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The Canada and USA Olympic rosters, revealed in recent days as expected, were similar to those that stocked last February’s 4 Nations Face-Off. The Yanks opted not to take 4 Nations defenseman Adam Fox and forward Chris Kreider.

The inclusion of the 19-year-old Celebrini was a tiny surprise, only in light of his age and the customary depth of the stacked, forever-favored Canadian squad. He earned the honor. Upon rosters being announced Wednesday, the dynamic former Boston University center, now in his second NHL season with the Sharks, ranked third in league scoring with 62 points, behind only Team Canada ‘mates Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon, who were tied at 70.

Celebrini is averaging better than a point per game in a career that crested 100 games last month. The big dogs are now running with him. The Games exposure has the potential to move him from “future face of the NHL” status to “it’s Macklin’s world now.”

Macklin Celebrini throws a puck to fans.Caroline Brehman/Associated Press

As much as the Games will dominate the hockey consciousness in the season’s second half, another key date fast approaches:

March 6 (3 p.m.) — the NHL trade deadline.

Yep, just a month after the Games begin, the swap meet is back. It’s shaping up as a blistering seller’s market and isn’t likely to change.

As the weekend began, all 16 teams in the East reasonably could think about being deadline buyers. Now, whether their Stanley Cup dreams are realistic is a topic for a different discussion.

There is slightly more separation in the West. Calgary, St. Louis, Chicago, Vancouver, and Winnipeg all stood below break-even as of New Year’s Day.

If they’re resigned to being sellers, that leaves 27 clubs potentially eyeing the 100 or so players on varsity rosters viewed as deadline targets. By definition, it’s never good to be a seller, but if the haves/have nots remain this lopsided, it could make for some huge swaps, especially if those five franchises in the West adopt the roster makeover approach the Bruins took last March.

With the luxury of only some 10 months worth of hindsight, it’s clear Bruins general manager Don Sweeney wrangled deadline overpays out of Toronto and Colorado.

The still-sputtering Maple Leafs surrendered forward Fraser Minten and a 2026 first-rounder for defenseman Brandon Carlo (out injured since Nov. 13). Minten has been a comfortable addition to the middle six and looks like a long-term keeper. The first-rounder currently has the potential to be a primo No. 6-10 pick. If the Maple Leafs bottom out, the pick is top-five protected and flips to 2027.

Coyle, dished to Colorado, brought back Casey Mittelstadt (now in the top six) and high-end prospect Will Zellers (who had a solid World Junior run with Team USA and James Hagens) in an all-forwards deal. Heavy price for the Avalanche, who then dished Coyle to Columbus in the offseason for a couple of picks and a younger, smaller center in Gavin Brindley.

The deal that sent Brad Marchand from Boston to Florida will bring back a first-rounder. The Panthers got the most of the swap, by a wide margin.

Marchand’s energy, attitude and postseason production (10-10–20) were major factors in the Panthers clinching a second consecutive Stanley Cup, and a major factor in his inclusion on the Canadian Olympic team. The Sunrisers celebrated his 1,000th career point (976 of those for the Bruins) recently and it was hard for Boston fans not to ponder how different things would be on Causeway Street today if Marchand were still on the roster, along with Minten and Mittelstadt, and with Hagens and Zellers in the pipeline.

The Panthers willingly overpaid Marchand (six years/$31.5 million) rather than lose him to free agency. He was deemed not a financial fit on the Black and Gold payroll at that price level, which led team president Cam Neely and Sweeney to render his days done on Causeway. The highest cost, as seen in the first half, is the irreplaceable loss of his leadership, manifested in his Herculean work ethic.

What 2025-26 has taught the Bruins is the high cost of saving money over the preservation of culture. Marchand always dragged the Bruins into the fight. No one is doing that now.

The closest Brandon Bussi came to the NHL with the Bruins was preseason play at TD Garden. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

Bussi seizes chance in Hurricanes’ net

If not for Pyotr Kochetkov’s injury in preseason play, onetime Bruins netminding prospect Brandon Bussi likely would be in the minors today, hoping he might log at least a few NHL minutes with the Panthers, who signed the 27-year old July 1 to a two-way deal that guaranteed him only $400,000.

Fast forward five months, the 6-foot-4-inch Bussi is Carolina’s No. 1 stopper, after the Hurricanes announced Monday that Kochetkov required what they project as season-ending surgery for the injury (undisclosed) incurred in September.

“He was kind of fighting through it,” explained Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, “but doesn’t want to continue that way. We’ll get it fixed and go from there.”

Aware of the risk that Kochetkov’s injury presented, Carolina claimed Bussi from the Panthers via waivers on the eve of the season. After spending three full seasons in the minors with Boston, he finally made his NHL debut Oct. 14, giving up one goal on 17 shots in a win over San Jose.

Now with Kochetkov hors de combat, and veteran Frederik Andersen a pedestrian 5-9-2, it appears Bussi’s No. 1 in the cage until further notice. Just hours after Kochetkov was designated for the operating room, Bussi stopped 18 of 20 shots and posted a 3-2 win over the Rangers. Like Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy, Bussi grew up on Long Island (Sound Beach, N.Y), east of Madison Square Garden and the Broadway Blueshirts. (He also pinned up a W over the “hometown” Islanders on Oct. 30.)

The win over the Rangers boosted Bussi’s numbers to 13-1-1/2.08 goals-against average/.911 save percentage. The Bruins signed him as free agent out of Western Michigan in the spring of 2022. He appeared destined to be the next goalie up in Boston, if not for losing ground last season to Michael DiPietro at AHL Providence.

Don’t be surprised if the Hurricanes soon try to lock Bussi into, say, a two- or three-year extension at a reasonable figure ($3 million?). Otherwise, he is on target to hit the unrestricted free agent market on July 1. His NHL payout this year: $775,000.

RUFF STUFF

Sabres coach’s playing days were ‘crazy times’

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, 65, played his first 10 seasons in Buffalo (1979-89) and thrived in the NHL’s now-forgotten world of the rough stuff.

“Some playoff games got pretty heated,” a smiling Ruff said last weekend, with the visiting Bruins reminding him of what he called, “Crazy times. You had to keep your head up … and sometimes keep your head down.”

One memorable encounter with the Bruins, recalled Ruff, came on March 28, 1982. The Sabres, 9-5 winners on the night, carried a 7-5 lead into the third period.

Early in the third, Scotty Bowman rolled out a line that featured Ruff, a career defenseman, as the center, with fellow blue liner Larry Playfair at one wing and tough guy Val James on the opposite side.

Noted Ruff, some 43-plus years later: “I remember [the Bruins’] Brad Park saying, ‘I don’t know what that line is, but they don’t look like they’re out there to score.’”

Playfair and Terry O’Reilly were tagged with fighting majors and misconduct penalties in the dust-up. Ruff and Mike Gillis were sent off to the Aud’s penalty boxes with roughing minors.

Ruff kiddingly added that he in fact was out there to score. The box score backs him up. Only two goals were scored in the third period and Ruff owned both.

“I was a pretty good center,” said Ruff, who finished with 16 goals that season and 105 for his 691 career games.

POWERLESS AGAINST

Timing of Savard’s Maple Leafs dismissal curious at best

Marc Savard put up 305 points in 304 games for the Bruins over five seasons.Richman

Amid their ongoing woes and very much in need of a course correction, the Maple Leafs fired assistant coach Marc Savard on the eve of the holiday break and soon replaced him by promoting Steve Sullivan from their AHL Marlies staff.

OK, well, let the turnaround begin. What, maybe the Zamboni driver was protected with a “no move” clause?

Savard, the former Bruins pivot/passing wizard, was in his second year as a Maple Leafs assistant. He previously served a year each on the St. Louis and Calgary benches.

The Maple Leafs upon firing Savard owned the league’s worst power play (13.3 percent), made worse by the fact they also allowed four shorthanded strikes while playing man-up. That is a messed up power play. All of it made “Savvy” vulnerable because he was in charge of the bedraggled unit. With him no longer in charge of the whiteboard, Toronto went 3 for 5 on the advantage (two of those strikes by Matthew Knies) in their first two games out of the break. By Tuesday morning, the Maple Leafs had moved up to 27th for PP efficiency (15.5 percent). They still ranked a lowly 13th (.526 points percentage) in the East and owned only a .002 advantage on the dead-last Rangers the next morning.

Rarely do assistant coaches get canned during the regular season.

The timing of the move, just hours before the Christmas break, is perhaps the most curious part of all. Indeed, the NHL is a business, and all’s fair when chasing W’s and playoff seeds and Stanley Cup dreams. But pink slips being dealt amid the gift-giving season carries a heartless, if not ruthless, message — one that doesn’t fit the “we are family” image that most teams work diligently to cultivate

Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving is trying to bring back glory to a franchise that last won the Cup in 1967. It’s a big ask, especially with a roster that again is underperforming expectations. It’s an even bigger ask if the stick carriers believe their feelings don’t count.

FELL ON BLACK DAYS

Playoff-deprived Kraken let Geekie get away

Seattle, the final stop on the Bruins’ five-game road trip, remains in the thick of the wild-card scrum in the West.

The Kraken have made it to the playoffs only once, in 2023, when they bounced the Avalanche in seven games and then fell short of a trip to the conference finals with a Game 7 loss to the Stars in Round 2.

Hingham native Matty Beniers later that spring was named the Calder Trophy winner as rookie of the year. The one-eyed monsters from the deep appeared to be on their way, following the same successful, if not enchanted, path as the Golden Knights, an expansion franchise mature way before anyone expected.

Not so fast. A funny thing happened on the expressway to the Stanley Cup parade.

The Kraken have since logged back-to-back DNQs (69-76-19 in those two seasons). Their No. 1 weak spot: offense. Their top scorer the last two seasons, Jared McCann, led the way first with a meager 62 points, then with only 61.

The Kraken ranked 29th in goal scoring (21) two seasons ago, then shimmied up to 16th (247) last season, but still couldn’t outscore their mistakes (minus-18 goal differential).

Now the Bruins’ top scorer, Morgan Geekie had 16 goals for the Kraken over 142 games and two seasons.Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Keep in mind, the Kraken had a scorer, a rawboned Morgan Geekie, in their midst for two seasons, then chose not to make him a qualifying offer in the days following their two playoff rounds in the spring of ‘23. He was home in Manitoba, visiting his parents, when he learned via Twitter (now X) that the Kraken cut him free.

“I was like 23, 24,” said Geekie recalling how he felt in the moment, “so it’s like, ‘Oh, my career is over,’ kind of thing … and where are you going to go from here?”

Geekie quietly left town, disappointed that Seattle didn’t see room for him to grow there. On July 1, he signed a two-year deal with the Bruins as an unrestricted free agent, then blossomed last season into a 33-goal scorer. He entered Saturday’s contest in Vancouver with 25 goals this season and finished calendar year 2025 with 50.

It will be Geekie’s third time back in Seattle with the Bruins, who over this past summer extended his deal for six years/$33 million.

“It just puts a little chip on your shoulder,” he said, musing over his parting with the Kraken, who brought him in from the Hurricanes via the expansion draft. “Somebody doesn’t feel like you can add anything to their team and you’re not worth keeping around. So, I carried it for a long time. I still carry it. I enjoyed my time there and the guys were great, but it’s something that kind of sticks with you for the rest of your career.”

If ever there was a name meant to be on the Canadiens roster, it was Guy Chouinard. Think how that would have played on the ear of the faithful filling the Forum seats had he suited up for Les Glorieux during, say, their last great Stanley Cup run (1975-79). Chouinard, who died last Sunday age 69, enjoyed an impressive NHL career, mostly with the Flames (first in Atlanta, then in Calgary). A center, he potted a career-high 50 goals (and 107 points) in 1978-79 with Atlanta and played his final NHL season in St. Louis. He called it quits at age 28, his résumé boasting 575 points in 578 career games … It was unlikely that Brandon Bussi would have nosed out Daniil Tarasov to be Sergei Bobrovsky’s relief man in Florida. Tarasov also signed there in July, a one-year, one-way deal for just over $1 million, Meanwhile, as Bussi’s stock soars with the Hurricanes, Tarasov has seen but limited duty with the Panthers and was 4-6-2 with a 2.96 GAA and .899 SP through 13 appearances …The Sabres ran their hot streak to 9-0-0 Monday with a 4-2 win in St. Louis. Ex-Yale goalie Alex Lyon was in the Buffalo net and recorded his seventh straight win, but suffered an injury in the contest. Getting center Josh Norris back has been a huge boost for the Sabres, but ditto for Lyon, now sharing the chores with No. 1 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Lyon came up huge for the Panthers late in the 2002-23 season, his five consecutive wins helping them avoid a DNQ, and then starting against the Bruins in Round 1 (eventually ceding the job to Bobrovsky). After playing the next two seasons in Detroit, Lyon signed with the Sabres in July for a two years/$3 million, his richest deal to date.

Jim McBride of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Ben Volin and Dan Shaughnessy debate which Boston team is the closest to the next duck boat parade.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.