Breaking Down the Boston Bruins Trade

The Boston Bruins are on the board with a completed trade prior to this year’s March 3rd trade deadline. With a few close competitors making some early splashes, all eyes were on the league-leading Bruins to make their move. Well, they did, and we are going to take a deeper dive into it and see just how good Don Sweeney did on this one.

The Trade Details

The Washington Capitals shipped both Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway to the Bruins in Exchange for Craig Smith, a first-round pick in 2023, a 2025 second-round pick, and a 2024 third-round pick.

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There was a third team involved to help complete this deal, the Minnesota Wild, who retained 25% of Orlov’s salary, sent Andrei Svetlakov to the Bruins, and received a 2023 fifth-round pick from the B’s. In addition to all this, Washington retained 50% of Orlov’s salary.

How Does it Help the Bruins

There were concerns in Boston about this defensive group, not so much because they lacked talent, but because they have had a history of injuries and struggles come playoff time. With seven legit defensemen now, it is a good problem to have if you are Jim Montgomery when it comes to deciding who to play and at what amount of minutes.

The newly acquired Orlov is a player who can eat minutes, plays a tough style of hockey, and can defend just about anyone you throw at him on the first defensive pairing.

He isn’t limited to being physical; hard to beat defender. He also possesses some great puck skills, leading fans to believe he will be an even better fit than Vladislav Gavrikov, who was rumored to be heading to Boston for days.

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As for Garnet Hathaway, Bruins fans will be the first to tell you they hated the player he was when watching him as the opposition. That doesn’t mean we won’t love him on our team now that he is part of this Stanley Cup Champion caliber roster. He can be compared to Brad Marchand, but without the extraordinary offensive talent that Marchand provides.

Basically, he is a bit of an instigator, a pest, or whatever another synonym you’d like to insert that resembles Marchand.

I’m sure you’ll hear some cheers from the TD Garden once Hathaway stirs the pot in one of his first shifts as a Bruin. He is a big guy, at 6-foot-3 and 208 pounds, so get ready to see Hathaway throw his body around up and down the ice.

Saying Goodbye to Craig Smith

With his production decreasing this season, many Bruins fans saw this coming. What fans sometimes don’t see is the locker room and how some guys are adored by their teammates within it. Smith was one of those guys, and in a post-game interview, captain Patrice Bergeron had some words to say about his conversation with Smith and wished him the best of success in Washington.

It’s one of those business decisions that had to be made, and although it is sad, it is certainly to the benefit of this team.