Are the Bruins Interested in Alexander Nikishin?

Back in 2021, after former Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk publicly requested a trade, chatter around the league spiked when a rumor surfaced suggesting Boston was preparing to ship DeBrusk — plus a draft sweetener — to Edmonton in exchange for Kailer Yamamoto.

The report went viral and suggested that all the two sides were waiting for was a trade call.

But what does any of that have to do with Alexander Nikishin? Stick with me — I’m about to walk you through it.

As lopsided as the DeBrusk‑for‑Yamamoto chatter looked on paper, the notion that Boston would be the team kicking in a draft pick — instead of Edmonton — bordered on absurd. Yet the rumor mill kept churning, and plenty of folks treated the deal as if it were on the verge of becoming reality.

The problem wasn’t the talent exchange — stranger hockey trades have cleared the league office — but the premise itself. Whoever tried to grab their moment in the spotlight clearly ignored the business realities that make deals possible. Once you looked at the mechanics behind the rumor, it became impossible to take seriously, at least from where I sat.

At the time, DeBrusk carried a $3.675 million cap hit, while Yamamoto sat at $1.175 million — a massive gap on its own. Add in the fact that Edmonton was operating with under $200,000 in available cap space, and the math flat‑out killed the rumor for me, if the assets in the rumored trade already didn’t. There was simply no scenario where that deal could have been squeezed under the cap.

I could rattle off dozens of trade rumors that never had a prayer of happening once you factored in the business mechanics behind them.

Which brings me to Nikishin.

It was Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos who first floated Nikishin’s name on his offseason trade board. Then, on July 3, Dave Pagnotta of The Fourth Period pushed the conversation further, reporting that the Bruins — along with the Sharks, Kings, and Jets — had been linked to the Devils’ emerging blueliner. Pagnotta went on to add that any team interested in acquiring Nikishin would have to take on Jesperi Kotkaniemi as well.

The rumored Boston ask — a package built around Mason Lohrei, Matt Poitras, and draft capital — is perfectly reasonable on its face. Up to this point, nothing about the chatter raises an eyebrow.

Where things go off the rails is the suggestion that Boston could swing the deal and then simply buy out Kotkaniemi. That’s not rooted in reality. The NHL’s buyout window closed on June 30 at 5 p.m., which means the Bruins have zero ability to acquire Kotkaniemi and immediately buy him out. The timeline alone makes that scenario a non‑starter.

The league does allow a secondary buyout window — but it’s tightly restricted, and Boston wouldn’t qualify. To open that window, three conditions must be met:

1. the Bruins would need a player to file for salary arbitration;
2. Kotkaniemi would have had to be on their roster at the previous trade deadline;
3. the buyout in question would need to exceed $4 million.

Boston can’t satisfy two of the requirements, which makes the entire “trade‑and‑buyout” narrative a non‑starter from the jump.

I’m not saying the Bruins aren’t legitimately intrigued by Nikishin — they almost certainly have done their homework. What I am saying is that some of the narratives being tossed around simply don’t line up with reality. A few of these claims aren’t factual, aren’t feasible, and aren’t grounded in how the league actually operates. And that’s before you even start digging into the cap implications.

According to PuckPedia, the Bruins are working with roughly $5.4 million in available cap space, depending on how the final 23‑man roster shakes out. Moving Lohrei would free up another $3.2 million, pushing their projected flexibility to about $8.6 million.

By making the deal as outlined, Kotkaniemi’s $4.82 million cap hit would immediately swallow more than half of Boston’s available space, leaving roughly $3.78 million to sign Nikishin. Given the contracts handed out to comparable young defensemen this offseason, that number doesn’t come close to getting a deal done. To even approach a workable structure, you’re talking about moving Lohrei and additional salary — Henri Jokiharju for starters — and likely more beyond that.

Rumors are great, but sometimes they just don’t make any sense.