UPDATE, 3:45 P.M.: The Oilers have made the move official and hired Keith Gretzky away from the Bruins.
It would appear the Bruins will be filling a big vacancy on their staff this summer as head amateur scout Keith Gretzky is moving on to the Edmonton Oilers, where he’ll be hired by Peter Chiarelli as an assistant GM, according to TSN Insider Bob McKenzie.
The 49-year-old younger brother Wayne Gretzky took over as Director of Amateur Scouting in 2013 for the Bruins, replacing Wayne Smith, and has overseen three largely successful drafts that have filled the Boston prospect cupboard.
Gretzky’s best pick to date was David Pastrnak with the 25th overall pick in 2014, but he’s also hit on a number of players in the first two rounds of each of the past two drafts with first-round picks Zach Senyshyn and Trent Frederic standing out as risk picks taken higher than most others had them ranked.
Gretzky was initially hired by then-Bruins GM Chiarelli prior to his promotion to the head scouting gig in 2013, so the move to Edmonton will be a reunion with his former boss. As for the Bruins, it will now be up to Don Sweeney to find a replacement at the head of his talent evaluation arm after working well with Gretzky in the past two entry drafts.
The Bruins will have a number of in-house candidates, including longtime assistant director of amateur scouting Scott Fitzgerald, who has fully recovered from a serious 2013 automobile accident and has paid his dues with the Boston organization. Dean Malkoc has been a cross-over scout from Western Canada for several years, and has been instrumental in a steady flow of Bruins prospects coming out of that hockey rich-area. There’s also Ryan Nadeau, who oversees the Bruins analytics work and has been instrumental in the Bruins finding NCAA talent over the past few years that has turned into affordable, undrafted free agent talent.
Boston Bruins
There’s also the possibility that the Bruins will hire an outside person as Chiarelli did when he hired Gretzky more than three years ago, but it appears that Sweeney’s preference in these situations is to promote internal talent rather than reaching outside the organization.
Meanwhile, Gretzky’s hiring in Edmonton represents Chiarelli’s continuing efforts to mold the Oilers organization into more of his vision rather than the woebegone franchise that has floundered for the better part of the past decade.