On the ice, the Bruins found another way to lose on Thursday night when a stick blew up on Nikita Zadorov attempting a pass in front of his own net, and it predictably turned into a game-winning goal for Seth Jarvis in the closing seconds of the third period.
The 3-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena drops the B’s to 1-6-2 in their last nine games during a painful final push for the playoffs and was a bitter pill at the end of a back-and-forth game where Boston actually put in a solid effort and deserved something against a good team.
The Bruins deserved better based on the effort level, but couldn’t even salvage a point in a situation that has played out many, many times this season.
Off the ice, the B’s sold off another asset as they shipped big forward Justin Brazeau to the Minnesota Wild for 22-year-old center Marat Khusnutdinov, old friend Jakub Lauko and a 2026 sixth-round pick that originally belonged to the Black and Gold.
It’s a good haul for a player in Brazeau who was approaching unrestricted free agency and wasn’t a part of Boston’s long-term picture after posting 10 goals and 20 points in 57 games for the B’s this year. The 6-foot-6 Brazeau was mired in a 17-game goal-scoring drought with the Bruins at the time of the trade, but has fairly consistently shown an ability to be a good net-front option on the power play throughout this season. The final evaluation on Brazeau is that he’s a useful, big and skilled forward with some good hands around the net, but he also never going to play up to the 6-foot-6, 220-pound frame in terms of heaviness and physicality to buy space for himself and his teammates. If he adds a little bit of the latter to his game, he could become an even more impactful player, but the lack of foot speed is always going to be a challenge in a league that’s getting faster and more explosive each season.
The 24-year-old Lauko has three goals and six points in 38 games for the Wild this season as a bottom-6 contributor, and the 22-year-old Khusnutdinov has two goals and seven points in 57 games for the Wild this season. Khusnutdinov is an interesting player as a Russian former second-round Wild pick that came over from the KHL last season, and a center that might have some untapped potential moving forward.
Neither player is going to be a game-changer for the Bruins, but a lot of the final trade haul will depend on whether there’s another level to Khusnutdinov’s game for a Bruins team where he’ll get top-9 center looks, for sure.
It's not an overwhelming haul in terms of the return that the Bruins received, but it is an excellent trade return when you consider that A) Brazeau was a minor league signing that cost the Bruins literally nothing but money to acquire in the first place and B) the player was not coming back to Boston in the offseason.
The question now is just how much more movement there will be on Friday as the NHL trade deadline nears in the afternoon.
The biggest name on the menu is Brad Marchand, who was reportedly being discussed by the Bruins in trade chats with Western Conference teams after contract extension talks hit a stalemate. The lead candidates for a potential Marchand trade were the Colorado Avalanche and the Vegas Golden Knights, which makes total sense given the presences of Nathan MacKinnon and Bruce Cassidy in those two Cup-contending spots.
But there’s also the very real possibility all this trade smoke simply leads to a contract extension for Marchand in Boston that will keep one of the franchise’s best and most recognizable players in Black and Gold for a few more years. Here’s what Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman had to say about Marchand in the wee hours of early Friday morning on his 32 Thoughts blog:
“Brad Marchand. We never thought we’d see the day, but it is possible the Bruins move him. He might not be back until right before the playoffs, which could mean a more conditional-style return, but there was lots of noise around him on Thursday. There are a few different ways this could go. Extension talks hit a stalemate – with the reminder that one call can change everything.”
Per @FriedgeHNIC on the noise around #NHLBruins forward Brad Marchand.
— Mark Allred (@BlackAndGold277) March 7, 2025
🚨👇👀👇🚨 https://t.co/mXEDRP92rX pic.twitter.com/GSYXwzeOWl
The expectation is that the Bruins would get a top-drawer prospect and a first-round pick if they were going to move Marchand, but the upper body injury most definitely makes it a bit more complicated as a transaction.
It's possible there could be other moves involving the Bruins, though it doesn’t seem likely that they are going to trade veteran core players Brandon Carlo and Charlie Coyle after that was thought to be a possibility earlier in the week. One player that isn’t going to get moved is Morgan Geekie, an upcoming restricted free agent that powered home both of Boston’s goals in the Thursday night loss to the Hurricanes and now has a career-high 22 goals in a season where Geekie, David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha have shown tremendous chemistry as Boston’s top forward line.
“He’s finding the ice, he’s seeing the offense right now,” said Joe Sacco. “He’s getting his opportunities and burying them. Players get an opportunity, and they try to take advantage of it.”
So there’s a positive for the Boston Bruins in a season where Zadorov coughing up the game-winner thanks to a broken stick is the perfect microcosm for a Black and Gold group where almost everything has gone wrong this year.