McKenzie on Bruins, trade deadline; contracts for Hamilton, Krug, Smith

Bob McKenzie was on NBCSN’s Intermission Report on Wednesday evening.

On if the Boston Bruins will be active at the trade deadline:

“Well, they’re trying to be. And all season long, even before things were good, bad, indifferent – I mean, they’ve been looking for that right-winger to replace Jarome Iginla. David Pastrnak, the kid, has come up and done a nice job. But I don’t think Pete Chiarelli and Claude Julien are in a position where they necessarily want to get into a situation where you have to trust an 18-year-old in the playoffs. So yes, they are continuing to look for a scoring winger.

“But again, like the Rangers, they’ve got a cap crunch coming up. Unrestricted free agents: McQuaid, Soderberg, Campbell, Paille.

“But, here’s the big one: Dougie Hamilton’s a restricted free agent. He’s a foundation building block on the blueline. You don’t want to give a bridge deal, if you can help it. You want to probably try to do a long-term deal with him.

“And Torey Krug... he and Reilly Smith are both restricted free agents at the end of this year. I think the strategy for Boston at this point is try to get something short-term done with Reilly Smith and Krug before the season is out.

“The Hamilton contract is going to require a lot more finesse and they may need to see where the cap is next year before they can get into that. But I’m sure they want to try to do a deal with Dougie Hamilton that’s going to be commensurate with his role on the team, which is the future building block. When Zdeno Chara’s gone, Dougie Hamilton is the future anchor on this defense.”

Source: NBCSN/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

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Nichols on Hockey

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