. With Coyle having a modified no-movement and no-trade clause, it’s very likely it won’t be home but it would be no surprise if the Bruins are trying after watching the Minnesota Wild version of the veteran center return this season.

Speaking of the Wild, they’re suddenly buyers with just under a month until the deadline but it would behoove Sweeney to look deeper into the Arizona Coyotes roster than just defenseman Oliver-Ekman Larsson and also to explore the roster of the Bruins’ normal Atlantic Division rivals, the Ottawa Senators. As I write in the latest ‘Off The Record’, both could have young core pieces with term available before the NHL Trade Deadline or at the NHL Draft. 

Now onto the rest of your BHN Daily clips:

Speaking of NHL Trade rumors, you can pull Jack Eichel’s name off your NHL Trade bait lists for now because the disgruntled Buffalo Sabres captain is going to be out ‘for the foreseeable future’ with an upper-body injury. (TSN)

In honor of Captain Obvious, we give you Larry Brooks’ Sunday column about the new TV deal between the NHL and ESPN (NY Post)

Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy became the first goaltender in NHL history to post a win streak of eight-plus games in four consecutive seasons in a 6-3 Lightning win over the Nashville Predators after the Bolts raised their second Stanley Cup banner for their fans. (NHL)

Really awesome story here of a good deed by Vancouver Canucks goalie Braden Holtby gone bad and then made good again! (Sportsnet)

Finally, the Irish-themed Murph’s Music Pick of The Day continues with a band that served as the subject for the first article I ever had published back in my days writing for The Daily Collegian at UMass-Amherst!