rumor/report: Bruins After Jonas Brodin

One hockey source indicated to CSNNE there should be attention paid to the ongoing trade discussions between the Bruins and Wild for a couple of reasons. Those talks first started leading up to this past season?s trade deadline. The 23-year-old Brodin Is a left-shot D-man with cost certainty signed for four more years at $4.166 million and has been a top-four defenseman for the Wild since breaking into the league as a teenager. The 6-foot-1, 194-pound Brodin is coming off a career-high 25 points, while also averaging a career-low 19:34 of ice time, and has settled in as a solid, two-way D-man who's never going to dazzle anybody with his workmanlike skill set.

 

Brodin can move the puck skillfully enough, he can defend and he can play in any situation, but he?s never going to light it up with a 50-point season and will battle through his share of injuries: He?s only once played more than 71 regular-season games in five NHL seasons.

 

That?s exactly the kind of solid, steady, young veteran the Bruins could use alongside a budding, special talent in McAvoy. Brodin would fit in with Boston?s salary cap structure as well. On the Minnesota side, there are indications around the hockey world the Wild want to get back into the first round after shipping their first rounder (No. 23 overall) to the Coyotes in exchange for Martin Hanzal at the trade deadline.

 

The Bruins still have their first-round pick at the 18th spot and Sweeney made no mystery about his willingness to discuss dealing that pick when talking to reporters at last weekend?s NHL prospect combine.

 

?It?s an effort to try and improve our hockey club,? said Sweeney to reporters in Buffalo last weekend. ?We have had a number of selections the last couple of years and we feel that they?ll all materialize into very good players for the Boston Bruins and I wouldn?t be doing my job if I didn?t explore what could improve our hockey club now in the shorter term.

 

?I owe it to our players and the organization to continue to do that. Whether or not it happens, I don?t know. Some people have looked at me sideways at times when holding three first-rounders [in 2015] and not being able to do something at that point in time. The right deal didn?t take place. I can?t say that it?s going to at this time as well, but it?s certainly an area I?ve looked at that if we can improve, then we would move it.?

http://www.csnne.com/boston-bruins/haggerty-wheels-begin-turn-boston-bruins-summer-improvement-plan