Boston Bruins Working To Get Back Into First Round

In a development that probably shouldn’t shock anyone, a Boston Bruins team that doesn’t have a first-round pick for Thursday night at the Bell Centre is looking to find a way to get back into the top 32 choices in the 2022 NHL Draft.

The B’s are without their own first round pick, the 22^nd overall, sent to the Anaheim Ducks during the Hampus Lindholm deal at the NHL trade deadline, the third time that Boston is without their first rounder after pulling the trigger on a big in-season deal after past “go for it” trades for Rick Nash and Ondrej Kase. The Lindholm deal is one the B’s would make 10-out-of-10 times for a frontline defenseman they’ll have for close to a decade, but it’s also not going to help them rebuild a prospect and futures cupboard that’s pretty bare these days.

The Boston Bruins have electric winger Fabian Lysell and frontline defenseman prospect Mason Lohrei as top prospects, but after that it’s a litany of older prospect-types like Jack Studnicka, Jack Ahcan, Oskar Steen and Jakub Lauko that are at a crossroads when it comes to establishing themselves as regular NHL players. So, there is a clear need for first round talent where the Bruins have landed core talents like Charlie McAvoy and Jake DeBrusk, but also missed in recent seasons with choices like Urho Vaakanainen and Zach Senyshyn as well.

The rumors have been out there that the Bruins are interested in making moves to get back into the first round.

Curious to see if Boston pulls this off this week. Heard they’ve got their eyes on a couple players expected to go in the mid-to-late 1st round https://t.co/jXE5eX1VTe

— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) July 5, 2022

Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney confirmed that the B’s are indeed interested in getting back into the first round, but it sounds like it would cost them a young NHL roster player in order to do that and that might be too high a cost of doing business for the Black and Gold.

“Ideally, we’d like to get back into the first round. There are some teams well-positioned in the first round with multiple [picks], so there are definitely conversations going around. Some teams are just in pick acquisition-mode rather than player acquisition-mode, so that’s made it a little harder to gain an entry into that situation,” said Sweeney during media availability in Montreal on Wednesday morning. “And giving up good players. When you’re a competitive team it’s hard to part with really good players even when you’d like to get into the first round and improve your prospect pool overall. That’s generally what trying to be a competitive team is all about and we’re no different than a lot of other teams that have given up their first-round picks.”

There have been some interesting local names tossed out as players of interest if the Boston Bruins do get into Thursday night’s first round.

Per sources, heading into NHL draft, Boston Bruins have followed 2 players closely who have New England ties. Center David Goyette of OHL’s Sudbury Wolves played his 15U hockey at South Kent School in Connecticut. Ranked 13th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.

— Shawn Hutcheon (@ShawnHutcheon) July 5, 2022

The Boston Bruins will have six selections in the 2022 NHL Draft at this point with all of them taking place on the second day starting with the 54^th overall selection in the second round unless a deal is made on Thursday.