Bruins Reportedly Putting Brandon Carlo 'Back In Play' For Trade
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- With about six weeks to go until the March 1 NHL trade deadline, the Bruins are one of the teams that continues to pop up in rumors and discussions. Talks of a possible trade between the Bruins and Colorado Avalanche involving winger Gabriel Landeskog surfaced two weeks ago, but the Bruins reportedly balked at any deal involving defenseman Brandon Carlo.
A new tweet on Tuesday from the same person who originally reported on the Bruins-Avs trade talks, Bleacher Report's Adrian Dater, suggest that Carlo is "back in play" for a possible Landeskog deal.
Not only would this be a huge mistake for the Bruins, but it would fly in the face of GM Don Sweeney's self-professed devotion to keeping and developing his own young talent.
The Bruins had severe deficiencies on the blue line in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, when the team jettisoned Johnny Boychuk and Dougie Hamilton in separate trades for a handful of draft picks and never replaced them with viable top-four NHL defensemen. Those moves signaled a complete overhaul on the blue line.
One of the picks that came to Boston from the New York Islanders for Boychuk turned into Carlo, the 37th overall pick in 2015. The 20-year-old got off to a hugely impressive start to his rookie season before leveling off in recent weeks. It was to be expected that a 20-year-old rookie would eventually hit the proverbial wall; Carlo has already shown that he belongs in the NHL, and could still develop into a bona fide top-pairing defenseman.
Carlo is one of the first signs that Sweeney's plan with the Bruins' young talent is already coming to fruition. Back in April, Sweeney said: "We have a very, very bright future with a number of young players that we have and recently added to our organization, and it's rightfully so to be excited about that, but it's also imperative to be patient to allow them to be the types of players [they can be] and hit their ceilings."
Is Sweeney already going to abandon that plan with Carlo? When the team finally appears to have a defenseman who not only can play actual defense but has the upside of a shutdown stalwart on the back end?
The problem, here, is that Sweeney and team president Cam Neely may be feeling the pressure for their own jobs. Charlie Jacobs said that a decision on Claude Julien's future would come from them and not ownership, which implies that responsibility for missing the playoffs for a third straight year would also fall on their shoulders.
The Jacobs mandate to return to the playoffs (and even make a deep run) may be pushing Neely and Sweeney to make the kind of move that would improve the Bruins in areas of need in the short-term. Offense from the wing positions would be at or near the top of that list. This would explain the Bruins' apparent interest in Landeskog, a four-time 20-goal scorer who became the youngest captain in NHL history in 2012.
Landeskog is having a down year by his standards, with just 15 points and a minus-10 rating through 32 games, but he is still just 24 years old and remains a strong long-term building block for any team in need of fresh talent on the wing. He is more than just a short-term fix, but that doesn't mean the Bruins should suddenly trade away a good young defenseman to acquire his services.
Landeskog would likely solve problems in terms of scoring, size, and toughness on the Bruins' roster, but to move Carlo to get him would undo a lot of progress that has been made on the blue line in a short amount of time. It would once again leave a vacuum of talent among Bruins defensemen as they wait for the likes of Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Lauzon to arrive in the NHL.
Perhaps the team is that confident in McAvoy and Lauzon's talents that they can get rid of Carlo to improve on the wing and eventually add them to the blue line with no drop-off in development. But there's no reason why they can't keep them all - except if they are going out of their way to make the playoffs this season, rather than sticking to the big picture. With Carlo in tow, that picture looks bright.
If reports are to be believed, the Bruins are apparently willing to dim the long-term outlook of their defense in order to sell playoff tickets this year. The worst part? A move like trading Carlo for Landeskog may not even be enough to accomplish that. And it's why the Bruins would be better off standing pat and continuing to practice what Sweeney preached, rather than completely upending their own philosophy in less than a year's time.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
