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The great white hope that Boston Bruins general manager
Don Sweeney has had when it comes to hammering out a new deal with pending unrestricted free agent
Loui Eriksson seems to have taken a hit, as the 30-year-old looks bound to hit the open market on July 1st.
Speaking with the media before Friday night’s draft, Sweeney noted that a new deal with Eriksson ‘may not happen’, but that the Bruins and Eriksson’s agent, J.P. Barry, would like to take one more stab.
From
WEEI.com:
“I’m going to have a conversation again with J.P. and see if things have changed and take one more stab at it to see if he thinks the internal landscape is as green as we think it is as opposed to what the outside may look like,” Sweeney said. “Obviously he’s on the cusp of maybe exploring things.”
As alluded to in the post linked above, term has been the biggest roadblock between the two from the start. Money is money, and the Black and Gold have quite a bit of it this summer, but it’s the organization’s unwillingness to go the extra mile (read as: six years) that’s kept Eriksson unsigned. Much of that comes back to the long-term scope of the team’s future, which is headlined by a new contract for
Brad Marchand next summer, along with a desire to stay out of cap hell.
But in a market short on skillful wingers --
Andrew Ladd,
Milan Lucic,
Kyle Okposo, and
Radim Vrbata are Eriksson’s biggest competition -- Eriksson will get paid.
Surely the Bruins will need to find a way to replace Eriksson, who scored 30 goals and 63 points a year ago (his best numbers in four years) along with 10 power-play goals scored as the net-front presence on Boston’s potent first power-play unit, if a deal cannot be made between now and next Friday.
The Bruins would have an interest on any of those aforementioned wingers (with the exception of Lucic, as that ship has already sailed for the Black and Gold and Lucic, too), though the price and term may not be too, too different from that of an Eriksson if the Bruins seek a
true upgrade. And that’s assuming that there’s an upgrade on the free agent market, a notion that seems like a bit of a stretch.
And while defense has remained the name of the game when it comes to the B’s jump into the trade market, sources have indicated to HockeyBuzz.com that the Bruins also have an interest in adding a ‘proven’ forward that can help bolster a forward group short on consistent track records.
Barring a trade, however, the Bruins will pick 14th and 29th in Friday night’s NHL Draft in Buffalo.
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.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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