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Did the Bruins ask for too much in an Eriksson trade?

March 2, 2016, 7:07 PM ET [23 Comments]
Ty Anderson
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Monday’s NHL Trade Deadline came and went with the Boston Bruins choosing to keep pending unrestricted free agent Loui Eriksson rather than trade him for future assets. In fact, the Bruins added around Eriksson with more pending free agents in defenseman John-Michael Liles and versatile winger and then-Devils leading scorer Lee Stempniak.

But with Eriksson and the Bruins not closer to a new deal than they were prior to the deadline, the second-guessers have come out in full force. The non-deal reminded many of the Carl Soderberg -- who ironically was Eriksson’s linemate for much of his time in Boston -- situation of a year ago, where the Bruins opted not to trade Soderberg (which at the time made a ton of sense given Boston’s situation) for a first-round pick and/or a prospect. And if you’re so far off in negotiations, and you’re without leverage as you can’t trade Eriksson, wouldn’t it make the most sense to acquire what you can for No. 21 rather than watch him walk in the offseason? Especially when you take a look at what the Winnipeg Jets got in return for Andrew Ladd, perhaps Eriksson’s lone comparable, who by the way was having a statistically worse season than Eriksson in almost every category.

If the Bruins could have gotten anything close to what the Chicago Blackhawks sent the Jets -- top prospect Marko Dano, a first-round draft pick, and a conditional third that’s sent to Winnipeg if the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup this season -- that’s a deal you’d almost have to make.

But did that kind of deal ever materialize? According to B’s general manager Don Sweeney, who would not get into any of the specifics of deals sent Boston’s way, it does not appear that it did.

Which leads you to ask, were the Bruins asking for too much in an Eriksson trade? That very well could have been the case, at least according to what Bruins Daily’s James Murphy reported yesterday.







For a rental that you basically know can and will command upwards of $6 million on the open market if he gets there, that’s a little steep. At the same time, it almost makes sense for Sweeney to sell high or not at all, as the Bruins are still very much a playoff team in a relatively bland Eastern Conference. It’s that whole ‘Make ‘em an offer he can’t refuse’ sort of mindset. (Also: I’ve never seen the Godfather.)

“There’s no question it’s a roller coaster,” Sweeney said of the deadline as a whole. “You’ve got a lot of conversations going on with a lot of different people, and everybody’s on, at times, on a fishing expedition as to what may or may not transpire, and it’s a challenge.”

In terms of the top-six forward or the top-four defenseman with term that the Bruins coveted in any Eriksson trade, you’d have to imagine that most buyers simply weren’t willing to do that. After all, you’re looking to add, not subtract (even if it’s a lateral move) to an already strong group. So, when I hear that, I think of guys that you would consider in that weird middleground between being a top-sixer or top-pairing type in the NHL while also being too good to skate in the AHL. And if you’re focused on two of the teams that had shown the most interest in Eriksson -- the Blues, Ducks, and Wild -- you immediately go to a guy like Jaskin or Fabbri in St. Louis, Brodin or Dumba in Minny, or Theodore (a player the Ducks were adamant that they were not going to move) or Montour. Plus more.

And again, those deals, at least from a total package standpoint, never appeared to come.

Something that could very well have come back to the idea that the B’s were asking too much.

“I certainly had evaluated over the course of months really as to whether or not Loui [Eriksson] was going to be assigned before the deadline. We’ve been in contract negotiations; we’ll continue to talk with Loui and his group. I’ve always valued the type of player that Loui is,” Sweeney said of the process. “The season he’s having I think is important for where our club is and if the deal wasn’t going to be right, that we were going to maintain our position. If you look around the league I don’t think any team currently in a playoff position traded a player of Loui’s magnitude, and correct me if I’m wrong as well I think one first rounder was exchanged. So the deal had to be right – it has to be right for this organization for me to do that and that’s what I’ve been entrusted to do and I’m going to continue to do that. And for me, Loui Eriksson is an important part of what we’re doing now, being in the position that we’re in. It could be also for an extended period of time if we do find a deal, and it works in conjunction with the bigger outlook of our organization going forward and what we’re trying to do here.”



Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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