After winning the first two games of their three-game road trip against the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets, the Boston Bruins get two days off before closing out the trip on Sunday night against the Minnesota Wild.
Minnesota will play late Saturday afternoon at home against the Ottawa Senators before hosting the Black and Gold on Sunday. Bostom suffered two injuries to Jonathan Aspirot and Viktor Arvidsson against Winnipeg on Thursday, which could make things difficult lineup-wise against Minnesota.
On Friday night, the task got much harder thanks to the Wild pulling off a blockbuster trade.
Minnesota Wild acquire Quinn Hughes from Canucks in blockbuster trade
It has been rumored for a while that Vancouver Canucks star defenseman Quinn Hughes was on the trade block with several teams interested. Early Friday evening, Elliotte Friedman reported that the Canucks traded Hughes to the Wild. Emily Kaplan of ESPN then reported that Minnesota is sending Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren, and a first-round pick back to the Canucks.
The writing was on the wall that Hughes was going to be traded. It was just a matter of where and for what. There were some rumors that linked the New Jersey Devils to him, as well as the Washington Capitals, which made sense if they were going all-in, as Alex Ovechkin's career is slowly coming to a close.
As for the Bruins, the timing couldn't have been worse. Hughes has two goals and 21 assists in 26 games for Vancouver this season. The seventh overall pick in the 2018 Entry Draft by the Canucks picked up an assist in Thursday night's 3-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
Sunday night's game was going to be difficult for the Bruins, but adding Hughes makes it that much more difficult. At least they picked up a pair of wins on the trip so far, and closing it out with a win over the Wild would be a very successful trip for Marco Sturm's team.