Being the general manager of an NHL franchise is no easy task. General managers are under an immense amount of pressure while they attempt to build a roster capable of capturing a Stanley Cup. One of the more stressful tasks for a GM is executing trades. In almost every trade that is made, there is a winner and a loser and no general manager wants to come out on the wrong side of a deal.

Over the past few years, the Boston Bruins have been accused of formulating some questionable or dangerous trades. The majority of their recent deals have been met with negative comments from the local media and fans. Due to this criticism, I decided to build a roster of players that the Bruins have traded away in recent years. Using the NHL Trade Tracker,I was able to dig through trades the Bruins have made to create the roster.

The Bruins are an Original Six franchise with a rich history in the NHL that began in 1924. As one can imagine, many trades have been executed by the Bruins since 1924. To make the rosters apply to what fans see today and to trim down the player pool, some simple rules had to be set in place before the rosters were created.

Building the Roster

The first rule established is that players must be currently active in either the NHL or AHL. Players that are currently still under contract, but have suffered career ending injuries were excluded from being selected. The second rule is an interesting one. I included draft picks that the Bruins traded away. Any player that was chosen by another team with a pick that was originally owned by the Bruins went on the roster, even if they have never played for the Bruins.

It should be noted that the trades that made this roster possible were made by three different Bruin’s general managers. The three GMs are Mike O’Connell, Peter Chiarelli, and Don Sweeney. The trades Chiarelli made show up more than the trades made by O’Connell and Sweeney. Now that we have all that out of the way let’s take a look at the Bruins’ traded player roster.

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The Traded Team

Left Wing Center Right Wing Jamie Benn Joe Thornton Phil Kessel Milan Lucic Tyler Seguin Blake Wheeler Joe Colborne Valtteri Filppula Reilly Smith Benoit Pouliot Rickard Rakell Ales Hemsky

Left Defense Right Defense TJ Brodie Dougie Hamilton Mark Stuart Johnny Boychuk Matt Hunwick Dennis Wideman

Goalie Martin Jones Thomas Greiss

Players just missing the cut: Carl Soderberg, Kris Versteeg, Derek Forbort, Alex Petrovic

Draft Pick Trades

A total of six players on this roster were drafted with picks that the Bruins formerly owned. The biggest name on this list of six is Jamie Benn. In 2007, the Bruins traded a fifth-round draft pick to the Blue Jackets for Adam McQuaid. That pick eventually ended up in the hands of the Dallas Stars. Since being drafted by Dallas, Benn has registered 451 points in 510 NHL games, according to HockeyDB.com.

T.J. Brodie’s draft pick was traded in a deal that brought Andrew Ference and Chuck Kobasew to Boston. Ales Hemsky and Valtteri Filppula’s picks were traded in two separate deals that brought Bill Guerin and Marty McInnis to the Bruins. In 2004, the Bruins swapped picks with the San Jose Sharks that resulted in the Bruins selecting David Krejci and the Sharks selecting goaltender Thomas Greiss. Lastly, Rickard Rakell’s draft pick was traded in a deal that also sent former Bruins first-round pick Joe Colborne away for Tomas Kaberle.

Young Stars Dealt