A ‘hated’ Pat Maroon knows there’s plenty of history with Bruins

When Minnesota general manager Billy Guerin approached Pat Maroon ahead of the 2024 NHL trade deadline and asked the 35-year-old if he wanted to be traded from the Wild to a Stanley Cup contender, Maroon replied with a simple, "Why not?"

But when that team turned out to be the Bruins, a team Maroon is more than familiar with from his battles with Boston during the 2019 Stanley Cup Final as a member of his hometown Blues and then a four-year run with Tampa Bay, Maroon couldn't help but be honest (with a smile) about his new home.

"Yeah, I feel like I'm hated here," Maroon said. "But, no, I'm super excited. Like I said, Original Six team, a great opportunity. I've heard nothing but good things about the locker room and it's a great opportunity for us to go achieve our goals and accomplish itl right? So, another chance to play in the playoffs and have a great run here.

"I think once I see everyone, it's going to be fun. Obviously there's been a lot of chirps and a lot of fighting in the past with these guys. So it's going to be good to be on the other side with these guys now. So I'm really looking forward to it."

Just this year alone, Maroon dropped the gloves with (and really put a hurt on) Parker Wotherspoon after he didn't like Wotherspoon's hit on Marcus Johansson. Prior to that, Maroon had plenty of battles with Bruins captain Brad Marchand, and was a regular customer when it came to dropping the gloves with former B's defenseman and captain Zdeno Chara.

But through the bad blood, Maroon comes to Boston with plenty of connections to the Bruins.

A St. Louis native, Maroon is friendly with both Trent Frederic and head coach Jim Montgomery (the B's coach both coached in and lived in St. Louis prior to joining the Bruins, with his wife being from the area). Maroon also played with B's defenseman Hampus Lindholm in Anaheim, and went through a training camp with current Bruins assistant coach Chris Kelly when Kelly accepted a pro tryout from the Oilers back in 2017. Maroon and Bruins defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk also won a Stanley Cup together during their time with the Lightning. Maroon even skated with Boston center Charlie Coyle last summer, with Maroon noting how cool it was that Coyle let Maroon's son skate with them.

Currently on the shelf after undergoing back surgery last month, Maroon, who has started skating with the hopes of a return in about three weeks or so (though neither party will be a definite timeline on it), is already looking forward to that first shift in a Boston sweater.

"It gives me chills thinking about it," Maroon said of putting a B's jersey on and playing for Boston. "I'm really looking forward to it. This will be great just to put that jersey over and go out there. And I know these fans are very passionate about their their sports teams. So, just really looking forward to putting that jersey on and going out there and playing and working for the guys. My old high school, team is the Bruins' colors. So, I feel like it was meant to be."

By all accounts, Friday was a normal day for Bruins netminder Linus Ullmark.

Participating in your average practice at Warrior Ice Arena, Ullmark wrapped up his on-ice work, and returned to the B's locker room, where he simply sat in his stall like he would any other day. After chatting with his teammates, Ullmark caught up with some Swedish reporters in town, and then hung around the locker room and talked with some team staffers while the club's open locker room availability for the day wrapped up. It was, again, like any other day for the 30-year-old Ullmark.

But Ullmark's Friday was a lot more interesting than that, according to some of hockey's top insiders, as Ullmark allegedly blocked a potential trade that would've sent him out of Boston by Friday's 3 p.m. trade deadline.

That talk was first put out there by ESPN's Kevin Weekes, who had originally put the Ullmark talk into overdrive with a late-night tweet Thursday talking about a potential big goalie move in Boston, and was later backed up by Frank Seravalli, who outright said that Ullmark blocked a trade that would've sent him to the Los Angeles Kings.

Ullmark, of course, had the right, as he has skated this entire year with a 16-team no-trade list to his name.

And while it more than checks out, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney opted not to outright throw Ullmark under the bus, and did not want to talk about whether or not Ullmark straight-up blocked a trade out of town.

“I mean, at the end of the day, I'm not ever going to get into a conversation with what I may have talked to Linus about," Sweeney, who did make two trades by Friday's 3 p.m. deadline, said when asked about that specific rumor. "I acknowledge we've explored different situations. And we had opportunities to move different players.

"But I'm not getting into the, you know, intricacies of what's in somebody's contract at this point in time.”

Now, when it came to the talk of an Ullmark trade, there was enough smoke to make Don Sweeney's office look like Chelsea circa '73. Elliotte Friedman wrote about it. Pierre LeBrun wrote about it. Weekes talked about it. These aren't @TradeMan2023 with a paid-for blue checkmark tweeting out some nonsense for engagement dopamine. These were some of the game's heavy hitters telling the world that yes, Ullmark could be on the move by the trade deadline.

An extremely thin goaltending market had a lot to do with that, of course. If the Bruins were going to trade a goaltender, the market put them in a wildly better position than when they were up against the cap last summer when people first started screaming for the Bruins to trade a goaltender. Comments from Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald, who ultimately settled for the Canadiens' Jake Allen by the deadline, where he said teams with goalies were trying to 'extort' his club, only further that belief that the Bruins held all the chips (Ullmark's trade protection notwithstanding) in a potential trade.

So, was this something that Sweeney legitimately explored?

"I really like the tandem and we have right now I'm very happy that we've stood pat there," Sweeney told me. "Rumors are rumors in terms of what happens in private conversations. You guys know me well enough, it's not coming from here in terms of what we're trying to explore and what other teams are asking about. I made no bones and if I had to rob from a real strength as a hockey club that was something we may have to do, if that made our team ultimately better, and we didn't move in that direction. But that's not an indictment on the two great goaltenders we have. It's actually been a real strength of our hockey club from day one, and it'll continue throughout, and we feel very comfortable each and every night."

It's clear that the Swayman-Ullmark tandem has bailed the Bruins out countless times this year. The Bruins have the 12th-highest expected goals against this year, but have surrendered the seventh-fewest actual goals against this year. That's just an absurd swing when you think about it, and it's been from both goaltenders at various points this season. Their goaltending has probably been the second-best thing this team has beyond David Pastrnak's superstar scoring abilities, really.

But I had to know, did Sweeney look at it from a point of view that there simply wasn't a trade to be made that would bring him something greater than what they're going to lose by moving Ullmark and disrupting the one-two in goal?

“Well, if we were going to do that and potentially weaken our hockey club in that area, it had to offset somewhere else, and we didn't find the right situation that might have done that," Sweeney told me. "I wasn't overly aggressive about it. But I certainly was not unlike several other situations on the back end, and the forward group, that's just the job. And I've said that before and I'm going to protect the conversations that I have because as I said before this is a human part of it you know."

As for what the Bruins could've acquired from the Kings, online rumblings suggested that Pierre-Luc Dubois was part of the would-have-been trade between the Bruins and Kings. For what it's worth, that's an idea that's received some pushback, with some questioning if Dubois would be a true 'culture fit' for the Bruins. It'd also be almost impossible for the Bruins to fit Dubois and his $8.5 million cap hit into the equation without making it a much bigger trade.

If I had to guess, the Bruins probably would've wanted a high-end draft pick, and if not a high-end draft pick, someone such as forward Quinton Byfield (the No. 2 overall pick in 2020). If the market was as intense as Fitzgerald in New Jersey suggested, that's the kind of ask that would've made sense from a Bruins point of view.

Especially when you look at the simple fact that the Bruins didn't have to move Ullmark right now.

It also highlights the trouble the Bruins may continue to run into when the Bruins eventually have to move on from Ullmark if and when Swayman is paid No. 1 goaltender money this summer.

Ullmark's trade protection will move from a 16-team no-trade list to a 15-team no-trade list next season. And it's become clear that he's not all that interested in leaving Boston if he can help it. That's both his right and, well, completely understandable.

When Ullmark moved from Boston to Buffalo, one of the first things he mentioned was how he felt immediately accepted and immediately comfortable with the Bruins. It may have taken a little bit for his personality to truly shine through, but it was the way the Bruins welcomed him with open arms that made him feel able to do that in the first place. Ullmark is also a father of young children, and his family enjoys life in Boston. It's also a much easier trek back to Sweden in the offseason. It also helps that Ullmark has an insanely tight bond with Swayman, too, both on and off the ice.

And it's a partnership that the Bruins are happy to roll with, even after a potentially nixed deal to break it up.

"I think both goalies benefit from having a strong relationship from pushing each other," Sweeney admitted. "Knowing it's hard to get the net but the other guy's really good too. And the team responds to that as well because both guys are highly motivated, they might get the opportunity to if Monty [Jim Montgomery] said they we are going on a run give him a run.

"I think both guys are competitive and internally driven to not give the net up. You know, it's not a fait accompli that they alternate every night. They know that the schedule sometimes dictates for us but it's a competitive advantage for us.”

The Bruins, for what it's worth, remain committed to trying to roll with a playoff rotation.

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Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Yell at him on Twitter/X: @_TyAnderson.