The Bruins had sincere interest in landing the then-27-year-old Islander. However, when the money turned crazy — and it looks even goofier today — there really wasn’t any question where the sturdy pivot would spend the prime seasons of his career.

For starters, Tavares would have plugged into a 2018-19 Bruins roster that made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. The Bruins would have operated that season, and many more to follow, with Tavares, Patrice Bergeron, and David Krejci as their iron down the middle. No one could have matched those three at pivot for the next 3-4 years.

In the end, the ‘19 Cup title didn’t fall to the Blues solely because Ryan O’Reilly waltzed out of the Garden that night with the Cup and the Conn Smythe (MVP), but O’Reilly was a big chunk of it. Had Tavares been aboard here, coach Bruce Cassidy would have had multiple options in faceoff/line matchups, made life that tiny bit better for the 33-year-old Bergeron (some six years Tavares’s senior) and, well, it’s really not all that hard to ponder how that Cup cookie coulda crumbled, is it?

In the six years that Tavares has been in Toronto, the Leafs have lost six of seven playoff rounds, going 19-25.

Conversely, the Bruins in those six playoff seasons played in 12 series (6-6), with two of those wins over Tavares and the Leafs, going 38-34.

The two highest cap hits on that 2018-19 Boston roster belonged to Krejci ($7.25 million) and Tuukka Rask ($7 million), followed by Bergeron ($6.875 million), Brad Marchand ($6.125 million), David Backes ($6 million), Torey Krug ($5.25 million), and captain Zdeno Chara ($5 million). No one on the Bruins roster began making “Tavares money” until last season, when David Pastrnak’s new deal kicked in at $11.25 million per.s

The Leafs indeed were that far ahead of the curve, one leading to a dead end. No telling how general manager Don Sweeney would have been able to massage the books even if he could have convinced Tavares to come here for, say, $8 million a year. Backes was two years into his five-year/$30 million deal, a painful overpay, and one that Sweeney couldn’t shake until he unloaded Backes on Anaheim late in the 2019-20 season.

Whatever the math, it was all rendered moot when the Leafs dropped $77 million on the table. The signing made for a great day of headlines in Toronto. One of their own was on his way home. But headlines don’t win the Cup.

Six years later, with new GM Brad Treliving engineering yet another roster rework, history has shown that Tavares was part of paying too much for a slick forward corps while leaving the blue line and net to chance. Outcome: a lone series win over Tampa Bay in Round 1 of the 2023 playoffs.

The Leafs should be better in 2024-25, but not necessarily because the high-scoring Matthews, about to turn 27, is the man wearing the “C”. Treliving added substantial skill and definition to the blue line last month with the free agent acquisitions of Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larson. The net is without a clear No. 1, unless ex-Boston College Eagle Joseph Woll proves to be ready for prime time, but overall it looks like a more balanced approach, arguably the best since Tavares arrived as the would-be foundational piece.

The Leafs also have a new taskmaster in Craig Berube, the no-nonsense bench boss who directed the Blues to that Cup win in 2019. Now he’ll have charge of Tavares, the player who might have changed how that championship script ended for the Bruins on June 12, 2019.

The Canadiens went hunting on Monday and landed Patrik Laine, who has the potential to be a difference maker in Martin St. Louis’s offense. We must stress here: potential.

If it’s the Laine who popped for an average 35 goals his first four NHL seasons (with Winnipeg), then Habs GM Kent Hughes made a brilliant move. Few 18-year-olds enter the league with the kind of firepower Laine delivered, following his selection at No. 2 in the 2016 draft. No. 1 pick Auston Matthews seems to be holding his own with 368 goals for the Maple Leafs.

If it’s the Laine who struggled to score 66 goals over his most recent 175 games (all but one of those games with Columbus), then the Habs will shrug after two seasons and move on after a net cost of a $7.3 million cap hit and the loss of Jordan Harris, the ex-Northeastern defenseman. Hughes also acquired a Round 2 draft pick (2026) in the swap — an asset that helped justify taking on such a sizable cash hit.

Hughes, during a media Zoom call, said he informed Laine that his success with the CH will not be measured solely by his goal total.

“If you come here ready to contribute to this team,” mused Hughes, who for years as an agent represented Patrice Bergeron, “and do everything in your power to help us get [better], if that’s the opportunity that you are looking for, then say no more. Whether you score 20 goals or 40 goals, your success here is not going to be defined strictly by goals.”

Laine is young (26) and a horse (6 feet 5 inches, 215 pounds) off the left side. He hammers a righthanded shot, particularly menacing on the power play (think: Mike Bossy release). He spent much of last season out of the Blue Jackets’ lineup and getting help in the Player Assistance Program.

Few clubs had the cash on hand to take on such a hefty chunk of Laine’s $8.7 million cap hit. Only Utah, San Jose, Detroit, Calgary, and Anaheim had the financial elbow room to bring Laine aboard without washing a deal or two back to the Blue Jackets. The Habs, post-trade, were a touch more than $1 million above the cap limit. Reminder: Clubs have until the season opener to be compliant with the $88 million max.

In Columbus, the net savings of $7.3 million (Harris arrived with a $1.4 million cap hit), allows new GM Don Waddell to do some aggressive shopping. Per puckpedia.com, the Blue Jackets were left with just over $18 million in spending dough, although the UFA market offers little more than scraps some eight weeks after the annual July 1 jamboree.

Waddell could go the route Don Sweeney chose in July 2023 and fill his roster with some million-buck-a-year space holders. To wit: James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Shattenkirk, and the Cup-winning Kyle Okposo remained without deals as the weekend approached.

More likely, Waddell spends the season getting a true read on the talent he inherited. He then can decide who he wants to offload at the trade deadline next spring as prelude to trying to reset the franchise via the free market next July.

Step 1 was moving Laine off the books. Waddell, only weeks removed from his departure as the Hurricanes’ rainmaker, did an effective job of offloading an expensive, quirky asset. Not easy in today’s cap world.

Interesting back and forth in recent days between the Oilers and Blues, reminiscent of the machinations around the Boston-Hartford deal 30 years ago (Aug. 26, 1994) that had the Bruins somewhat begrudgingly dealing defenseman Glen Wesley to the Whalers.

The Blues on Tuesday signed two of the Oilers’ restricted free agents, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, from RFA offer sheets. Such deals are scarcer than ice shavings in Death Valley. The most recent came in August 2021, when the Hurricanes clipped promising forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi away from Montreal. The Canadiens elected not to match the offer (one year/$6.1 million) and accepted the CBA-mandated compensation (Round 1, Round 3 draft picks).

In 1994, new Whalers GM Jim Rutherford stood poised to throw a rock through Harry Sinden’s picture window on Causeway Street with a Group 2 offer sheet (three years/$5 million total) for Wesley, then age 25 and already a seven-year veteran on the Bruins’ blue line.

Instead, Sinden and Rutherford engineered a swap, the Bruins agreeing to let Wesley walk for three first-round picks. Sinden did not want to match the deal the Forever .500s were about to offer Wesley. He also did not want to leave it to an arbitrator to dictate what the Bruins, then paying Ray Bourque $2.5 million a year, would receive as compensation.

Ergo, the three first-round picks where shipped on up to Boston. Rutherford got his perfect fit to ride with a young Chris Pronger and Sinden got what he termed “a hell of a lot of flexibility.”

“As an example,” added Sinden that day, “let’s look at our goaltending. We think we’re going to go with the kids, Blaine Lacher and Evgeni Ryabchikov, but we’ve still got to see what happens in camp. If they don’t work out, I think we’d be in a position, backed with these three picks, to correct it right away. And if the kids do work out, maybe we’re in a position to help our team at another position. It’s our feeling, though, that our future’s pretty good with six first-round picks over the next three years.”

Lacher proved to be a letdown, leaving Sinden to scramble later in the season to acquire Craig Billington and Vincent Riendeau. Ryabchikov, the 21st pick in the 1994 draft, never once saw the light over Boston Harbor in his four seasons playing in North America (all in the minor pros).

Ultimately, the Bruins cashed in all three first-rounders for Kyle McLaren (No. 9/1995), Johnathan Aitken (No. 8/1996), and Sergei “The Magical Moscovite” Samsonov (No. 8/1997). All in all, keeping Wesley aboard at $1.67 million a year would have been the better play — particularly when Al Iafrate, obtained in March 1994, never suited up again in Black and Gold. The Planet was in the Bruins’ orbit for all of 25 games.

Midway through the 1995-96 season, Sinden finally dealt for a goalie, reacquiring Bill Ranford from Edmonton. It meant shipping out Boston’s own first pick in the ‘96 draft (No. 16), along with Mariusz Czerkawski and Sean Brown. Brown was one of the six first-round picks, chosen 21st in 1995.

In Edmonton, new Oilers GM Stan Bowman’s compensation for Broberg was a Round 2 pick, and a Round 3 for Holloway. Bowman desperately needs to hold payroll down in order to fuel the Brink’s trucks Leon Draisaitl (UFA 2025) and Connor McDavid (UFA 2026) will be sending to his office.

Meanwhile, yes, the Bruins remain vulnerable to someone dropping an RFA offer sheet on franchise goalie Jeremy Swayman.

An offer to Swayman as high as $11.4 million a year, if GM Don Sweeney chose not to match, would bring back four draft picks, two in Round 1, one in Round 2, and one in Round 3.

An offer above $11.4 million a year would bring back four first-round picks — just one more than the Wesley yield of 30 years ago.

Overlooked amid the usual cacophony of NHL transactions in late June and early July: The Bruins surrendered their most active hitter off last season’s roster in the June 29 swap that sent Jakub Lauko to the Wild.

Lauko landed 176 hits in 60 games, second to Trent Frederic (204) with the Black and Gold. But Lauko, typically assigned fewer minutes as a fourth-line energizer, delivered at a team-best clip of 17.92 hits per 60 minutes. Frederic, often working among the top-six forwards, registered 10.85 per 60.

Leaguewide, in fact, Lauko’s 17.92 ranked sixth among players who suited up for at least 60 games. The leaders of the pack: Michael Pezzetta, Montreal, 30.53; Nicolas Deslauriers, Philadelphia, 23.06; Keegan Kolesar, Vegas, 19.36.

Lauko’s pluck could help a Wild lineup that last season saw Marcus Foligno lead the hit chart with 179 in 55 games. The Wild’s top hitter per 60 minutes was Brandon Duhaime at 14.04, but the 6-foot-2-inch right winger was dealt to the Avalanche at the March trade deadline.

The Bruins flipped Lauko to the Wild in order to jiggle up slightly in Round 4 of the draft and select 6-2 blue liner Elliott Groenewold with the 110th pick. The Vermont-born Groenewold, who played last season at USHL Cedar Rapids, is about to report to Quinnipiac for his freshman season.

The ever-smiling Lauko, selected at No. 77 in the 2018 draft, played only 83 regular-season games with the Bruins across his first five pro seasons. He displayed flashes of offensive touch and flair at AHL Providence, something he never replicated with the varsity, albeit typically assigned bottom-six grunt work.

Even with the Wild, it’s likely Lauko will have a hard time getting more looks higher in the order. But he has the legs to sustain a steady forechecking tempo, along with his will to seek and finish hits.

Such a modest, defined skill set may not grab headlines, but it can be the underpinnings of lengthy NHL employment. Exhibit A: Tom Fitzgerald, who finished with 1,097 games (the last 71 with the Bruins), and never collected more than 34 points in a season. He built that résumé around a relentless, smart attack, especially as a crash-and-bang forechecker.

Jordan Harris, who played at Kimball Union prior to his four seasons at Northeastern, has the wheels to play in the Blue Jackets’ top two defense pairings. He toiled lower in the pack much of last season with the Canadiens (average time on ice: 17:28) and likely stood to see less work now with the dazzling Lane Hutson (also a left shot) ready for takeoff for Les Glorieux. Chosen No. 71 in the 2018 draft, just weeks before beginning his NU career, Harris opted to remain in school all four seasons, secure his degree, and then sign with the Habs, dismissing his option to wait until August, declare free agency, and field bids from across the league. Now he’s a Blue Jacket. Yet another example that it’s just a business . . . Avalanche coach Jared Bednar told reporters in Charleston, S.C., his offseason home, that he has reason to be “certainly optimistic” that Gabriel Landeskog finally can return to the lineup 4-8 weeks into the season. Knee problems (including a cartilage transplant) have kept the slick Swedish winger out of action since helping to lock down the Cup in 2022. That’s a load of rust to shed, but Landeskog, who will be 32 in November, has the skill and work ethic to deal with it. Likely similar to Kevan Miller, 33 when he was forced to call it quits with the Bruins, it will all come down to whether Landeskog’s knee can withstand the torturous load of game action. Too often, body parts get the call over the mind. He has five more years on the books with a $7 million cap hit . . . On the subject of hits, ex-Bruins blue liner Jeremy Lauzon, claimed in the 2021 Seattle expansion draft, finished the 2023-24 season with a league-record 383 smacks. Another ex-Bruin, Garnet Hathaway, finished as runner up with 326. Lauzon, 27, has two years remaining on a deal that carries a $2 million cap hit . . . Wesley, by the way, has been a player development coach since playing his final game for the Hurricanes in the spring of 2008. He spent the first 10 years in the Carolina organization, working with defensemen, and is about to begin his sixth season as a development coach with the Blues. His debut with the Blues came in their 2018-19 Cup-winning season . . . Center Charlie Coyle and former goalie Andrew Raycroft will be on hand Sunday at 1 p.m. at Memorial Hall in Plymouth as part of the Bruins/Wegmans Fan Fest weekend, in part to herald the 100-day run-up to the Dec. 1 matinee at the Garden vs. the Canadiens. The match will put ribbon and bow on the Bruins’ Centennial celebration, marking 100 years to the day that the Bruins played their first NHL game vs. the Montreal Maroons.