The Bruins’ street to a top-5 choose in 2025 NHL Draft is opening up
Bruins
The Bruins solely have a degree separating them from a possible top-five choose at this stage of the NHL season.
COMMENTARY
Expectations have been excessive for the Bruins coming into the 2024-25 season.
After bowing out to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Panthers within the second spherical of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Boston was seemingly poised to take one other step ahead this winter — with an overachieving roster set to obtain a further increase by way of an inflow of cap house.
“I’m enthusiastic about this yr. I actually am,” Bruins crew president Cam Neely stated of the 2024-25 marketing campaign again on Sept. 30. “I believe Don [Sweeney] and his workers did a unbelievable job this off season in figuring out wants that we felt we have been missing to go for a deep run within the playoffs. … I believe our document has proven that within the common season. Now it’s simply as much as us to make it occur within the playoffs.”
Quick-forward six months, and the Bruins’ hopes of internet hosting postseason hockey on Causeway Avenue aren’t simply all however snuffed out.
Not like in each 2015 and 2016 the place the Bruins fell simply wanting a playoff spot within the Japanese Convention, the 2024-25 Bruins are nearer to the cellar than they’re to any tangible postseason berth.
Simply how dangerous has it been since Boston’s trade-deadline firesale?
For all the hope of a beefed-up Bruins roster being a tough out this spring, solely the Buffalo Sabres have fewer factors than Boston within the Japanese Convention as of Sunday night.
The Bruins? A dreadful 69 factors over 74 whole video games.
And the perpetually rudderless Sabres? 68 factors … with one fewer sport performed than Boston.
Sure, the Boston Bruins — a franchise lengthy lauded for its capability to pry open its rivalry home windows nicely past typical pondering — is on the point of being the worst crew in the whole Japanese Convention.
It’s a stark indictment on simply how shortly issues have devolved for the Bruins in a depressing marketing campaign rife with regression, free-agent flops, a head-coaching change, and the midseason departures of longtime stalwarts in captain Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, and Charlie Coyle.
Silver linings are arduous to attract out what at present stands as an eight-game dropping streak for a Boston that’s at present tied for the third-longest dropping streak in franchise historical past.
But when the Bruins are going to utterly backside out in a yr gone awry, coming into what stands as a pivotal offseason with a top-five choose would stand as a welcome comfort prize — particularly for a weary fan base searching for a brand new franchise savior.
Boston’s deadline sell-off has seemingly outfitted the Bruins for an accelerated retool within the coming years, with these flurry of strikes securing a haul of draft picks (two 2025 second-round picks, 2026 first-round choose, 2027 conditional second-round choose), together with a number of promising children in Fraser Minten and Will Zellers.
However even with Boston buoyed with future draft capital, a pair of promising prospects, and over $28 million in cap house this summer season, the Bruins’ greatest probabilities of crafting a brand new rivalry period and maximizing the prime years of David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy lies within the Bruins growing their very own homegrown star, ideally down the center of the ice.
Such a state of affairs of Boston including a top-five choose into its barren prospect pipeline is often a hypothetical greatest reserved for message-board musings or rants on the sports-radio airwaves.
However Boston’s current freefall — coupled with stronger play from a number of different bottom-feeders throughout the league — has instantly opened a path for the Bruins to doubtlessly land a premier prospect in late June.
Following a Sunday slate of video games that included the Sabres beating the East-leading Capitals, 8-5, and the Penguins defeating the Senators in additional time, 1-0, the Bruins are at present projected to pick No. 7 general, barring a shift in positioning by way of the NHL Draft lottery.
That present spot on the NHL Draft leaderboard ought to have Boston in place so as to add a future top-six pivot like Jake O’Brien (Brantford, OHL) or Roger McQueen (Brandon, WHL).
However given how jam-packed the remainder of the cellar-dwellers are within the standings, the Bruins might conceivably leapfrog from choose No. 7 to No. 4 briefly order, with out having to depend on a stroke of fine fortune from the lottery.
The Seattle Kraken at present maintain the No. 4 spot within the draft order — however solely have one level fewer (68) than Boston.
The Flyers are sitting at No. 5, however have received two straight video games after firing head coach John Tortorella and are actually tied with Boston at 69 factors. Philly has performed yet another sport than the Bruins, therefore why they continue to be above the Bruins within the draft order.
After which there’s the Sabres at No. 6, with one fewer level that Boston (68) and one much less sport performed.
At this level, solely groups just like the Sharks, Blackhawks, and Nashville would possibly actually be out of attain of the Bruins’ tank, however a top-five choose is beginning to seem like a really viable choice for a Bruins crew in determined want of an elite younger expertise so as to add to the combo.
If the Bruins proceed to lose — and so they very nicely might this week with matchups towards the Capitals, upstart Habs, and Hurricanes on faucet — and groups just like the Flyers, Penguins, Sabres, and Kraken win a sport or two, Boston could possibly be in top-five positioning by the center of this week.
A top-five choose might give Boston the possibility so as to add a respectable middle prospect like Boston School’s James Hagens, Sweden’s Anton Frondell, or Moncton’s Caleb Desnoyers — giving the crew the sought-after pivot prospect that (ideally) might assist out on the varsity degree within the subsequent yr or two.
If the Bruins do find yourself within the “best-case” state of affairs — objectively talking — with their tank and safe that No. 4 spot, Boston will even increase its odds of transferring up within the draft lottery.
In response to Tankathon, the present crew with the No. 4 choose in Seattle at present has these odds within the draft lottery:
1st general: 9.5 p.c
2nd general: 9.5 p.c
third general: 0.3 p.c
4th general: 15.4 p.c
fifth general: 44.6 p.c
sixth general: 20.8 p.c
In different phrases, an excellent probability of sticking within the top-five — and a stable shot at transferring as much as No. 1 or No. 2, the place a crew might take a possible top-line middle in Saginaw’s Michael Misa (62 objectives, 134 factors in 65 video games) or a future No. 1 D in Matthew Schaefer.
As ugly as this Bruins’ season has been — particularly as of late — this post-deadline implosion does have Boston positioned to land an intriguing younger participant within the subsequent few months.
Sure, watching the Bruins routinely get outshot and hemmed into their very own zone for weeks on finish has been an arduous process. However the sight of Misa, Hagens, or Frondell feeding Pastrnak one-timers within the subsequent few years might make this month-long stretch of distress price it.
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