NHL Trade Deadline Needs: Boston Bruins And Florida Panthers
In 2023, the Panthers barely squeaked into the playoffs but upset the Presidents' Trophy-winning Bruins in a first-round, seventh-game overtime thriller. Last season, the Panthers won the Atlantic Division and faced Boston in the second round, but Florida outlasted the B's in six games.
This season, the defending Cup-champion Panthers have a roster depleted by key players leaving in free agency, while Boston has struggled to fill the leadership and scoring void created by the departures of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Zdeno Chara.
Here are the main and secondary areas of need that each club is likely to address before the March 7 NHL trade deadline:
Due to cap restrictions, the Panthers lost power-play quarterback Brandon Montour and veteran Oliver Ekman-Larsson in July. They replaced them with bargain-basement additions Nate Schmidt and Latvian Uvis Balinskis, who split the previous season between Florida and AHL Charlotte.
Making a defensive upgrade will be challenging for Florida GM Bill Zito because the club has just over $1 million in cap space and no picks in the first three rounds of the 2025 NHL draft, according to PuckPedia.
Zito has accomplished the difficult task of keeping his core forward group of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe intact. The Panthers also have a useful secondary group of Sam Bennett, Evan Rodrigues and Eetu Luostarinen.
The free-agent replacements for useful energy forwards, such as Nick Cousins, Ryan Lomberg and Steven Lorentz, have fallen short. The Panthers' advantage is that fourth-liners are relatively inexpensive and can be acquired with their low-round selections.The Bruins went from being second in the NHL in goals-for in 2023 to 13th last season to 26th this season with 2.71 goals-for per game. The traditionally stingy Boston defense has also declined. Currently, both Bruins goalies have a sub .900 save percentage, but it is expected the club will improve in the second half and that Jeremy Swayman will begin to resemble the goalie who earned an eight-year extension right before the season.
Part of the club's offensive issues are the pedestrian numbers put up by center Elias Lindholm and the lack of a replacement for Jake DeBrusk. GM Don Sweeney must add a scorer who can take some of the heat off David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand.The Bruins are expected to have both of their top blueliners, Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy, back before the 4 Nations Face-Off begins on Feb. 12. With the addition of Nikita Zadorov to go along with Andrew Peeke, Brandon Carlo and Mason Lohrei, Boston should be solid enough defensively.
The departure of veteran forwards James van Riemsdyk and Danton Heinen hurt the Bruins' forward depth. Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederic have also produced at a lower rate than last year. The Bruins will need to add another forward to provide some secondary scoring in the bottom six as well.
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