The easiest way to handle dropping a rat king till (not less than) the playoffs? Herald one other.
Brad Marchand is greater than his antics. His scoring price has slowly decreased over the past couple of years, however he’s nonetheless a succesful top-six winger. The Bruins’ anticipated purpose technology has been higher with Marchand on the ice, and his puck-moving capability remains to be a power, along with his transition recreation and playmaking. Marchand is out with an harm now, however upon his return, he ought to be capable of flip that into extra constant manufacturing within the Panthers’ top-nine after spending a lot of the season with a struggling Elias Lindholm in Boston.
This transfer strikes the needle for the Panthers, and Marchand’s contributions ought to are available in clutch if Matthew Tkachuk isn’t at one hundred pc when (or if) he returns within the postseason. Marchand can nonetheless shoulder matchup minutes, which provides the Panthers choices — whether or not he slots alongside a Selke-caliber heart in Aleksandar Barkov, or former rival Sam Bennett. He may even be a lift for the third line with Anton Lundell when wanted.
A conditional second-round choose is an underwhelming return, contemplating what different depth wingers went for — and even when it does improve to a first-rounder, it will probably be a late first in a considerably weaker draft 12 months. His harm standing might have contributed to that. And whereas technically, Marchand solely had an eight-team no-trade record to navigate, the return may have been restricted if the Bruins had let their captain choose his vacation spot.
The choice to maneuver Marchand couldn’t have been straightforward — he was the Bruins’ captain and franchise cornerstone and made it clear he was prepared to remain by way of a retool. Whereas administration is working with the long-term in thoughts and appears dedicated to the retooling course of, perhaps it will have been worthwhile to simply prolong Marchand. The Bruins moved out a number of items and may be capable of rapidly flip this staff round with out the second-rounder gained on this deal.
