With the NHL regular season kicking off next week, it’s high time that the trade rumor mill cranked up in full swing with the Boston Bruins and disgruntled Columbus Blue Jackets forward Kirill Marchenko right now.
The 26-year-old Russian power forward has made no secret of his desire to leave Columbus and enters the final year of a contract with the Blue Jackets that pays him $3.85 million.
Kirill Marchenko was asked if he wants to play hockey in Columbus.
— Mark Scheig (@mark_scheig) September 18, 2026
“I want to play hockey. It’s all I can say right now.”
Video below. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/XRiO6Adv1e
Marchenko is still a restricted free agent following this season and is coming off a massively productive stretch where the 6-foot-3 forward has averaged 29 goals and 70 points over the last two seasons. Marchenko has also been a certified Bruins killer in the recent past, creating offense around the Boston net front while using his imposing size and top 6 skill to good effect.
Kirill Marchenko mix
— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) July 21, 2026
~25 minute full video on the PDOcast Youtube channel: https://t.co/LMiRO8vxgS pic.twitter.com/wq4ClAY5DF
Elliotte Friedman stoked the rumor mill on his 32 Thoughts podcast this past week, mentioning Marchenko’s situation in Columbus and confirming he knew the B’s management group had “made an offer at one point” for the big Columbus forward this offseason.
"Montreal, everybody knows about, the Islanders I mentioned a couple pods ago,” said Friedman. “Toronto I think has really tried to keep their interest secret, but it’s kind of seeped out. I think Winnipeg at one point kind of looked into it. I heard Boston made an offer at one point. I had some people say Vegas, I had some other people say they weren’t sure it was Vegas. I have to think Seattle is around this. They’ve really been looking at trying to grab a top-end player, and they could make this deal.”
Could it have been earlier in this offseason when the B’s ultimately traded two first-round picks for JJ Peterka, or could this be a more recent development where they’re looking to move assets like Mason Lohrei, Matt Poitras, or Pavel Zacha, and others, along with the obvious draft pick/prosect package array?
What’s obviously clear is that the Bruins could use a Marchenko-type imposing player at the net front, and this particular player has dominated matchups between the Bruins and Blue Jackets in recent years. So the B’s have seen Marchenko at his best over the last few years in Eastern Conference clashes between the two teams. Don Sweeney hinted at the outset of training camp that the Bruins continue to explore ways to improve their team both from a systems standpoint and from tirelessly looking at outside options that present themselves as roster improvements.
“We established, or re-established I should say, the competitive nature of our hockey club last season, and that has to be a staple, [that] has to remain in place,” said Sweeney. “Now, can we, as I referenced earlier, can we grow, can we get better, can we take steps? Because it doesn't get any easier.”
It remains unclear if it would require a young player like James Hagens or a top-flight prospect like Dean Letourneau to be included in any kind of package for Marchenko, but it could be worth the stretch, for Letourneau at least, if the Bruins can get the player and an accompanying contract extension that isn’t too egregious in an obviously inflated market for young forward-types with the salary cap going up, up and up.
The Bruins certainly seem to be having some fun with it as both David Pastrnak and Nikita Zadorov have begun following Marchenko on Instagram in the last couple of days, kicking the speculation up into a higher-level fever pitch ahead of next week’s opening games.
👀 Pasta followed 1 new account on Instagram:
— NHL Follow Tracker (@NHLFollowTrack) September 25, 2026
✅ marchenkokirill86 — Kirill Marchenko
🔗 https://t.co/COu6JAdC1C#NHL #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/ODWmTAXkgN
It remains to be seen if the Bruins will be the lone team left standing in the expected Marchenko sweepstakes, but it feels like there are a lot of teams jockeying for position. It feels like the Black and Gold are absolutely one of those suitors looking to bring in more quality players to add to the group and are positioned to be able to make moves with the pieces they have in place.
ONE-TIMERS
*A really tough injury timing-wise for Matt Poitras (upper body), as he was in a battle for one of the last NHL roster spots in Boston, but the development may actually work out for the 22-year-old center, as it could land him on the injured list to start the season for the Black and Gold. He had a good start in the first preseason game, winning a big offensive zone faceoff to score the tying goal late in the third period, but the injury he sustained shortly after in practice put all that progress on ice.
It also allowed Dans Locmelis to play in all four preseason games for the Bruins and step into some of the spots Poitras would have gotten reps in if he’d been healthy.
“I think it’s just good for him,” said Sturm of Locmelis, who is very likely ticketed to Providence because – unlike guys like Poitras, Lukas Reichel, Alex Steeves and Mikey Eyssimont -- he does not have to clear waivers in order to be sent down to the AHL. “Unfortunately Matty hurt, but Locmelis slowly got some nice options. Now we wanted to give him a little more experience and a little more of a taste of what it’s like to go up against an NHL lineup.”
Locmelis got 11:38 of ice time in the final preseason OT loss to the Capitals on Friday night and looked solid centering Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic in more of a fourth line role, but one thing the Bruins were absolutely missing in that game was the cerebral, gritty penalty killing of Sean Kuraly as Boston let up three power-play goals to the Capitals in the 3-2 loss.
“It wasn’t a structure thing. It was a little bit of stupidity on our part,” said Marco Sturm. “Not being ready or not being shooting lates…it was those kinds of things. We just need to make sure that we dial in because those little details matter, even on clears. You’ve got to clear them 200 feet. Those are things, but structure-wise it was fine. Those little details were missing today.”
And Kuraly was missing from the lineup as well.
That’s a big factor to keep in mind when so many Bruins fans want to run Locmelis, Poitras, or any other young, up-and-coming center, for that matter, into a fourth-line center role when they really haven’t proven that they can do some of the more hard-nosed things in the job description.
*Interesting that Mason Lohrei has said he’s put on 10 pounds of muscle since last season after training hard in the offseason. The work could, and should, definitely make him stouter at the point of attack and a little sturdier defensively, which is an area that he’s continued to be a work-in-progress as a young D-man over the last couple of years.
“You could tell…as soon as I saw him I said ‘oh, okay,’ said Sturm. “It seems like it doesn’t affect him [moving around] on the ice and he moves around like he did before, so hopefully it will help him...especially in the corners.”
It sounds like Lohrei is going to factor strongly into Boston’s plans while Charlie McAvoy is serving his six-game suspension to start the year, but it remains to be seen what the D-man picture is going to look like after that.
*Alex Steeves and Reichel were both placed on waivers on Saturday as the latest cuts from NHL camp, a move not exactly unexpected after Mikey Eyssimont put together a strong preseason. Reichel was mostly invisible in his preseason appearances, as he was most of last season after coming to Boston, and Steeves was merely okay in a couple of games without any offensive production.
“It’s been pretty good. The good thing about [Alex Steeves] and some other guys is that I know them already…we know them already,” said Sturm. “I know his strengths, his good games, his bad games and I do believe that’s a plus. Because I do know what he brings to this hockey team.
“He’s one of those guys that he just needs to go out and be aggressive and go on the hunt on the forecheck. Especially in their own zone if he hunts them down, he is really effective.”
That’s it for this week. We’ll see everybody at the rinks!