NHL Source: Bruins More Focused On Kane, Not Toews

With the Holiday Freeze on NHL rosters starting Monday and lasting until December 27, NHL trade chatter has picked up recently. Some of the scuttlebutt over the last week had the Boston Bruins interested in longtime Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews. According to one NHL source close to the situation though, that’s not exactly true.

“Was his name brought up with the Bruins? Yes, of course it was. But the Bruins weren’t the ones bringing it up,” the source recently told Boston Hockey Now. “Toews comes up in basically any call to Kyle Davidson right now but it’s not always the team calling him that takes the talks in that direction. I know that right now, when it comes to the Blackhawks, its Patrick Kane that the Bruins would interested in.

The same source also stressed that so far, any talks between the Bruins and Blackhawks on the NHL trade market have been have been ‘strictly exploratory’, as have pretty much all NHL trade talks concerning Kane or Toews to this point. Stanley Cup and playoff contenders are mostly doing due diligence and advance scouting on players of Kane’s and Toews’ caliber.

Just under a month ago, it was reported here that an NHL executive had opined to Boston Hockey Now that Patrick Kane, who now has four goals and 17 assists in 28 games this season, would be a good fit for the league-leading Boston Bruins.

“Patrick Kane and the Bruins make a lot of sense,” the NHL Exec told BHN on Nov. 18. “The Bruins were all in already but with this start, I’d say they’re full speed ahead and will do whatever it takes to get Patrice Bergeron one more Stanley Cup. They have cap issues now so they can’t really go hard after Kane or anyone, but they need to be laying down the foundation for acquiring a player like that.”

That same NHL exec was reached Friday by BHN, and as he said then, there’s not an auction being held for Kane, or even Toews for that matter just yet, and given the fact that so many contenders are up against the $82.5 million NHL salary cap, there likely won’t be any big name trades for a while.

“With the way everything is right now, the big names probably aren’t moving until much closer to the NHL Trade Deadline,” the NHL exec told BHN.

The NHL Trade Deadline is on March 3.