The Bruins are looking to add some help on the wing between now and the trade deadline and have shown interest in Oilers winger Patrick Maroon, reports NBC Sports Boston’s Joe Haggerty. He notes that Boston has been scouting Edmonton for the last couple of games while Oilers VP of Hockey Operations Craig MacTavish was keeping tabs on the Bruins on Saturday night.
Maroon is positioned to be one of the more sought-after rental players between now and the trade deadline. He has shown that he can do well in a scoring role with Edmonton but before his time there, he had success in a crash-and-bang role, something the Bruins may be looking to add to the equation.
[Related: Maroon’s Trade Candidate Profile]
This season, the 29-year-old has 13 goals and 14 assists through 52 games while averaging a career-high 17:01 in ice time per game. He’s also no stranger to the postseason having played in 42 playoff contests where he has thrived, tallying 26 points (12-14-26) in that span.
There is mutual interest between Maroon and the Oilers in terms of working out a contract extension but with Connor McDavid’s new $12.5MM deal set to kick in next season, Edmonton’s payroll flexibility may be too limited to get something done. He will undoubtedly be looking for a considerable raise on the $2.1MM salary ($2.0MM cap hit; Anaheim is paying 25% of that this season) he is currently getting and that may be too rich for them to afford.
From Boston’s perspective, they have several quality young wingers in their system that will be pushing for NHL jobs soon so they would likely view Maroon as a pure rental and not someone that they would look to re-sign after the season. While they don’t have a ton of cap room to work with – just shy of $3.4MM in full-season salary on trade deadline day per CapFriendly, that’s still enough to absorb Maroon’s deal and still have enough left over to try to add another piece to their roster.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
I don’t think the deal will get done because it’s four former Bruins all trying to get the upper hand; Sweeney & Neely versus Chiarelli & McTavish.
Would rather spend the capital on McDonough than Maroon. Guy never scored more than 15 goals until he was paired with NHL wonder kid McDavid.
They are going after both