Bruins Add Another Langenbrunner To Mix At NHL Draft

The Boston Bruins used their fifth round pick (151st overall) to add another Langenbrunner to their team at the 2020 NHL Draft. The Bruins drafted 6-foot-2, 165-pound defenseman Mason Langenbrunner, the son of two-time Stanley Cup Champion, former NHLer, and now Bruins Director Of Player Development Jamie Langenbrunner.

The right-shot defenseman was one of four American-born players the Bruins drafted on Tuesday. Langenbrunner who grew up in Moose Lake, Minnesota, and just finished his high school hockey career at Eden Prairie High School, a legendary hockey power in high school hockey, will play a year in Sioux City (USHL).

The younger Langenbrunner was beyond ecstatic to not just be drafted by an NHL team but also the team his father and mentor works for.

“It’s going to be incredible!” Langenbrunner said. “I think I played for him in peewees and bantams. I think I know what to expect a little bit. I think he’s harder on me than just about anyone else. It’s definitely something I’m super excited for.”

Langenbrunner said that the Bruins also made it clear that their interest in him wasn’t strictly because of his Dad and more about his skill and strengths as a budding prospect.

“Going back through the whole time that interviews, last spring and before the draft was originally supposed to happen in June, the people I was talking to – the organizations and stuff, they all just kept repeating, this isn’t because your dad is working here or any of that,” the 18-year-old Langenbrunner said. “We love you as a player and if we’re going to pick you then, we just want you to know that it’s nothing on your dad but because we see something in you and your potential of what you can be. That’s I would say last Spring is when I started to realize that.”

Ironically, Mason was with his Dad and the Bruins brass on the 2017 NHL Draft podium when the Bruins selected Urho Vaakanainen with the 18th pick overall.

“It’s something that’s incredible,” Langenbrunner said of that and now being drafted himself. “When Urho Vaakanainen was drafted with the first-round pick. I remember going up on stage and I got a jersey and the jersey is still hanging in my room today. It’s something that I could only imagine happening three years ago and for it to happen now, it’s just a dream come true.”

Hey, that kid on the left looks familiar.@masonlags_22 | #NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/sgoCW73gt1

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) October 7, 2020

Thanks to the 2020 NHL Draft being held virtually, Langenbrunner, unfortunately, wasn’t able to take that joyous walk to the podium – at what would’ve been the Bell Centre in Montreal – and throw on the Bruins jersey for the first time, as Vaakanainen did in Chicago three years ago. Instead, Langenbrunner was in the middle of a team lifting session. That didn’t matter though to Langenbrunner because he just accomplished a lifelong dream.

“Actually we were in the middle of a lift,” he replied when asked where he received the great news. “My team was – we practiced and worked out and we had it on the TV in the hangout room and all of a sudden, some guys come running out saying, Mason, you just got drafted, and I was like, wait, what? We were just in the middle of lifting. Yeah, it was pretty crazy.”

Langenbrunner was the second defenseman that the Bruins drafted Tuesday after they took Ohio State commit Mason Lohrei in the second round with the 58th pick overall.