If the NHL playoffs were to start today, the Bruins would be the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic Division. They’d play Toronto, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division in the first round. The Bruins are running neck and neck with Florida for the division crown and the seed that comes with it, but seven games with Toronto in April is a pretty good possibility.
The Bruins play the Maple Leafs twice this week. Sandwiched around a home game against Edmonton, Boston plays at Toronto on Tuesday and hosts the Leafs on Thursday.
Friday is the NHL trade deadline.
In other words, the Bruins have two games against a likely playoff opponent and one against a true Stanley Cup contender before the deadline. If Don Sweeney wants one last set of evaluation tools to figure out how much investment his team is worthy of and where it most needs improvement, he couldn’t ask for a better setup. This is as close as he’ll ever get to a sneak peek at his team in a playoff scenario.
Can the Bruins defense hold up against the waves of star forwards that the Maple Leafs and Oilers employ? There’s no place to hide against Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares and the suddenly hot Tyler Bertuzzi when facing Toronto and Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman can expose opponents pretty quickly against Toronto.
A couple of rough games could make Sweeney up his offer for Noah Nanifin. Although a couple of really rough games could make him wonder if it’s worth it to give up future assets at all for this team.
Jake DeBrusk catching a hot streak could both make him harder to part with or increase his trade value. If he continues to struggle the Bruins are more likely to deal him but less likely to get full value.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Bruins arrange their goaltending this week. Staying on a rotation, Jeremy Swayman would get both games against Toronto with Ullmark facing the Oilers. If Swayman plays well twice does that make Boston more willing to listen to offers on Ullmark? If Swayman struggles would they be hesitant? Does Jim Montgomery alter his rotation with either the deadline or the playoffs in mind?
Whether or not to trade Ullmark is a fascinating predicament. It’s tricky business for a lot of reasons the biggest of which is it’s hard to gauge what they might get for him. It would almost have to be part of a three-team trade because the type of team that would want Ullmark is trying to win now and unlikely to send an asset who could help the Bruins this season.
But if they trade Ullmark, that’s more than sayingSwayman is the No. 1 guy for the rest of the year. That’s also saying that somebody else — either one of the two guys in Providence or a goalie that comes back in the deal — is trustworthy enough to carry the load for 30-30 percent of the games down the stretch.
If the Bruins want Swayman to be a playoff horse, they don’t want to override him before then. Somebody else is going to have to play some games that impact playoff positioning.
Of course, what the Bruins do is only partially in Sweeney’s hands. Almost everybody has more draft picks and more prospects to deal than the Bruins do and unlike Boston, many teams don’t need salary cap help to make the deals happen
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