Boston Bruins: It’s time to go all-in as the trade deadline approaches

The Boston Bruins have year-on-year managed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs without mortgaging their future too much.

This year though, the Boston Bruins should make the call to go all-in at the trade deadline. The Tampa Bay Lightning have already shown their cards with the high cost of acquiring Blake Coleman, while the Pittsburgh Penguins added Jason Zucker. It’s high-time for Boston to do the same.

In the past decade, the Pittsburgh Penguins have had an elite pairing down the middle in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin; both contracted at cheap prices for their elite game. The Penguins have seen the value in hedging their bets, trading prospects and first-rounders almost every year to keep on winning.

There’s a reason they have won three Stanley Cups since 2009 and that’s because they’ve been willing to give away first-round picks and prospects in order to build a roster their two core players; this year it’s Jason Zucker, a few years back it was Phil Kessel.

More from Editorials

• Pavel Zacha’s veteran status leading to bigger role in 2023-24
• The Bruins should take a look at these four free agents
• Why the Bruins should wait to name a captain until after the season
• 3 players the Bruins can, 3 players could trade, 3 players they shouldn’t trade
• It’s time to offer Jake DeBrusk a contract extension

It’s a high-risk play every time they make the trades, but it’s paid handsomely over the years. Back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017 was just reward for being brave and bold enough to make these sorts of moves.

Tampa Bay adding Blake Coleman at the steep price of a first-round pick and a highly-touted prospect in Nolan Foote suggests they’re taking a leaf out of the Penguins’ book.

For the Boston Bruins, it’s a decision they have to make; they have perhaps the best-value top-line in all of hockey, but Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand won’t stay young forever, nor will Tuukka Rask in between the pipes.

Now is the time to risk our prospect pool; we have great depth on the blue-line so could use that as a starting point. Instead of thinking what Urho Vaakanainen, Jakub Zboril or even Connor Clifton could yet become, consider them as trade chips and valuable ones at that.

This summer, we are only missing our fourth round pick and while it’s a deep draft class you don’t always want to take the risk; now is the time to benefit from that exact thinking. Other teams, especially the league’s basement-dwellers know it’s a big-time class so will want those picks; trade them well and the Boston Bruins are laughing all the way back to the Stanley Cup Final.

Worry in three or four years time what those possible draft picks could have been; right now we have Bergeron and Marchand in great form and David Pastrnak in frankly elite form. We must make use of it.

The window for the Boston Bruins is closing and we need to take some risks. I’m not saying throw Jack Studnicka‘s name out there; but at least consider trading some of the prospects we have should a tasty option become available.

If it can work for the Penguins, it can work for the Boston Bruins. Worry about re-building once the current group is retiring or dropping off skill-wise.

The message for Don Sweeney is clear; right now is our time, crank it up a notch and make some moves!