Earlier this week, the NHL saw a massive trade go down. The Los Angeles Kings traded Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Darcy Kuemper. With this move, each team gets a good player coming off career-worst seasons.
Out of the pair, seeing Dubois get moved certainly raised the eyebrows of hockey fans. The 25-year-old has a $8.5 million cap hit for the next seven seasons, so the Capitals are taking a massive gamble with the 2016 third-overall pick. This is especially so when noting his full no-movement clause kicks in for 2024-25 and lasts until the end of 2027-28.
Interestingly, even with how risky a Dubois addition is, the Capitals weren’t the only club in the mix for Dubois, as Elliotte Friedman reported. From there, Friedman and Jeff Marek predicted that the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens were two teams that pursued Dubois.
If the Bruins truly targeted Dubois, they may have dodged a big bullet. While Dubois is a solid top-six forward who produces well offensively and provides grit when playing at his best, his contract and rough 2023-24 season would have made him a very risky addition to Boston’s lineup.
There would have been no way to predict if Dubois would have been a fit in the Bruins’ lineup, either. If they acquired him and he struggled to find his place in Boston, this would have been another massive problem for the Bruins. Remember, he has a full no-movement clause for the next four seasons.
It will be intriguing to see if Dubois bounces back in DC from here. The potential for him to is there, but in the end, the Bruins are probably better off looking for their top center elsewhere.
