Bruins stay true to identity with acquisitions before NHL Trade Deadline

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2022-23 regular season by former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Mark Recchi and Phil Housley will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, Recchi, a three-time Stanley Cup champion and Hall of Fame player who has been an assistant with the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils, writes about the teams he feels made the biggest gains prior to the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline on March 3.

The Boston Bruins set themselves up for a Stanley Cup run by staying true to their identity.
The Bruins acquired hard, character players who have skill at the trade deadline in forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Garnet Hathaway, and defenseman Dmitry Orlov.
Orlov is a hard player, hard to play against. He's mobile but he plays a physical game. Hathaway is just a pain in the butt to play against. He adds more identity to the bottom half. Bertuzzi is another guy who is hard to play against. He has skill but has jam too. He goes to the net. He plays an ugly net. He gets there. He'll fit right in with that group.
You've got a guy like Bertuzzi possibly on the third line, that's pretty good. When I was with the Bruins back in 2011 and we won the Stanley Cup we had Michael Ryder playing on the third line and he was a heck of a player. Same with Rich Peverley and Chris Kelly. When you have that depth with those types of players it's just tough to matchup against them.
I don't know Don Sweeney's style as a general manager, but I have to think the Bruins coaching staff was in the loop and involved in the discussions about the players they were looking at because it's all part of the identity they want as a team and the staff is a big part of that.
From a coaching staff perspective, there's different terms that are used but when it comes to the deadline it all comes back to the same exact thing, being harder to play against and making sure we're adding players that play on their toes, fast, physical, grinding, etc.
The Bruins did that.
They're now eight deep on defense and 14 or 15 forwards deep, and that's a great recipe. Obviously, they've got the goaltending. They have just a lot of pieces there and it makes a difference when you get into the playoffs.
The New Jersey Devils made a couple moves that I really like.
Curtis Lazar was a nice depth add. He's a real character guy. But obviously Timo Meier was one of the top guys out there and it was a great move on their part to get him without giving up any of their core group of young players. They gave up some picks and prospects, but general manager Tom Fitzgerald did a great job not losing a guy like Dawson Mercer or even Simon Nemec to get a guy who is 26 years old and locked in for, at the very least, another year.
If you look at the Devils they have a lot of skill, a lot of guys who can fly up and down the ice, but the one question was do they have the guy who is going to go to the front of the net, score the dirty goal, win a battle in the corner to create a loose puck that gest to the slot and he gets there too?

That's Meier. He's a big, big body and he's not afraid to go there. He's going to go score ugly goals. Nico Hischier does that too, but Meier is 220 pounds, a big force who can really skate and that's a huge addition to the core of that hockey team.
The Dallas Stars made a couple subtle moves that I like with Evgenii Dadonov and Max Domi.
What I like about this is the Stars were struggling a little bit, but they stopped the bleeding and then they added Dadonov and Domi. That's their general manager (Jim Nill) giving them belief. It's important.
They obviously wanted to upgrade their top nine forward group and they did. Dadonov can be a good player. He's shown that. He was a terrific player in Florida. He's lost his way a little bit getting traded all over the place, but hopefully he can add some spark. He's really good on the power play in the pocket. And Domi is another character guy who is going to help solidify that top nine group. He plays fast, gets inside and he can play center or wing.
Like Dallas, the Carolina Hurricanes made a couple subtle moves too. Shayne Gostisbehere is an outstanding power-play guy who revitalized his career in Arizona and should make an impact for Carolina. Jesse Puljujarvi could be a really interesting add if he fits in there.
The Toronto Maple Leafs did a good job too by adding some players who have won the Stanley Cup like Ryan O'Reilly, Noel Acciari and Luke Schenn. They can bring in some experience to the Maple Leafs and they're character guys.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to gel because they made more moves than normal. But it shouldn't be a problem with the players they added.
There will be a lot of coaching going on there, though, because you have so many players who are new to the team and they're probably playing a different structure, slightly different systems. It's not overly crazy because a lot of it is pretty similar, but there might be some fine tuning. It's also getting the new players comfortable and that's up to the coaching staff to make sure it happens quickly so the new players can just go play instead of thinking about where they should be on the ice in any given situation.
The New York Rangers have to be included in this too for obvious reasons. They made the move to get Vladimir Tarasenko earlier and that's big. But adding Patrick Kane through all the cap management they were able to do, that's huge. It's about chemistry, though, and it's going to take a little time. They're great players and I like defenseman Niko Mikkola too, but I think the Rangers need some time to get it all together.
It all comes down to depth and being harder to play against. That's the playoffs. And that's what I think this trade deadline was all about. It's typically what it is about but it just seems pronounced this year because of all the movement we saw for as long as we saw it.