Morning Skate: Heat

Welcome to a new week, folks.

For those of you in the Boston area, I hope you’ve managed to avoid melting over the past few days - it looks like some relief is on the way in the form of “only high 80’s.”

The big NHL news over the weekend was the end to the Matthew Tkachuk saga, as the Flames dealt him to the Florida Panthers.

The trade caught my eye as one of those rare “big player for big player” trades, with Jonathan Huberdeau (among others) going the other way.

It seems like most trades nowadays are “big player for high-level prospect, pick, pick,” so it was kind of cool to see multiple names involved.

Anyways, it’s another weapon added to an Atlantic team’s arsenal, so the Panthers just got a bit harder to play against (though I thought Huberdeau was a very good player, so maybe it’s a bit of a wash).

Still little news on the Bruins front, though the team did wish Patrice Bergeron a happy birthday on Twitter, so...read into that what you will.

Today’s discussion topic

While browsing NHL news Sunday evening, I saw a post mentioning that Loui Eriksson was probably heading overseas next season.

It got me thinking about the Bruins passing on giving Eriksson a mega deal after his 30-goal, 63-point season in 2016.

The B’s elected to let him walk instead, with Eriksson signing a big deal in Vancouver - and in five years with the Canucks, he recorded just 90 points.

Injuries played a part, but I guess where I’m going with this is the B’s made the right call letting him leave.

So, to bring this point home: are there any other “yeah, not doing XYZ was the right call” moves the B’s have made in recent years?

Not offering big money to Torey Krug looks like a smart move at this point too.