As it stands right now, the Bruins don’t pick until the 57th overall selection, a second-round pick, in the June 22-23 NHL Draft.
The last time they were in that position, the Bruins selected Swedish defenseman Linus Arnesson with the 60th pick in 2013. To this point in his career, things haven’t worked out for Arnesson and the B’s. The D-man, now 23, opted for a return to Europe prior to last season after two full seasons in Providence.
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The Bruins will clearly hope for a more productive second-round selection this time around after sending the 26th pick to the Rangers at the trade deadline for power forward rental Rick Nash. Don Sweeney said that a handful of Bruins management types interviewed close to 80 prospects at this week’s NHL scouting combine in Buffalo, so clearly, they have done their homework on players they’ve targeted in the draft.
With all that in mind, the Bruins would also like to reclaim a first-round pick and get back into the top 31 selections. It might be easier said than done given the premium value placed on first-round picks, however, and Sweeney admitted the degree of difficulty may be too high for the Black and Gold pull it off three weeks ahead of the draft.
“As everybody gets approaching toward the draft itself and going through the interviews, it gets hard,” Sweeney said. “I’d had previous [trade] discussions, and whether or not those change between now and after interviews and such, we’ll have to find out in the next couple weeks.
“I do think it will be difficult, yeah, but there are teams with multiple picks. You never know what some team may want to do based on where everybody’s really at, or will have, coming out of this, their amateur and pro meetings. Things kind of take shape within your own team and what your teams are [looking for].”
Boston Bruins
Realistically, it would take a significant move by the Bruins to yield a first-round pick ahead of the draft, and it may also be they're not quite ready to pull the trigger on moving an established veteran quite yet.
It was Sweeney, assistant general manager Scott Bradley, Bruins scout Dean Malkoc, Bruins European scout PJ Axelsson, NCAA scout/director of hockey operations Ryan Nadeau and Bruins director of hockey analytics Jeremy Rogalski sitting in with the prospects this week in Buffalo.
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It will be more of a challenge for the Black and Gold to make an impact this month if they can’t get back into the first round, but it may just turn out to be one of those seasons where the scouting staff will have to do more with less after replenishing their prospect stock with a bevy of first- and second-round picks the past few years.
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