BUFFALOThose dreaming of Dustin Brown filling in along the Bruins depleted right wing should hope to never wake up.
CBC rink side reporter Elliotte Friedman doused cold water all over TSN reports that Los Angeles Kings winger and Captain Dustin Brown was available on the trade market now that the Kings have acquired Jeff Carter.
According to Friedmans tweet: Trade deadline craziness: Lombardi telling inquiring GMs that Dustin Brown is not available. Can't wait until this is over.
The physical, rugged Brown would fit into Bostons style of play with his hard-hitting ways and hed bring a needed offensive touch with Nathan Horton indefinitely sidelined with a concussion.
The 27-year-old Brown is on his way to topping the 20-goal plateau for the fifth straight season and has scored as many as 33 goals in a season for the Kings.
Hed also fit into Bostons salary cap structure with an affordable 3.175 million cap hit for the next two years, but the price is the thing in this years trade market. Given the inflated prices in a sellers market it would take much more than Bostons first round pick to land Brown, and Boston doesnt have that type of player currency.
There are few intriguing prospects at the AHL level for Boston like Joe Colborne last season, they have no second or fourth round picks and Peter Chiarelli is loathe trading Tuukka Rask or Dougie Hamilton.
That leaves David Krejci or Milan Lucic as tradable assets designed to lure in a player of Browns ilk, and Chiarelli should once, twice and many times before blowing up part of the Stanley Cup-winning team.
I just dont see Peter blowing it up, said one source. I see a tired team right now, but this is also a team that won the Stanley Cup. It would have to take something awfully dramatic to significantly alter that teams structure.
It doesnt seem to matter at this point anyway as LA Dean Lombardi has yanked Brown from the trade market if he were ever actually attainable in the first place.