The Tyler Seguin Trade Continues to Look Terrible

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

No matter how you try to spin the Tyler Seguin trade, it becomes more apparent by the year that the Bruins traded away one of the best offensive talents of this generation before his 22nd birthday. And that is tough to take.

Seguin netted a hat trick in the Dallas Stars’ 5-3 win over the Bruins at the TD Garden Tuesday night. It was the Stars’ 10th victory of the season and snapped the Bruins’ seven-game points streak.

When the Bruins’ brass cast Seguin aside three years ago, he was a good but imperfect player. On the ice, he struggled to hold his own defensively and didn’t appear to mesh with head coach Claude Julien’s conservative system. He was so immature off the ice the team forced him to live in a hotel under the watch of a guard during the 2013 postseason in order to keep him from drinking himself into oblivion.

But now, the former No. 2 overall pick has blossomed into the superstar he was expected to be. It’s a shame the Bruins didn’t possess the foresight to recognize that.

.@NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/v4l79sK5TC

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) November 4, 2015

Only two of the four players who the Bs received for Seguin are still with the team today, Loui Eriksson and Joe Morrow. After two disappointing seasons in black and gold, Eriksson leads the team in points this year and scored two goals Tuesday night. Morrow is playing the most minutes of his career and could be a fixture on the squad’s second defensive pairing. But that’s nothing compared to what Seguin has accomplished. This year, he’s tied for the league lead in points with teammate Jamie Benn. Seguin has scored 82 goals since landing in Dallas.

Over the last three seasons, Seguin has amassed 181 points. The three forwards who the Bruins received for him have recorded 191 points in Boston over that same time period, with Matt Fraser and Reilly Smith now playing elsewhere.

Even worse, Seguin is still playing under the six-year, $34.5 million extension the Bruins awarded to him just 10 months before they dealt him away. Suffice to say, that deal looks like a bargain now, especially because Eriksson will probably be seeking a big free agent payday this offseason.

The Bruins had every reason to be irritated with Seguin following the 2012-13 campaign. His offensive futility that postseason may have cost the Bs a chance at the Cup, as he only scored one goal in 22 playoff games. But the decision to dump him was rash rather than prudent. Remember, just one season earlier, Seguin led the team in points. Two years earlier, he had a four-point performance off the bench in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals as a rookie.

Putting up with Seguin’s off-ice carousing may have been tiresome, but players with transcendent talent deserve a little more leeway than their peers. Also, Seguin was only 21 years old when the Bruins shipped him to Dallas. He had plenty of time to grow up.

That’s exactly what he’s done in Dallas, by the way. Seguin hasn’t been involved in any off-ice incidents, and is now even committed to playing a two-way game. The maturation of Tyler Seguin is fully underway. It’s too bad it isn’t happening here.