Bruins’ perfect trade target amid 2026 NHL Free Agency

In the NHL offseason, it is best for all teams to take on the personality and physicality of a shark — and not the kind from San Jose. The shark is a creature that must keep moving at all times if it is going to thrive. A shark that stops moving is going to die, but a shark on the move is constantly eating and gets stronger every year.

Once the Stanley Cup playoffs comes to an end, teams have to start making their moves rapidly in the offseason. They have to prepare for the NHL Draft, and they take steps in free agency at the start of July. Teams no longer stay the same from year to year. They have to incorporate young talent and make moves after free agents. Some teams can go after the elite free agents, while other teams must go after rolie players in order to get better.

Teams that do nothing tend to fall by the wayside in the following season.

The Boston Bruins overachieved throughout the 2025-26 season. They finished in last place in the Atlantic Division in the previous season and that’s just what they were expected to do by the league’s expert observers. However, the Bruins hired Marco Sturm as their new coach, they received a bounce-back season from goaltender Jeremy Swayman and added Victor Arvidsson, Marat Khusnutdinov (acquired late in 2024-25) and brought back Sean Kuraly. None of these moves were blockbusters, but the Bruins were a 100-point team and returned to the playoffs. They pushed the Buffalo Sabres a bit, but they went out in six games in the first round.

First-round defeats have become the Bruins’ habit in recent seasons.

Bruins have added a key goal scorer

Since the end of the season, the Bruins have lost Arvidsson to the Detroit Red Wings, but they brought in winger JJ Peterka from the Utah Mammoth in a blockbuster trade that saw the Bruins send two first-round draft picks to Utah. The 24-year-old Peterka has scored 25 goals or more in each of the last three seasons and he will fit in on the Bruins top line with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak.

However, that acquisition is not enough to return the Bruins to powerhouse status. They need to make at least one other trade if they are going to get there.

The Bruins need to make a move for a No. 1 center. Zacha has moved into that role, but only out of necessity. Elias Lindholm is supposed to be the team’s No. 1 center and he has had an opportunity to prove himself in that role the last two seasons.

He has clearly been a disappointment since the Bruins signed him as a free agent in 2024. Lindholm has scored 17 goals in back-to-back seasons with the Bruins, and that’s clearly not enough for a top center. He scored 47 points in his first season in Boston and raised that total to 48 points last year. It’s simply not good enough.

Blues’ Robert Thomas could be a winning fit in Boston

The Bruins need to make a move to acquire center Robert Thomas from the St. Louis Blues. That team is going through something of a transition, and the Bruins need to make the Blues an attractive offer for Thomas.

The 27-year-old Thomas has played eight seasons for the Blues and he should be coming into the prime of his career. He was a part of the 2019 Blues that won the franchise’s only Stanley Cup — at the expense of the Bruins — and he has become a legitimate top-line center in the past three years.

He scored 26 goals and a career-high 86 points in 2023-24 and he followed that up with 81 points the following year.

Thomas was limited to 64 games last season with the Blues, but he still scored 64 points. He is also one of the most consistent face-off men in the league, winning at least 52.5 percent of his face offs in each of the last four seasons, with a career best 54.8 in 2024-25.

Thomas is in the fourth season of an eight-year contract that will pay him $8.125 million this year, but it is a trade that the Bruins should try to pursue.

Chris Kreider could be a dynamic power play weapon for the Bruins