Morning Skate: Landscaping

Welcome to Thursday, folks. Your weekend is in sight.

In typical New England Weather fashion, your weekend will look drastically different than today: Thursday’s forecast high is 58 degrees F, while Saturday’s is 92. Good times.

If you’re not local to New England, well...sorry for the brief weather diversion.

Anyways, the NHL’s second round rolls on, with the first game of Hurricanes-Rangers and the Battle of Alberta last night.

The B’s slow post-mortem continues, as GM Don Sweeney had his end-of-season availability yesterday and Cam Neely will address the media today.

How you feel about what Sweeney had to say likely depends on your thoughts on him in general: lots of “we came up short,” making necessary improvements, etc.

One interesting nugget was a comment on his status as a Bruins employee:

“I’m under contract for right now. [I] had a discussion earlier in the year in terms of the indication of where my path will be and that will be determined in short order.”

That’s...not much of an answer. I’m not 100% clear on how non-playing contracts work, but if they’re like the players, it’d mean Sweeney’s deal runs through the league year.

With the NHL Draft coming up before the “new year” begins in mid-July, you’d have to think the Bruins plan to make a decision on Sweeney before then.

Another thing that caught me completely off guard, as Sweeney was asked about it: David Pastrnak will be an unrestricted free agent after next season.

It’s hard to believe that the 2022-2023 season is almost upon us, eh?

Today’s discussion topic

Regarding Jake DeBrusk, Sweeney indicated that he hasn’t withdrawn his trade request, but also added:

“He might take some time to re-evaluate and realize that I peeked over the neighbor’s yard and the grass is not necessarily greener. My lawn is looking pretty damn good too.”

So, your take: is DeBrusk on this roster Opening Night?

I think he gets traded before the draft.