Flashback a year-and-a-half ago, and no one could've ever predicted that Brad Marchand wouldn't be a lifelong Boston Bruin. Fast forward to now, and he is a Stanley Cup Champion with the Florida Panthers and is in year 1 of a 6-year contract with the franchise. Some players just seem like they don't belong in a different sweater, but the sports business can be cruel. That's why the Los Angeles Kings shouldn't rule out anything this season.
The Kings went all-in when they traded for Artemi Panarin. They then lost Kevin Fiala at the Olympics, lost all four games after the break, and on Thursday afternoon traded Warren Foegele to the Ottawa Senators. By all accounts, Ken Holland is turning his team into sellers at the trade deadline, and that would be a brutal way for captain Anze Kopitar to end his NHL career.
Kopitar is a two-time Stanley Cup Champion and has spent his entire career in Los Angeles. It'd be very easy for him to stay there for the remainder of the season with his family and ride off into the sunset. However, this is it for him after this season, and a few months away from the wife and kids to chase a third championship before retiring with them in Slovenia doesn't seem like the worst idea.
Could the Bruins make a surprise trade with the Kings?
That's where the Bruins come in. They don't have much interest in trading for a rental, but the Bruins let Marchand walk to one of their most bitter rivals last season for a second-round pick just to let him chase a championship. The Bruins aren't Stanley Cup favorites, but in a wide-open Eastern Conference, acquiring a motivated Kopitar for a late-round draft pick would certainly help them in that quest.
Admittedly, if the Kings were going to do something this drastic, they'd likely let Kopitar walk to a team that has a better chance of winning than the Bruins. The Minnesota Wild, Montreal Canadiens, and Carolina Hurricanes are three teams higher in the standings that are in need of a middle-six center. However, if the Bruins wait them out until the final minutes, as Marchand did last season, those teams might have already made their moves.
The chances of Kopitar wanting to leave Los Angeles are slim to none, but the Foegele trade has everyone scrambling to figure out what Holland's plan is. It wouldn't hurt any team to check in with the Slovenian legend to see how he wants to finish his NHL career.