Trade Deadline Primer: Boston Bruins
With the Olympic break upon us, the trade deadline is under a month away. Where does each team stand, and what moves should they be looking to make? After looking at teams at the ends of the standings, we shift our focus to teams fighting for a playoff spot. Next up are the Bruins.
The Bruins remain in contention despite many having them pegged to miss the playoffs this year by a fairly significant margin. The Bruins were sellers at last year’s trade deadline but have shifted toward a more promising retool. Boston still has a solid core to build around in David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman, so they will be incentivized to continue adding to their lineup while that core is in the prime of their careers. General manager Don Sweeney has been criticized in the past for some of his moves, particularly in the wake of the Bruins’ record-setting 2022-23 season. Still, he has done solid work over the last year, steering the Bruins through a tough time and back into playoff contention.
Record
32-20-5, 5th in the Atlantic (61% playoff probability)
Deadline Status
Conservative Buyer
Deadline Cap Space
$3.98MM on deadline day, 1/3 retention slots used, 44/50 contracts used, per PuckPedia.
Upcoming Draft Picks
2026: BOS 1st, TOR 1st, BOS 2nd, BOS 3rd, BOS 4th, PHI 4th, TB 4th, BOS 6th, BOS 7th
2027: BOS 1st, FLA 1st, BOS 2nd, BOS 4th, BOS 6th, BOS 7th
Trade Chips
The Bruins’ best trade chips at the moment are the four first-round picks they hold in the next two entry drafts. Those picks, should Boston opt to move any of them, would be a significant piece of a package for an impact player at the deadline. It remains to be seen whether Sweeney has the stomach to do that this year, but the option is available.
Aside from the picks, Boston doesn’t have a deep prospect system, and they are unlikely to move their best prospect, James Hagens, whom they drafted last June with the seventh overall pick. The 19-year-old profiles as a center, and the Bruins have a good amount of long-term depth down the middle, so it’s possible they could consider a move. However, Hagens has seen a good amount of usage on the wing this year at Boston College, which means the Bruins have options when it comes to their top prospect.
Beyond Hagens, there is a major drop-off in talent throughout the Bruins’ prospect system, with some of their top players already having graduated to the NHL. Fraser Minten is one of those former prospects who is now a full-time NHLer at 21, and another young player Boston probably has no interest in trading. Minten has posted 14 goals and 15 assists in 57 games this season while providing a steady physical presence. The Bruins have decent center depth throughout the system, but it’s hard to imagine them trading a young center who is just scratching the surface of his potential.
Sticking with young forwards, Fabian Lysell is the Bruins’ 2021 first-round pick (21st overall). He had a cup of coffee in the NHL last season, playing 12 games and recording one goal and two assists. The winger returned to the AHL this season, where he is having the most productive offensive season of his career, with 15 goals and 21 assists in 42 games. At 23, Lysell is on the older side for a prospect, but he’s shown enough offense in the AHL to be viewed as a decent trade piece. Lysell is an excellent skater with good vision through traffic, which should help him when he gets to the NHL full-time and is looking to provide support and opportunities for his teammates. Lysell won’t net the Bruins a top piece via trade, but he could be packaged with other picks and prospects to acquire top-end talent.
Dans Locmelis was a fourth-round pick in 2022 (119th overall) and is another center in the Bruins system, though he doesn’t have the same shine as some of his more well-known peers. Locmelis began his pro career last year, appearing in six AHL games and recording three goals and nine assists. While he hasn’t maintained the same scoring pace this season, Locmelis has remained productive with 28 points in 43 games and an appearance at the Olympics, where he played for Latvia and scored a couple of goals in four games. The Bruins are high on the 22-year-old, and there is a possibility he breaks the NHL roster this season. The Bruins could dangle Locmelis as a potential trade candidate, but given that he isn’t a well-known name and his play has been largely understated, they might not get enough value to entice them to move on from him.
Team Needs
A Right Shot Defenseman: The Bruins made a great move last year, trading defenseman Brandon Carlo to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The move has turned out to be a huge win; however, the Bruins have never actually replaced Carlo, leaving a big hole on the right side of their defense. There are plenty of options available in Boston that should meet just about any price point, and it will be interesting to see whether they go the rental route or make a move for a player with some term remaining on their contract, such as Justin Faulk of the St. Louis Blues. While Faulk has been a solid pro for a long time, he would be a downgrade from some other options the Bruins were considering, such as Rasmus Andersson, who was traded a few weeks ago to the Vegas Golden Knights. Boston was reportedly in on the Andersson sweepstakes and went as far as negotiating an extension with the soon-to-be UFA (as per Elliotte Friedman).
Top Six Forward Help: The Bruins are dealing with a few injuries at the moment, which isn’t the worst timing, given the extended break for the Olympics. Centers Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha should be back in the lineup when NHL play resumes, and their injuries have pushed other forwards in Boston into other roles in the team’s hierarchy. Despite the team getting healthy in time for a playoff push, it is clear that Boston needs to add to its top six if it wants any chance of a playoff run. This would allow a player such as Casey Mittelstadt to push down the depth chart and play in a role that better suits his skill set. The Bruins might not want to pay premium prices for a forward, but given that they didn’t send any assets out the door for Andersson, they likely have some options to facilitate a trade for forward help.
Photo by Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
Bruins, Oilers Interested In Rasmus Ristolainen
“Five or six teams” have expressed interest in acquiring Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen during the Olympic break, Anthony Di Marco of Daily Faceoff reports. Among those are the Bruins and Oilers, Di Marco writes, although “neither has stepped up as a ‘serious’ landing spot to this point.”
Ristolainen was a talked-about name heading into last year’s deadline season, too. The 31-year-old enjoyed the best two-way showing of his career in 2024-25, and the Flyers were eager to capitalize on it by landing a high-value return for a reasonably cost-controlled, right-shot defenseman. His market wasn’t as fervent as Philly hoped, though, and he ended up staying with the Flyers past the trade deadline.
At the time, they were reportedly looking for a first-round pick as the starting piece of a package. According to Di Marco, that hasn’t changed. The Flyers are using last year’s Brandon Carlo trade between the Bruins and Maple Leafs as a comparable to set their price. Toronto ended up parting ways with a top-five protected first-round pick, a fourth-rounder, and center prospect Fraser Minten – selected as an early second-rounder not all that long ago – to acquire Carlo, who had an additional two seasons remaining on his deal, with 15% of his salary retained by Boston.
Even assuming Carlo’s and Ristolainen’s on-ice value is equal, the Flyers aren’t in a position to command quite that strong a return. The first-round pick may still be possible, but they’ll be hard-pressed to land a prospect of Minten’s caliber as well. Ristolainen only has one year left on his deal following this season, and his $5.1MM cap hit is a greater chunk of change than what Carlo costs. That’s notwithstanding Ristolainen’s much shoddier long-term record of poor defensive play that’s seen him own a career -183 rating in 795 games.
Still, the 6’4″ Ristolainen seems to have stabilized nicely as a high-end second-to-third-pairing piece in Philadelphia over the past two years. The 2013 eighth overall pick was overtaxed for several years to begin his career in Buffalo, but since the 2023-24 campaign in Philly, he’s consistently posted above-average possession impacts while seeing his usage slowly climb back up to the 20-minute range per game.
Injuries are a concern, though. Issues with his right triceps muscle have ended his season weeks early in back-to-back years. He had a more extensive surgery last year to address the issue that delayed his 2025-26 debut until mid-December, and he missed another six games with a separate upper-body issue last month. He’s made just 19 appearances this season as a result, but has churned out a goal and six points with a -4 rating while averaging 19:35 of ice time per game. When given top-pairing deployment with Travis Sanheim, they’ve had great defensive impacts in an 87-minute sample, allowing just 1.93 expected goals against per 60 minutes, according to MoneyPuck.
As for his known suitors, it appears Boston isn’t taking itself out of the mix to add to their blue line after going down to the wire in Rasmus Andersson talks with Calgary. Right-shot depth is an issue for them, with Charlie McAvoy and Henri Jokiharju as their only NHL options signed past this season (and it’s likely pending UFA Andrew Peeke won’t be back). With an abundance of first-round picks for the next two years, it wouldn’t deter their retooling too much to part with one, although it was clear they were looking for a more offensively dynamic piece like Andersson, if possible. As such, Ristolainen isn’t “someone the Bruins are especially high on,” Di Marco writes, although they’re at least keeping tabs on him as a backup option if other targets also fall through.
There’s a more pressing short-term fit for Ristolainen in Edmonton. They don’t have any options in the organization behind Evan Bouchard who can comfortably sniff top-four deployment on the right side. Lefty Jake Walman has spent most of the year on his off side as a result, and his possession impacts have taken a nosedive. Stomaching Ristolainen’s cap hit would be an issue for the Oilers, who have just over $1MM in projected cap space on deadline day, but as Di Marco writes, there could be a fit if the Flyers were willing to take on struggling winger Andrew Mangiapane in the deal.
Zacha A Full Participant In Practice, Upper-Body Injury Was A Concussion
- Bruins center Pavel Zacha took part in practice today in a regular (contact) jersey, relays Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald (Twitter link). The 28-year-old has been working his way back from a concussion and was initially expected to be able to play for the Czechs at the Olympics. Instead, recovery has been slower than expected, causing him to withdraw, and he was in a non-contact sweater as practices resumed this week but this is a step in the right direction. Zacha had 11 points last month before being injured and sits fourth in Boston scoring with 37 points in 54 games this season.
Bruins Linked To Theodor Niederbach
With European regular seasons near their ends, now is the time when many NHL teams start seriously demonstrating their interest in international free agent signings. One of those names is 23-year-old pivot Theodor Niederbach, whom Johan Svensson and Mattias Persson of Expressen report has received interest from “more than half the league” – including the Bruins, who sent a team of scouts to Gothenburg recently to watch him suit up with his club team, the SHL’s Frölunda HC.
Niederbach is far from an unknown in NHL circles. It wasn’t that long ago that he was a fairly highly-touted prospect. He ended up going midway through the second round of the 2020 draft to the Red Wings, but after he failed to demonstrate much progression over four years in the SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan, they didn’t sign him by their June 2024 deadline and lost his signing rights.
The 6’0″ center immediately responded with a statement campaign for MoDo Hockey, tying for the team lead in scoring with a 10-23–33 line in 51 games. While he’d played a role in helping the club gain promotion from the HockeyAllsvenskan two years prior, he couldn’t help them avoid relegation last season. He thus left MoDo in the offseason and signed a two-year deal with Frölunda, with whom he’s registered 11 goals and 28 points with a +12 rating in 44 outings. He’s now slotting comfortably into a top-six role there, and he has the benefit of being teammates with potential 2026 first-overall pick Ivar Stenberg – ensuring he’ll have plenty of eyes on him down the stretch.
Evidently, Niederbach’s deal with Frölunda contains an NHL out-clause. He was drafted more as a two-way center, but has ended up as more of an offensively-inclined playmaker from the middle of the ice as he’s found his way into more responsibility in the SHL.
For the Bruins, Niederbach would join an already large group of young centers with offensively moderate, top-nine ceilings. Marat Khusnutdinov, Fraser Minten, and Matthew Poitras are already in the mix, and with all four of Boston’s current pivots under contract through next season, it’s hard to envision Niederbach making a legitimate play for a roster spot out of the gate. If he’s focused more on finding an organization that has a long-term home for him rather than finding a place where he can jump into the NHL right away, though, the Bruins’ hodge-podge of journeyman forwards and mid-tier prospects could provide an opportunity for him to break through the noise eventually.
Bruins Recall Michael DiPietro
Feb. 20: Boston has assigned DiPietro back to Providence, Conor Ryan of the Boston Globe reports.
Feb. 18: The Bruins announced Wednesday that they’ve recalled goaltender Michael DiPietro from AHL Providence on an emergency basis. He’ll serve as Boston’s lone NHL-contracted practice netminder for the time being, as Jeremy Swayman (USA) and Joonas Korpisalo (Finland) are still representing their respective countries at the Olympics.
Back during training camp, there was concern DiPietro wouldn’t make it through waivers on his way to Providence. The 26-year-old had emerged as one of the AHL’s top netminders over the previous two seasons, including a .927 SV% in 40 games last year that earned him the Baz Bastien Memorial Award as the league’s best goaltender.
He’s well on his way to taking home that hardware for a second straight season. In 28 appearances for the P-Bruins, he’s put up a downright ridiculous .942 SV% and 1.64 GAA with a 21-5-0 record – but somehow only has one shutout to his name. Nonetheless, he has a 12-point lead in save percentage on the second-place netminder with at least 20 appearances.
He’s signed through next season at a $812,500 cap hit, giving the Bruins almost no choice but to work with Korpisalo’s 10-team no-trade list and find a new home for the veteran backup this summer. If they can’t, they’d essentially be forced into trading DiPietro to avoid the near certainty of losing him for nothing on waivers next October.
Bruins Willing To Listen On Andrew Peeke
The Bruins won’t embark on the near full-scale teardown they did at last year’s deadline when they shipped out Brandon Carlo and Brad Marchand for futures. They’re in the thick of the playoff race this time around and come out of the break with a 61% chance of clinching a berth, per MoneyPuck.
That won’t completely preclude the B’s from listening to offers on roster players if it helps them replenish their long-uninspiring prospect pool, though. They’re willing to part ways with pending unrestricted free agent Andrew Peeke to help them add to their prospect and pick arsenal, Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic wrote this week.
The other notable pending UFA in Boston’s ranks is winger Viktor Arvidsson. He’s played a key role on their second line this season, though, and his 14 goals and 28 points in 45 games are valuable for a team light on scoring depth. They “would not be as quick to break up their second line if the return is for a mid- to late-round selection,” Shinzawa writes on Arvidsson.
Boston gave up a third-round pick, plus depth piece Jakub Zboril, to acquire Peeke from the Blue Jackets at the 2023 deadline. He wasn’t a rental at the time, having inked a three-year, $8.25MM extension with Columbus in the prior training camp. Since he doesn’t have any term left, Boston likely won’t be able to recoup as much value as they paid for him unless the trade market takes a big swing toward sellers.
That said, Peeke is having his best season as a Bruin. After slotting as their third-pairing right D behind Charlie McAvoy and Carlo last year, he’s assumed second-pairing shutdown duties with Hampus Lindholm with Carlo out of the picture. That pairing has been woeful offensively but has done its job in preventing chances against, allowing only 2.43 expected goals against per 60 minutes. That’s fourth out of Boston’s 13 pairings with at least 60 minutes of ice time together.
The bump in role has led to increased ice time, with Peeke averaging over 19 minutes per game for the first time since the 2022-23 season. He’s recorded a 4-8–12 scoring line in 56 games with a -7 rating. Peeke, who turns 28 next month, also leads the Bruins with 101 blocks and ranks seventh with 67 hits.
Bruins Activate Elias Lindholm From Injured Reserve
The Bruins activated center Elias Lindholm from injured reserve today, per the NHL’s media site. He’ll suit up for Team Sweden this afternoon in their preliminary-round opener against the host Italians at the Olympics.
While there is a trade moratorium during the Olympics and added restrictions on some transactions like waiver placements and reassignments, IR activations are not affected by the roster freeze. Since Boston entered the break with an open roster spot after reassigning Matthew Poitras to AHL Providence last week, there’s no corresponding transaction required.
Lindholm missed the final three games of Boston’s pre-Olympic schedule with an upper-body injury but was only ever listed as day-to-day. He missed a lengthier stretch back in November, sitting out 10 games, but that was because of a lower-body issue.
Now in the second season of the seven-year, $54.25MM commitment he landed from the B’s in free agency in 2024, Lindholm has fared much better in 2025-26 than in year one of the deal. Through 44 games, he tossed up 11 goals and 37 points. That works out to 0.84 points per game, his most productive rate since his career-best 42-goal, 82-point campaign with the Flames in 2021-22 that also saw him finish as the Selke Trophy runner-up.
Lindholm will begin his first time at the Olympics as Sweden’s second-line center between the Devils’ Jesper Bratt and the Red Wings’ Lucas Raymond, per Adam Johansson of Expressen. The well-regarded two-way pivot has been left off their top penalty kill units in favor of Joel Eriksson Ek, Adrian Kempe, Alexander Wennberg, and Pontus Holmberg, though, so his ice time will presumably end up closer to 15 minutes per game than 20.
Coming out of the break, there won’t be many pieces more important than Lindholm in guiding the Bruins to what would have been seen as an unexpected playoff berth last fall. He’s their third-most productive forward behind David Pastrňák and Morgan Geekie, and ranks second in time on ice per game behind the former.
Rasmus Andersson Discusses His Trade
The long trade saga for Rasmus Andersson finally came to an end last month when the Flames moved him to Vegas in exchange for a first-round pick, a second-round selection, defenseman Zach Whitecloud, and prospect blueliner Abram Wiebe.
Of course, while this was the time that the trade got over the finish line, it looked like deals were all but done on multiple occasions beforehand. Speaking with Sportsnet’s Eric Francis earlier this week, the blueliner discussed some of those failed moves that ultimately preceded his departure from Calgary.
Over the summer, it was widely reported that the framework of a trade was in place to send him to Los Angeles. Andersson confirmed as much but acknowledged that he wasn’t ready to sign a long-term deal with the Kings which was a condition of the swap. As a result, it ultimately fell through.
Soon after that, word emerged that Andersson had given the Flames a shortlist of teams he would sign with. It turns out that the list wasn’t all that short as there were seven teams on it.
Andersson noted that a couple of times, it looked like something was in place with some of those other teams, without going into specifics about who they were. In the end, the acquiring team couldn’t figure out how to fit him in beyond this season (where he has a team-friendly $4.55MM AAV) which ultimately scuttled the discussions.
To his credit, Andersson came back to the Flames for this season and didn’t let the constant discussion about his future faze him. Instead, he had a strong first half, notching 10 goals and 20 assists in 48 games before the swap while logging over 24 minutes a night of ice time, narrowly surpassing his career high in that regard.
Of course, there was one more failed move, that coming just days before the move to the Golden Knights. It briefly looked as if Andersson was on his way to Boston with a seven-year, $63MM extension in tow but the 29-year-old noted that the Bruins made some tweaks to the offer in terms of structure and trade protection that weren’t to his liking. Then, after three days without any communication, he ultimately decided to pull the plug on signing an early extension with anyone for the time being. With an extension being a prerequisite to make the Boston trade happen, that took them out of the equation as well.
In the end, that decision ultimately facilitated a move as Vegas stepped up with their offer mere hours after that announcement and the long-awaited swap going back the better part of a year was finally completed. Andersson has since played in eight games since the move, picking up a goal and three assists and now is with Sweden for the Olympics so his break will be a short one compared to most of the league.
Speculated as a preferred landing spot for Andersson in the summer, the Golden Knights were indeed one of the seven teams on his list dating back to the offseason so both sides should be confident that an extension can be worked out. The near-miss Boston contract should act as a reasonable barometer for what that agreement should ultimately cost. It may wind up taking a lot longer than originally anticipated and hoped but Andersson appears set to get one of the outcomes he wanted, a trade to and a contract with a team of his choosing. The first half is done, now we’ll see how long it takes for the second half to be completed.
Pavel Zacha To Miss Olympics
The Bruins will have one less participant at the upcoming Olympics while Czechia will be down a key center. The IIHF announced (Twitter link) that Pavel Zacha will not be participating in the event due to injury. He has been replaced by middleman Filip Chlapik.
Zacha has been dealing with a lower-body injury for a little more than a week after sustaining it late last month against Philadelphia, ultimately causing him to miss the Winter Classic as well. Originally, head coach Marco Sturm had noted that the injury wasn’t expected to force him to miss the Olympics which suggests that Zacha’s recovery hasn’t gone quite as well as they hoped so far. Now, he’ll get three extra weeks to recover before games resume toward the end of the month.
The 28-year-old is in the midst of a solid season, notching 15 goals and 22 assists in 54 games while averaging a little over 17 minutes per night of ice time. That production has been good enough to place him fourth in team scoring at the break.
It’s likely that Zacha would have had a similar role at the Olympics that he has in Boston, serving as a second-line center while seeing time on both special teams units. Coincidentally, he sits fourth in scoring among NHLers on the Czech roster, behind teammate David Pastrnak, Colorado’s Martin Necas, and Vegas’ Tomas Hertl.
As for Chlapik, he was a second-round pick by Ottawa in 2015 and got into 57 games with them over parts of four seasons before being granted his release back in 2021. Since then, he has spent the majority of his time playing at home with HC Sparta Praha and sits third in Extraliga scoring this season with 19 goals and 26 assists in 45 games.
Boston Bruins Reassign Matthew Poitras
The Boston Bruins announced today that they have reassigned forward Matthew Poitras to their AHL affiliate, the Providence Bruins.
The team played its final game before the Olympic break last night, dropping their contest against the Florida Panthers in a shootout. Boston next plays on Feb. 26 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
By sending Poitras back to Providence, the Bruins have given their young forward a chance to get into games while the NHL is on break. The AHL Bruins play in eight games during the Olympic break, which is not an insignificant number of contests for Poitras to be able to play in.
Poitras’ three NHL games from this most recent recall represent his only NHL experience of 2025-26 so far. That is why, per the league’s roster rules for the upcoming break, he can be sent down without restriction. Poitras scored a goal during the Bruins’ outdoor game against the Tampa Bay Lightning last week, but was unable to land on the scoresheet in the other two games he played.
The 21-year-old has managed 24 points in 39 AHL games so far in 2025-26. To earn the chance to return to the Bruins’ roster down the line this season, he’ll likely want to up his production at the AHL level. Stringing together a solid stretch of games during the Olympic break could certainly position himself well for a recall once the Bruins return to action.