Can Bruins GM Don Sweeney save the season?

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

By now, barring a negotiating breakthrough, it would serve the Boston Bruins better to trade Trent Frederic than to let him walk.

A legitimate playoff contender, which the Bruins are not, would enjoy incorporating the rough-and-tumble Frederic onto its third line and give general manager Don Sweeney assets for the 26-year-olds services.

Frederic is No.

11 on The Athletic s trade board .

Advertisement Frederic, however, qualifies as a rental.

No team would give Sweeney help off a current roster barring firm intel that Frederic would consider an extension.

Frederic would go for a draft pick or a prospect, neither of which helps the free-falling Bruins in the second half of the season.

So what can Sweeney do to correct the Bruins six-game losing streak and give interim coach Joe Sacco more firepower? The answer: not much.

Its on us internally, Sacco said after Fridays practice.

Its on us here.

Theres no question.

Its on the staff.

Its on the players to make sure we get ourselves out of this.

Were not looking for any help right now on the outside.

Theres a standard here that we try to uphold.

We try to keep it up to a high level.

Our players have to hold themselves accountable, just like we all do.

The solutions, the answers, theyre right here.

We need to get it out of them.

The Bruins practiced without Mark Kastelic , knocked woozy by an Emil Lilleberg cross-check and subsequent fight.

Kastelic is day-to-day.

Marc McLaughlin , a healthy scratch for the past five games, replaced Kastelic on the fourth line.

Jordan Oesterle , who hasnt dressed for the past three games, skated on the No.

2 pair.

Parker Wotherspoon was the extra defenseman.

Otherwise, the lineup was status quo.

Matt Poitras and Fabian Lysell, the teams top offensive prospects, are still in Providence.

Sacco made no major changes to the lines or pairings.

For now, no help is coming.

We have the team thats capable of pulling out of this, Sacco said.

But we have to do it together.

Its not one or two or three players.

Its the team doing it by committee.

Things have soured to the point where the fact that David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand are playing on different lines, according to WEEI, is because the right wing informed the organization he does not want to play with the captain.

Pastrnak and Marchand said that was not true.

Advertisement When theres just blatant lies told in the media, thats where theres a problem, said Marchand.

The fact that this guy has a platform and hes just making stuff up is embarrassing.

Theres zero truth to anything he said on the radio.

This is how you lose your job very quickly.

The fact that hes going to have a job after this is insane.

Because Pasta and I are best friends.

Weve had an incredibly close relationship for a long time.

The only reason we dont play together is so we can spread depth throughout the lineup.

Friction, true or not, tends to bubble up on a tumbling team.

The GM is responsible for fixing the skid and calming the waters.

But Sweeney has made things so choppy that he may find the 2024-25 course impossible to correct.

Part of the reason Sweeney has minimal cap space is that he sunk $7.75 million of his annual budget into Elias Lindholm .

Twenty points later, Lindholm is doing nothing to earn first-line dough.

Nikita Zadorov ($5 million) has been a better investment than Lindholm.

But not considerably.

Jeremy Swayman has been better the past two games.

But his .893 save percentage does not align with the $8.25 million annual price tag he wrung out of Sweeney.

Oliver Wahlstrom , who Sweeney picked off waivers from the New York Islanders , has literally done nothing in nine games.

Wahlstrom and his 0-00 line practiced on the third line and No.

2 power-play unit.

Meanwhile, Sweeney has little in terms of futures to acquire present-day help.

Lysell has earned just one NHL game.

Poitras has 18 points in 21 AHL games.

But the Bruins have classified him as being unready to merit an NHL return.

At this point, Sweeney is crossing his fingers that Lysell and Poitras improve enough to become full-time NHL players at some point, to say nothing of being trade chips.

Advertisement As for other assets, Sweeney is in no position to trade his 2025 first-round pick.

One reason the Bruins are who they are is that they havent had enough selections in the past five drafts.

Of the ones theyve had, only Mason Lohrei (second round, 2020) and Johnny Beecher (first round, 2019) have broken through, and in depth roles at that.

At this point, Brandon Carlo , Charlie Coyle , Morgan Geekie , Andrew Peeke and Pavel Zacha would qualify as players with term (although Geekie is restricted after this season) who could bring back immediate assistance.

Whether any of them moves the needle for another GM to consider dealing with Sweeney is unknown.

Sweeneys most viable solution, then, is to hope for improved internal performance.

That starts with Charlie McAvoy .

The No.

1 defenseman is earning $9.5 million annually to be a three-zone difference-maker.

Nineteen points in 44 games is not enough to qualify in that category.

When things arent going well, he wants to help the team so badly that he tries to do too much at times, Sacco said.

Its a quality.

But its also something hes got to work on.

Weve talked about that.

He just wants to help his team win so badly.

He wants to help the team get out of what were going through right now.

Sometimes he makes it a little more difficult.

When Charlie just sticks to his game he defends well, he defends hard then the offensive side will come.

McAvoy knows he has more.

Hes having trouble staying patient.

The game has to come to you naturally, McAvoy said.

You can make special plays when theyre there.

But oftentimes when you try to push the envelope, it doesnt go well.

(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.