4 Trades the Bruins Must Make to Become Stanley Cup Favorites at the Deadline

Feb 26, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Boston Bruins right wing David Pastrnak (88, middle)
Feb 26, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Boston Bruins right wing David Pastrnak (88, middle) / Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
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1. Adam Henrique, C, Anaheim Ducks

With 887 NHL games under his belt, Adam Henrique is easily the most seasoned player on this list. In 57 games with the Anaheim Ducks, Henrique has lit the lamp 16 times and recorded 22 assists. He is sensationally responsible with the puck, only registering 11 giveaways this season while still playing 17:35 per night. For context, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand have 62 and 53 giveaways, respectively.

In Elliotte Friedman's comments, he also identified center as a position that he believed Boston would be shopping for. Henrique has the versatility to line up at either center or left wing, which would give Jim Montgomery some flexibility within his line combinations. At the face-off dot, he has won 53.1 percent of his draws, which would rank second on Boston's current NHL roster.

Henrique does possess a 10-team no-trade clause and carries a significant cap hit of $5.825 million, so Boston would have to be creative in that department. Offloading Linus Ullmark's $5 million cap hit could help the Bruins navigate Henrique's contract, but that might be getting ahead of ourselves and could be messy. In all likelihood, this would be a situation where retained salary would come into play.

Henrique turned 34 on Feb. 6 and is in the final year of a five-year deal that he signed with Anaheim back in July 2018. His age and contract situation should make his value more achievable for Boston than Hanifin's.

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