Bruins trade for Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway in blockbuster deal with Capitals

Bruins Garnet Hathaway (left) and Dmitry Orlov (right) will be two key cogs for Boston’s upcoming Cup run. Michael Dwyer / AP Photo

For years, the Bruins have taken plenty of welts in heated matchups against both Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway.

Now, the Bruins are set to unleash both physical skaters against the rest of a daunting Stanley Cup Playoff field.

The Bruins traded for both Orlov and Hathaway on Thursday evening in a three-team deal — plucking them from a fading Capitals squad and further bolstering an already imposing lineup.

In exchange, Boston traded Craig Smith, its 2023 first-round pick, 2025 second-round pick, and 2024 third-round pick to Washington. The Capitals will retain 50 percent of Orlov’s salary in order to keep Boston cap compliant.

In addition, the Bruins traded a 2023 fifth-round pick to the Wild, with Minnesota retaining another 25 percent of Orlov’s salary.

By eating up 75 percent of Orlov’s salary, a Bruins team that entered Thursday with just over $33,000 in cap space only needed to move one NHL contract (Smith) to facilitate the deal.

The 2022-23 Bruins lineup may not have many flaws on paper.

But adding two seasoned veterans in Orlov and Hathaway who can eat minutes, kill penalties and throw their weight around will come in handy during the war of attrition that awaits in April and May.

Both Hathaway, 31, and Orlov, 31, are pending free agents.

Orlov, a left-shot defenseman who won a Stanley Cup with Washington in 2018, will join an already talented B’s D corps. The Russian blueliner averaged 22:43 of ice time with the Capitals this season, scoring three goals and posting 19 points over 43 games.

Throughout his NHL career, Orlov’s highlight reel has usually been littered with bone-crunching checks.

But the dependable defenseman does more than just add some sandpaper to Boston’s defensive grouping. Orlov is also a skilled puck mover from the back end, which fits into Jim Montgomery’s overall offensive scheme.

According to JFreshHockey, Orlov ranks in the 99th percentile of NHL defensemen in both zone entries and exit success rate. 

With Orlov in the mix, the Bruins now have a proven puck-mover on all three of their defensive pairings. It’s a good problem to have for Montgomery in terms of allocating minutes to players like Orlov, Derek Forbort, Matt Grzelcyk, and Connor Clifton.

However it sorts itself out, Orlov gives Boston arguably the deepest seven-man grouping in the league on defense.

Hathaway already has plenty of local ties to the Bruins. The physical fourth liner grew up in Maine, and played for Phillips Academy in high school before logging his collegiate reps for Brown.

The pesky winger is exactly the type of player that contenders covet ahead of a promising playoff push. Besides his propensity to lay up opposing skaters (his 198 hits rank eighth in the league this season), Hathaway has also scored nine goals and 16 points over 59 games this season.

Those are impressive numbers for a checking-line regular, especially one in Hathaway who only saw 18.25 percent of his faceoffs set in the offensive zone during 5v5 play this year.

For a Bruins team that was already positioned as the team to beat going into the postseason, Thursday’s trade further adds to that Cup-favorite sentiment.

Not only did the Bruins upgrade at two segments of the roster where more production was welcomed, they managed to do it by moving a pending free agent in Smith and a package of picks. Not only did they not give up blue-chip prospects like Fabian Lysell or Mason Lohrei, that 2023 first-rounder seems destined to fall near the bottom of the draft board.

Even if both Orlov and Hathaway are pure rentals, those short-term gains will be worth it if Boston hoists Lord Stanley’s Cup in June.

The Bruins were already the best team in the NHL. They just got even better.

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