Simply put, there’s plenty of demand for quality defensemen, but teams aren’t especially anxious to supply them.
CSNNE.com’s Joe Haggerty reports that the Boston Bruins are hoping to trade for Florida Panthers blueliner Dmitri Kulikov. They’re being proactive yet could also be described as merely “kicking the tires.”
There are two pretty big bumps in the road, however.
First, the price would probably be pretty difficult to stomach:
The sticking point with Kulikov is that he’s essentially a rental with one year to go until unrestricted free agency, and the cost would something in the neighborhood of Boston’s 29th pick in the first round and a Frank Vatrano-level prospect. That’s a stiff cost, and it should give everybody the kind of premium price tags associated with defensemen on the trade market for the next few months.
Yikes.
The other consideration is that Kulikov might not even be on the rental shelves, according to the Miami Herald’s George Richards:
.@FlaPanthers D Dmitry Kulikov is team's longest tenured player, has one year left on contract. Team want to talk to agent about extension.
— George Richards (@GeorgeRichards) June 17, 2016
As this video illustrates, the Bruins might just be stuck.
The Bruins say they’re being aggressive to improve in this area, but it could really be a sellers’ trade market this summer, especially with the list of targets shrinking with each day.