The Boston Bruins, in seventh place overall in points with 19 games remaining — FYI, the top eight teams make the players — and about 90 percent of the fanbase, wanted to trade one of their best players for a draft pick or young player.

They wanted Loui Eriksson, second in goals (23) and second in points (48), sent elsewhere for the future.

In other words, you’re all a bunch quitters.

Where were you quitters last year? Weren’t you the ones screaming for heads and jobs?

There was a time Boston was the winningest city in all of professional sports, when every franchise was committed to winning championships … Oh, wait a minute, we’re still in that mode around here.

Maybe the Bruins brass — GM Don Sweeney and president Cam Neely — messed up. Maybe they underestimated the team they put on the ice in October.

Maybe they underestimated their coach, Claude Julien, whose nine-year career with the Bruins makes him the longest tenured coach in a league that has 19 coaches with three years or less.

The guy leading the dynasty-driven Chicago Blackhawks, Joel Quenneville, which come to the TD Garden tomorrow, is a year behind Julien.

I always thought the NHL was the only sport where the last playoff team, in the eighth spot, had a legitimate chance to win a title. You know, with a hot goalie, a few hot forwards, and a defensive approach.

Wait a minute! The Bruins have a goalie who has stolen many games before, including this season. They also have a few forwards, like Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron and Eriksson, who rank among the top forward in the game in skill. And let’s be honest, Julien would rather win 1-0, in a shootout, than get into a 5-4 game.

The point is you can not trade key players when you are in the fight to compete for a championship. You can not do that, not here in Boston.

Here’s a good reason to add a few players rather than “play for next year,” your young players need to get used to winning and playoff hockey.

Even if the Bruins were to be gone in five games, which is likely, the experience will do wonders for Ryan Spooner, Jimmy Hayes, Kevin Miller, David Pastrnak, Colin Miller and Frank Vetrano, all of whom have little to no experience in late April and May hockey games.

Remember, the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2011, barely crawled into the playoffs in 2008 and lost a seven-game series to the Canadiens. Despite the loss, it ignited what happened the next three years.

Could the Bruins have acquired more than John-Michael Liles and Lee Stempniak for added punch? Yes.

But at least, in the short term, Liles will probably be one of the top four defensemen and Stempniak, at 33, is having the best year of his career and could be joining the Bergeron-Marchand line at right wing.

I’m probably leaning against signing Eriksson to a six-year, $36 million deal, which is the going price for productive forwards. But maybe he’s worth it.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, that I’m glad that Eriksson is going to be around the next few months.

After last year’s disappointment and early golf schedule, the Bruins need to win, and win now. And as crazy as this sounds, everything is in place for something crazy to happen if Rask starts “standing on his head” and the likes of Krejci and Marchand create enough offense win the close games.

It’s worth a shot.

You can email Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com.