Pucks with Haggs host Joe Haggerty and guests Mick Colageo and Mark Divver discuss the B's six-game losing streak and what kind of changes could help lift them out of their funk.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Pucks with Hags is brought to you by Price Picks and the Game Time app.
00:04Welcome to another episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast powered by Price Picks,
00:08the exclusive daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network. 157th episode of the Pucks with
00:15Hags podcast. Thank you very much as always for listening. We welcome you on in. Today on the
00:20show we got New England Hockey Journal's Mark Diver and we've got longtime friend and colleague
00:24Mick Colaggio. Mick, please tell everybody where they can find your work. You can find my work at
00:29rinkwraptheblog. I link to it on X and Facebook and I am in the seasonal issues of the Hockey News.
00:36There you go. Mark Diver, anything else you want to plug for yourself, my friend?
00:40No, the New England Hockey Journal is pretty much it these days, so that's fine.
00:44Don't forget Rigside, Rhode Island. Great, great place.
00:47Rigside, Rhode Island, yes.
00:48And some random Boston dude, too.
00:50Some random New England dude, that's right.
00:52New England dude, there you go. All right, let's thank our sponsors real quick, Price Picks,
00:58always love Price Picks. Download the Price Picks app today and use the code CLNS and get $50
01:03instantly when you play $5. That's code CLNS on Price Picks to get $50 instantly when you play
01:08five bucks. You don't even need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed. Price Picks,
01:13run your game. We're also going to thank the folks at Game Time. Any kind of tickets you
01:18need right now, sports, theater, comedy, everything. Download the Game Time app,
01:22create an account and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Terms do apply,
01:28but again, download the Game Time app and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase.
01:33Download Game Time today. What time is it, Mick?
01:37Game time.
01:38Game time. I knew when Mick was reaching down, it was for something to get ready for the Game
01:42Time prompt.
01:436970 Stubb, Pittsburgh Penguins.
01:46There you go. Mick is always ready with an old school Game Time ticket stub
01:50from before when I was born.
01:53I'll have to dig deeper in a vault next time and make sure I'm well prepared to show a variety
01:57of these little buggers.
01:59No, 6970 is a good one. That's like the year my dad graduated high school. That's the
02:05four or five years before I was born. That's truly old school, Mick.
02:08The year Mike Milbury graduated high school.
02:10There you go. That's a good graduation year. Very good. All right. Let's get into it.
02:18Six game losing streak. Lots of different sort of losses here. I feel like the arc of this losing
02:27streak, Mark, has been first couple games, they couldn't score, just didn't have enough offense,
02:34lost pretty well-played games, but had one goal, lost to good teams where it went all the way down
02:40the wire. I felt like after that, the players tried to make a correction where they loosened
02:46things up a little bit defensively to try to score a little more. It turned into a couple of
02:50games that were entertaining to watch. There was a lot of goals. They still lost those games.
02:55Then we saw an absolute just dud against a much better team against the Oilers where I think
03:03everything, all the chickens came home to roost. Everything that they were doing wrong really came
03:07back and slapped them upside the head. Maybe a little bit of a wake-up call of where they are
03:12in the NHL pecking order right now, going against an Edmonton Oilers team that just dominated them
03:16from beginning to end. Then we have the last game, which I thought was pretty good, but again,
03:22a pretty good effort, but highlighted the lack of offense that this team has,
03:27the lack of ability to overcome some mistakes because every mistake is critical in crucifying
03:33the team because they can't score enough to overcome them. They just come up short again in
03:37the third period when they need a goal to at least get a point. They have, for my money, wasted at
03:43least four or five potential points in this losing streak that they should have had, that they should
03:49have been banking, that it may come back to really haunt them at the end of the year when we're
03:53figuring out the playoff picture. I think the bottom line to me is that they're just not a very
04:02good team. They can rev it up some nights and compete with good teams. Other nights, they're
04:11just clearly outclassed. I thought last night, hey, if they play three periods like they did
04:20the third period, then maybe it's a different outcome. That lack of consistency has been
04:27biting them all along at times. I think we know what they are now. This is what they are,
04:35it seems to me. It's not a very good team at this point. What do you do? I don't know.
04:44I don't think you can trade your way out of this. I think it is what it is for this year. Maybe you
04:51can sneak into the playoffs, but even that lately has been in doubt whether that could even happen.
05:01So not good. They've been allowed or allowed themselves or probably been in a little bit of
05:09a state of denial over the last few weeks based on the teams that they played in December that
05:15weren't great, where they piled up some wins and some points, where they were in the standings
05:20because they were in the top three for a long period of time, but that's in big part because
05:26they've played five or six games more than the Lightning have and they've played three or four
05:31more games than the Ottawa Senators have. Once all those things even out the schedule, you feel
05:36like unless the Bruins are able to really make hay with those Lightning games, that they're going to
05:40be in trouble with the games in hand when that shakes out. I think maybe this last six games is
05:48when reality should be setting in a little bit with this team on what they are and who they are.
05:53And if they're going to win, they're going to have to play lockdown defense and not make a lot
05:57of mistakes and rely on some of that plus opportunistic offense in order to beat teams
06:04like 3-2, 2-1. And that's going to be hard to do consistently against really good teams.
06:09The road is going to be very difficult in the second half for this team.
06:13Mick, your thoughts on just the losing streak and what we've seen so far and
06:17what Mark and I were just saying. The game in New York, I felt like those two points are the
06:24ones that are going to be right at the top of the list of points that they left on the table
06:28that will come back to haunt them. This team misses the playoffs and that's the way they're
06:32trending. Then to me, that game amidst this situation and that road trip, the most available
06:40two points of it and they stunk. They played down to the Rangers. Remember the days when we go to
06:49the fours after a matinee or just see the West Coast game over there and the Kings would come
06:55out and they'd be playing the Avalanche or whoever and it would look like a playoff game compared to
07:00what we just saw across the street. Those Kings teams would always burn out and get a bunch of
07:07injuries and not make a playoff impact, but their regular season hockey was so entertaining.
07:14It seems to me like the Bruins need to be at that breakneck pace in order to be competitive
07:20and give themselves a chance against good teams, playoff teams. I was so disappointed
07:28that they played down to what the Rangers do. You can tell when you see it. You take your snapshot
07:34from your view and you see the hockey that's being played. It seems like the Bruins are
07:39finding the level of their competition and then not playing well enough to win as in
07:46whether they defend well or they don't defend well. They can't seem to outscore their mistakes.
07:54Because they can't score, Mick. They just can't score. That's the problem.
07:58Everything gets magnified when you can't score. You can't score so the little mistakes become
08:03magnified. And I think that to some degree this team gets so desperate for offense that it presses
08:09and leaves himself open for counterattacks. I think that's why we've seen some blowouts.
08:15That's why we've seen some untimely breakaways, short-handed goals. It's just incredible the
08:24kinds of breakdowns. It's hard to believe that a team could have this many blowouts against,
08:29thus the goal differential being what it is. The mean is much better than the average.
08:35But at the end of the day, they can see that their belief is not there.
08:41That's what comes forward in these moments. It's hard to imagine that they're going to somehow
08:47clean all this up and be the team that we thought at the beginning of the season that they could be.
08:53Yeah. I mean, when your captain says, you know, we don't have to score goals to win games,
09:00like you said, after the loss to the Oilers. I mean, I think Brad Martian's a realist. And I
09:06think he sees what we see. And he understands that this team is not going to be an offensive
09:11juggernaut this year. And they're going to struggle to score goals a little bit.
09:14And I think the message he's trying to get through is that they're going to have to play a different
09:18style and stick to it, not stray away from it if they're going to have success and sneak into
09:24the playoffs and at least beat the teams they're supposed to beat and perhaps fend off the Lightning
09:29or the Senators. But I thought last night's game against the Lightning and we're recording this on
09:36Friday was a pretty good snapshot of where the Bruins are at right now. They were playing really
09:44well for the whole game until they got the power play in the second period. And that is when things
09:50completely fell apart for them. And the power play is one of the worst in the NHL. It is actively
09:56taking away from their five on five play. It's actively taking away from everything that they do.
10:02David Posnack only has four power play goals this year. He's on pace for one of the lowest power
10:07play goal outputs of his entire career. He and Justin Brezow are tied for the team lead in power
10:11play goals. They should decline. Who would have thought that was going to happen at the beginning
10:15of the year that Posnack and Brezow at the midway point of the season would be tied for power play
10:20goals. But he tried to go one on three, entering the zone, turns it over and it goes the other way
10:27and Lowry gets beat in a race and it's going to look like he lost track of where the puck was.
10:33And the next thing you know, Sorelli's popped it in and it was an ugly shorthanded goal that
10:37they allowed. But they're still in it. They do allow another goal in the last minute of the
10:42second period that wasn't great. And I think that was another indication that Lowry kind of got
10:46beat in that play. I know he thought it might have been a two on one, but it wasn't. And he really
10:50backed off. He had back pressure and he just let him come in. He didn't have all the room in the
10:55world to pick a spot and he sure as heck did. What was Peek thinking on that goal?
11:01Yeah. He got caught up the ice. Like, what are you doing at that point in the game?
11:06Yeah. In that situation.
11:07Getting back, not pressing forward.
11:11Absolutely. But the other side of it, and we can break that down for sure. And
11:16like I thought, I liked the way Lowry responded scoring that goal in the third period. You felt
11:20like he felt responsible for some of the stuff that happened and he put it on his shoulders to
11:24make something happen. And he made another great play after that.
11:27He did. And I loved his response.
11:29He's a high event player.
11:30That's a great sign from a young player that that's the way he responds to stuff happening
11:35in a big game. But I start to look at some of the players here, Mark, and I start to wonder
11:42how much longer they're going to be here. Johnny Beecher has two great A's last night,
11:48has had a bunch of great A's in the last few games, has not scored a goal in almost 40 games
11:53going back to October 16. Can't finish. Even worse than Daniel Pae disease. And I always
11:59equated him to Daniel Pae because the speed and the way he played are going to put him in good
12:03spots to have scoring opportunities. But he can't score. He's never he's never been able to score
12:11ever, ever. So this if you watched him coming up, this is this is who he is. It's not a not
12:19a surprise. And, you know, just to not to pile on here on him. But one of his two goals this
12:26year is an empty netter. The other one, if I'm not mistaken, went in off his shin pad. Yeah. Got
12:31from the point. So there you have it. Yeah. You know, Mark, I really thought that Beecher got
12:37past his yips, you know, and shooting the puck. And he was becoming Mick. I just think he can't
12:44score like it's not it's not something that's in his head. I'm not. I don't expect a certain
12:50number of goals, but there but I feel like he's starting to become the player. I remember from
12:55Providence who gets gun shy in a shooting position. He's passed up a couple of chances
13:00recently. That reminds me of the Johnny Beecher who could not make this team.
13:05Yeah, I just see a guy that can't finish. He's getting put in great places to score and he just
13:09can't do anything with it. And it's happened three or four times in the last couple of games.
13:14And I think that I think Oliver Wallstrom has zero points now in eight games. And it's
13:19you know, he's been all around it like he and Brazil and Frederick, I thought, have actually
13:23looked pretty good. But like at this point, the Bruins need goals and it's getting more and more
13:28difficult to watch them continue to try to Johnny Beecher, Wallstrom, these guys that are putting
13:35up zeros when they have guys in Providence that are creating offense that are doing things that
13:42at least you got to get a look at at some point, like at some point, Matt Potter has to come back.
13:46I don't know if they're waiting to make a move down with the NHL team to create a spot for him
13:51for when he does come back because they want him to stay and they don't want him to bounce back and
13:54forth. But I think a guy like Merkel probably deserves to come up again and see if he can
13:59create some offense. Let's area. I know it's playing really well down there. There's probably
14:03hesitancy to bring him up because then, you know, you're probably going to lose him if you have to
14:07put him back on waivers. But I really think they're getting to a point where unless they're
14:14ready to pull off some big trades, they've got to make some changes here to see if they can get some
14:18offense from other players, Mark. Well, as far as Merkel off goes, I mean, the power play in Boston
14:26is a disaster. It seems to me, what do you why not? Why not bring Merkel off, plug them in on
14:36the power play and see what happens. Can it get worse? I would say, no, it can't. And, you know,
14:42here's a guy with a creative, you know, a creative offensive mind that that, you know,
14:50just might be able to to thrive in on the power play with, you know, kind of like minded players
14:57and players with the skill maybe that certainly exceeds the guys he's playing with in Providence.
15:04But what do you what do you got to lose? What do you got to lose? I think, you know, just the
15:10power play alone is so bad that a change like like giving Merkel, look, I just don't see the
15:17downside to that. No, especially with what we're seeing out of some of the guys in Boston right now.
15:24Where are you at with Patra at this point in the way he's playing down there and sort of what you
15:30see his trajectory or arc to getting back to Boston is.
15:33Well, I don't know what the does someone have to get hurt in Boston for him to get up and play
15:39center. That's I wonder that's what I one of the things I wonder about. I mean, he's playing
15:48he's playing very well in Providence. You know, his development of his overall game is
15:56has been tremendous. And, you know, I would say just exactly what he needed. Yeah, you know, and
16:07I don't know. It's hard to say what the plan is at this point, whether they're going game by game
16:13or week by week. But, you know, you think that he could he could add some a little bit of a jump
16:21a little bit of a jump start, maybe him on the power play as well. You know, he's a he's a crafty
16:27player. He's smart. He's not going to dazzle you with his speed or any of that. But, you know,
16:33he's smart and he might he might be able to to give you a little lift on the power play. So,
16:40you know, I certainly don't think they they plan to keep him in Providence the rest of the year.
16:46I don't know. I don't see that. But, you know, the question is, when when do you bring him up?
16:52Is it after after this mom's road trip or whatever? Is it, you know, next week? Is it 10
17:00days from now? I don't know. But he certainly could could do no worse than some of the guys
17:07who were wearing the Boston sweater night after night lately. Yeah, it would be awkward if you
17:12suddenly get pulled out of the lineup when your mom is there on the trip. It would. I didn't I
17:18didn't even put that factor that into my equation, Mark, but I was thinking about all this. But you
17:23can scratch the mom, too. Yeah, that would be a bummer of a mom's trip for whoever that mom would
17:28be. Yeah. Traitor presented with a different jersey. Nick, your thoughts on this, where I
17:36think it's just it's getting more difficult to justify trotting the same players out there
17:42for zeros and for not enough in the third period to at least push the overtime and just in a
17:47results oriented league like the NHL, where you're not getting enough goals to get the points that
17:52you need and you have players in Providence that are more offensive minded that could probably help
17:57you both five on five and on the power play offensively. It's it seems to me that it's
18:01getting more and more difficult to hold them off and stick with the status quo that's not
18:06getting anything. I suspected before the road trip, the disastrous road trip to over three,
18:16that the Bruins would have been bringing back Potter, reintroducing him to the NHL
18:22any time now. Yeah. The problem with that is, is it in my mind was that
18:27he they were not able to introduce him to a positive situation. They wanted to bring him back
18:34when the Bruins had experienced a sense of recovery. And they waited too long,
18:40went on that road trip, went pointless on it. And I feel like that sort of held off everything.
18:46Let's wait until we steady the ship here. Let's win some games here. Then let's bring these guys
18:51into or at least Potter into a situation where we'll find out once and for all if he can help
18:57us this year. And before we decide whether or not we're going to make a trade and internal before
19:05external. Right. And I think that things have just kept getting worse and worse and worse.
19:11And they're like, well, we can't bring them back into this. Well, I agree with you. They need to
19:17bring them back into this, but they don't want to. They don't want to bring them back into a
19:22situation that could chew them up and spit them out. They want to they want to bring them back
19:26into a favorable context and put them in a position to be successful. To borrow the words
19:31of the great Mike Sullivan. So that's my that's my thing with these guys. Now, Merkeloff makes more
19:37sense. He's he's he's further along in his career. His ceiling is lower than plotters.
19:44I love the idea of Merkel up, putting bringing him up and put him in on the power play just to
19:49see if they can get some goals here and just take it. Something's been such a blatant negative
19:55in their game and turn it into something average. That'd be nice.
19:59And Merkel off. Merkel has been playing wing for several weeks. You know, he's not,
20:07you know, I think before it was kind of pigeonholed as this guy's a center.
20:11This guy's a center. And if you bring him up, you've got to play him not out of position.
20:16Well, now he's been pretty effective on the wing for for several weeks now. So I think I think you
20:22can. You can put him in that spot without it being a total shock of a guy playing out of position
20:31and something he's not used to. So I wonder if that, you know, I suspect that was a strategic
20:39move on on management's part that. Yeah. OK. Maybe we don't think this guy can play center
20:45in the NHL right now. So let's see if we can kind of mold him into into a winger and get him there
20:52that way. Yeah. And they have maybe more of a need on the wing right now to immediate need to find
20:59somebody that can play with the more skilled guys so that would fit in track, too, if that's what
21:05they're doing. And that makes sense. I think Merkel of Mark makes a ton of sense. Let's continue on
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22:35$50 bonus. It's guaranteed. Prize picks run your game. All right um when we look guys back to the
22:45the Bruins talk when we look at um Pasternak, Marchand, those kind of guys and I gotta say
22:52Pasternak I liked his response. He was called out last week. He responded with a couple of
22:57two-goal games. He was you know playing some good hockey. One of the real problems during this
23:04losing streak too has been the play of Marchand and Lindholm and Coyle and that line in particular.
23:10I going into I think last night's game I want to say Marchand was a minus nine during the losing
23:16streak and Lindholm was not much better and Coyle as well slightly better but not much better.
23:24Mick, it feels like this is some of your best players. When your best players play that badly
23:29and are outplayed you're going to lose games. That's just what's going to happen. Do we feel
23:34like this is just one of those spots in the season where they're not playing well? Do they have to
23:40change up the combinations there? What do you see when you're watching Marchand and Lindholm and Coyle
23:46right now? I think part of me wants to just leave things alone for a while and if you're not going
23:53to make a trade let guys on your team get used to each other and maybe develop some chemistry
24:00because I just feel like the game is so much out of brain right now when it needs to be in brain.
24:06It needs to be like the inner self, the Timothy Galloway tennis book. Play the inner game and
24:12bite by your instincts and just go back to the pond because I feel like Marchand's skating
24:19has gotten better as he's gotten healthier. I feel like his ability to be aggressive and do
24:25Marchand stuff has become more impactful for the Bruins in recent weeks. Lindholm is obviously a
24:35very frustrated guy. I think he threw a minus four in New York. One of these games it was really bad
24:42on his sheet. I look at Coyle and I'm saying, okay, what's with Coyle suddenly becoming a
24:51winger again and not holding down that spot that was so important all this time? Why? Because
24:57Lindholm can be that guy? It's weird. I think Lindholm, frankly, I think part of it's because
25:04Lindholm needs the help. I think Lindholm has been that bad. He's had some games where he's played
25:09okay, but there's been too many times where he's been dominated by other teams, really good
25:17centers. There's been too many times where he disappears offensively. There's been too many
25:21times where he's reputed to be this very good two-way player, this Bergeron S two-way player,
25:27and he is nowhere to be found in the slot in the D zone for slot coverage and defensive zone
25:32coverage where he's supposed to be. It's consistently him that I find that's out of
25:36position and not doing what he's supposed to do. Maybe they felt like they had to put Coyle there
25:42because he can actually do that stuff. It's somebody that's a little more reliable to help
25:47him out. This goes back to a conversation that we've had a few times where Elias Lindholm is
25:53being paid the kind of money to make others around him better and to elevate everybody else's game.
25:58He's not being paid that kind of money because you have to put somebody else in the line to cover for
26:02his mistakes and to make sure that you can play against other teams' best players
26:07with the way that he's playing. I definitely think Lindholm plays a big role in all those
26:14struggles. Mark, what are you seeing out of those three lately? I wonder if there's a question
26:24with Lindholm's health. In this training camp, I don't think he or the team ever really
26:32disclosed what it was. Nope. Then he left that game. Was it in Calgary, Edmonton? He left the
26:42game and I think there were fears that it was something bad but then he played again.
26:49I wonder what's going on there. After the season's over and they have breakup day,
26:57is it going to come out that he played with whatever throughout the whole season?
27:02Because at least that would give kind of an excuse for why he hasn't been the player they
27:12hoped. Maybe that's an excuse. I don't know. But boy, he has been bad a lot of nights.
27:22Charlie, his points are so far down. He's just not the player we've come to expect
27:34the last couple of years. I don't know what the answer is with those guys. I think he could trade
27:44Coyle. I'm not sure. Does he have no trade? He's got limited no trade. I think he and
27:49Carlo both do. About half the league, maybe. I don't think you can't trade Lindholm at this
27:55point. If for no other reason, then no one's taking that. You're probably taking a bad
28:01contract if you do. I don't know. Underproducing players is why they're in this fix they're in.
28:15Guys that you expected more of and you can go down the line. Zdorov hasn't been the player
28:22you were hoping he would be. You like the toughness, right? You like that
28:31he's one guy that you can say, okay, he'll take on the toughest guy on the other team,
28:36no questions asked. I also think he's a guy that in the playoffs that will play more and he'll be
28:42a bigger factor the way that he plays will help you more in the playoffs at times than it does
28:46during the regular season. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. The penalties are a killer.
28:54But when you're as big as he is and so much bigger than many of the
29:00forwards that he's defending against, I think referees, whether they realize it or not,
29:07are going to kind of penalize you for that. That's right. You're big. You're strong. You're
29:11tossing guys around sometimes and the ref's arm goes up. Shower had to deal with that.
29:18At the same time, there's too many reaching, tripping penalties.
29:25I'm not taking him off the hook at all for the penalties, but
29:29some of them at least are because he's so damn big.
29:34We knew at the beginning of the season that he was going to get targeted and that teams were
29:38going to target him and try to get him to take a dumb penalty or retaliation penalty,
29:42try to put the bullseye on him. I don't feel like that's been as much a problem for the Bruins
29:50as Zdorov's own positional stuff like you just alluded to, Mark. That's where he gets in his
29:57most trouble. He doesn't give up on things when he should. Once you're a defenseman and you're
30:03chasing and you're behind, now anything you do, they're watching for it. I think that's where he
30:09gets himself in trouble. I'm no X's and O's guy for sure, but
30:16it seems to me he chases. They've talked about defending inside the dots.
30:25He goes outside there way more than I thought. He goes outside. He's chasing guys against the
30:29boards on a regular basis. He freelances. He plays more like Nick Boynton played.
30:38That blows up in his face sometimes. It does, especially the Bruins want to play a system.
30:42You can't have four guys playing a system and one guy not playing it because it's not like you're
30:46a box and one in basketball where you have a designated freelancer. You have a player who's
30:52got a position and there are certain times that he has to hold to that position. It's about zone
30:57and it's been that way ever since they had Aaron Ward. By the way, was that embellishment call on
31:06Pawel Zaka last night the worst call that you've seen all season or is that my imagination?
31:10Pretty bad. I agree with Greg. That was bad. It was. The guy who made that call,
31:21what can you say about him at this point? Whenever there's a bad call, the instinct is,
31:27oh, it must have been Kelly Sutherland. Sure enough, last night it was.
31:32I think the thing that's really troubling about that is that you got to know the league,
31:36you got to know the players. Pawel Zaka has been the Bruins' hardest working forward this season,
31:42if not their hardest working player. He dives for pucks just to keep a puck in the zone or to get it
31:48out of the zone. He's constantly throwing his body all over the place. For him to try in a
31:53second effort to reach for that puck, not knowing that a call had been made against the opponent
31:59on him is totally right on brand for Zaka. Then he calls that, oh boy, you look like Bill Barber,
32:07horizontal. That's bad scouting by the ref. I think Andy Brickley alluded to the fact that
32:20why wouldn't the refs get together after that and at least
32:25talk about, geez, maybe the other ref or a linesman could have said, you know,
32:31I don't think you got this one right. Maybe wash out the Zaka call and stick with the first call.
32:42At this point, Sutherland's one of the most senior guys in the league, I got to think though, right?
32:46Well, yeah, of course. I'm sure the other guys are hesitant to go against Sutherland.
32:53Yeah, I'm sure that's the case.
32:57Yeah, I got to think.
32:59It gives me no pleasure to do it, sir.
33:01There's definitely some of that going on as far as upstaging or overruling the senior guy
33:08that's been around for a while. But that was definitely Kelly Sutherland's worst call or
33:13non-call since missing the trip in on Noel Chari during the 2008 season.
33:16It's always fun reading Mike from Woburn tweets after a play like that.
33:20That's right. All right, let's take a break real quick. Take the guesswork out of buying
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34:39time is it, Mick? Game time. Game time. Yes, it is. All right. We will address this really quickly
34:49or as quickly as it takes, but we don't have to belabor it too much if there's not an easy
34:54answer here. Trent Frederick, Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyle, the guys that could be traded,
35:01the guys that have limited no trade protection. It's not realistic. The fans think the sky is
35:06falling. It's chicken little all over the place. You need to trade everybody. Not realistic.
35:12You're not going to force guys like David Pasternak, Elias Lindholm, Charlie McAvoy.
35:19You're not going to force guys like that into accepting a trade somewhere else. It's just not
35:24going to happen in today's NHL. Is there something you get a feeling about, Mick, that may happen with
35:31one of these players in order to make an impact, shake things up? We talked about the shake-up
35:37being the coaching change, and that works for a little bit of a while, but now that the Bruins
35:41are playing a pretty tough portion of the schedule where they're playing playoff-caliber teams every
35:46single night, you're seeing the flaws getting exposed for this team, and they just have a
35:50hard time beating good teams. Even if they get in the playoffs, it doesn't bode well. Is there
35:55any realistic move that you see that could be in the offing or coming with this team?
36:00Well, rationale tells me that there's a lot of interest in the idea of Trent Frederick. Once
36:05you have him on your team, then you're like, man, why didn't get a shot off there? Why didn't he
36:10win that puck? There's stuff, little things happening. He's had some good games lately,
36:14and they're playing him more at center now after being a winger for three years.
36:20I still think that because Freddie's UFA, that Freddie has definitely got the bullseye on him
36:25right now, and because he's going to bring the biggest haul. That said, for about a month now,
36:30I've had a very Coyle, Kreider vibe ever since Patra started showing signs of life in Providence.
36:37I've started thinking they're going to reintroduce Patra to this team, and when they do,
36:42what then? Because Coyle's never really been a successful winger for this team. He's never been
36:47a successful option, sustainable option as a right wing. At center has been his baby. Third
36:54line center has been his perfect spot. He did great last year in the top six. It has not gone
37:00well for him this year. Kreider is his own situation. I just get a real vibe there.
37:10There was a report out there that the Rangers had offered Zibanejad for JT Miller and would
37:18turn down. I wonder what it would take to get JT Miller. The Bruins have liked him for a while.
37:26I wonder that too. He'd be interesting. I don't know if that kind of a trade is the answer,
37:35bringing in a player like that. I feel like maybe there's more wrong with this team than
37:40some move like that could magically transform it or improve it. Mark, when you look at all
37:46these pieces, and I would also say that part of me wonders if Patra doesn't come back up until
37:51they make one of these trades and free up a spot for him with somebody else gone, whether it's
37:57Frederick, whether it's Coyle, somebody like that. What do your spider senses say, Mark,
38:03as far as a guy that could or should be traded to maybe help get things moving in a different
38:09direction? I would put Frederick first in line. I think they got to figure out
38:20whether they can sign him or not at a number that they're comfortable with.
38:26I think that will determine their course of action. I think you don't want to let him go
38:34for nothing. You can't sign him to too pricey of a contract, given what he is and what his
38:43production is. You also see the in and out play that you see from him. He has some good games.
38:52He slaps Corey Perry around and that's great, but on a consistent basis, that's not who he's been.
39:00So I would look at him first.
39:06And you suspect that after signing Kostelik to a pretty good contract at three years,
39:11$1.5 million, you suspect that they're going to want Breazeau back, who's looking at unrestricted
39:17free agency in the offseason and is on a pace for 20 goals and is having a good year,
39:22that if they start signing players like that, maybe there's not going to be the money there
39:26for Trent Frederick. Even if it's a fairly reasonable deal, they might not be able to
39:31afford him. Right. And I don't know, what would a reasonable deal be for him? What's a reasonable
39:39AAV? I mean, reasonable is, what's he making now, like three or something, somewhere in that range?
39:49I think he's going to make, he's going to command, somebody's going to give him more
39:53on the market than the Bruins would give him. I don't think there's any doubt about that because
39:56somebody would look at him and say, this is a guy that can be that power forward that we've
40:00always wanted. He can be that rare creature that every team wants, but not a lot of them
40:07have in the NHL. The guy can score, fight, hit, all that stuff. So I think that somebody would,
40:15he probably knows he's going to make more on the market than he would get from the Bruins.
40:20But for what he's shown, do you even give him $5 million a year? I don't think so.
40:27I think somebody else would, but I don't think the Bruins would do that.
40:30Yeah, that would be too much for me. I wouldn't give him $5 million a year.
40:38But yeah, you're right. Somebody, like maybe the St. Louis Blues, say,
40:43would probably would extend that to him. They're the ones.
40:51Yeah. I mean, Nancy's always liked him. He's from there. He's a great marketing
40:58of the city and the team and the community. I think that's, it's kind of the Corrale thing,
41:06right? Bring the guy back home that you can market the whole team around and post up as
41:11the St. Louis product that done well. And maybe you get a couple of good years out of him where
41:16he scores close to 20 and has a bunch of fights and plays really well. I've thought for a while
41:24now, I get vibes like, we're going to see him in a St. Louis Blues uniform next year.
41:30And Mark, thank you very much for joining us. Let's thank our sponsors real quick, PrizePix.
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42:02purchase. Mick, Mark, thank you very much for joining us. Pleasure. Everybody else out there,
42:08let's hope the Bruins aren't mired in a losing streak when we have our next Bruins chat,
42:12but we'll see what happens. Thank you for listening. We'll see you at the ring.
42:38Bye.