Bruins GM Don Sweeney discusses Brad Marchand’s future with club
Time is not on the side of the Bruins and general manager Don Sweeney.
That’s true in the standings, with his club still on the outside looking in in the East’s bunch-beyond-belief playoff race. And it’s also true with the path in front of his team ahead of the Mar. 7 trade deadline, which is now just six games and 12 days away from Sweeney, and with the uncertainty of team captain and pending unrestricted free agent Brad Marchand hanging over the club.
A career-long Bruin, and in his second season as Boston’s captain, Marchand has made it clear that he wants to remain with the Bruins. So much so that Marchand has really just sort of ducked and dodged the topic of being anywhere else whenever it’s been brought up to him.
And it appears that’s a feeling that’s mutual from the Black and Gold’s front office, too.
“That’s always been my ultimate goal,” Sweeney said when asked about re-signing Marchand. “We’ve been in negotiations with Brad and communicating with him throughout the year. We’ll have to have a conversation now that Four Nations is over to sit down with Brad and his representatives and have a clear path in the next two weeks as to to what his final outcome will be.”
Sweeney went as far as to say that Marchand would most likely be the only pending free agent that the Bruins could or would make a decision on ahead of the trade deadline.
The Bruins, as Sweeney alluded to, have been trying to hammer out an extension with Marchand since before the start of the season. Rumblings from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in October indicated that Marchand and the Bruins were close on a three-year extension, but those were shot down by Marchand himself before the masses could even finish racing to get that story published online. Even so, Marchand’s desire to remain a Bruin beyond 2024-25 has never once been in doubt.
Of course, though, if the Bruins are ‘retooling’ ahead of the trade deadline, it almost goes without saying that there’s not a more attractive rental on the Boston roster than the 36-year-old Marchand.
With a shortage of sellers, not many teams can offer what the Bruins could offer a legitimate Cup contender in a potential Marchand trade. Marchand is a Stanley Cup champion, a proven playoff performer (his 138 career playoff points are the 41st-most in NHL history and tied for the fifth-most among active players), an on- and off-ice leadership voice, and an all-situation threat. Oh, and most importantly, he’s still an effective player, with 20 goals and 45 points through 58 games this season.
Again, not a ton of those guys will be on the move this deadline season.
Speaking on Sunday following a practice at Brighton’s Warrior Ice Arena, Sweeney did not seem truly committed to any one path just yet.
He also admitted that the competitive nature within him makes it difficult to definitively decide on his path right now with the Bruins still within striking distance of a playoff spot. Trading the team’s captain (something the organization has not done since Joe Thornton’s trade to San Jose back in 2005) and second-highest scorer behind David Pastrnak would send a direct message as to the path the team has ventured down.
But with Hampus Lindholm almost certainly done for the year and without a timeline for Charlie McAvoy, Sweeney has seemingly started to accept that this may simply not be the year for his club and that a deadline sell-off of sorts may be in the cards.
“Well, I think historically we’ve been pretty aggressive when our team has been in a [playoff] position, but I think we’ll take a much more cautious approach as we approach the deadline,” Sweeney acknowledged. “That being said, if there are opportunities to improve our team now and certainly moving forward, whether that’s positional shifts where other teams identify that we may have a strength at, we will look at all opportunities to improve our team now, but more importantly, moving forward.”
