Or… why I don’t trust the Bruins to develop a scoring Forward.
Nearly all of our Bruins draft discussion has centered around… Centers, so this post is probably going to get some hate. Cool… let’s discuss.
Drafting is, of course, an inexact science. Teams make their lists and draft accordingly. Sometimes they make a maddening reach for a player that would likely have been available later (Zach Senyshyn) and sometimes they look very smart when they get a valuable player in later rounds (Brad Marchand).
Drafting is also only half the equation, with development being the other crucial piece. What happens between Draft Night and a player making his NHL debut varies between teams, coaches, systems and the routes they take to the pros.
Boston, under Don Sweeney, has a pretty poor record of drafting and developing impact forwards. I get the fact that the Bruins have traded away lots of picks and have rarely been in a position to draft top talent, but the players they have picked have not gone on to become impact players (top 9 Forwards) in Boston.
This could be a product of poor amateur scouting, but perhaps it is more a product of Boston being poor at developing Forwards to do what, well… Forwards should do… score.
Are they too focused on turning Forwards into two-way players that must take care of the defensive side of the game, while sacrificing some of their offensive instinct? Are they too focused on finding Patrice Bergeron 2.0 that they don’t let Forwards play to whatever strengths made them draft picks in the first place?
On the flip side Don Sweeney’s regime has been pretty successful at identifying and bringing along Defensemen. There are a few top-4 stalwarts around the league.
If we take a look at Boston picks from 2015 onwards, focusing on players that actually made it to the NHL, we see the following statistics:
Forwards: Hughes, JFK, Senyshyn, Debrusk, Frederic, Studnicka, Lauko, Beecher, Duran, Lysell, Poitras (1388 games)
Defense: Lauzon, Carlo, Zboril, Lindgren, McAvoy, Vaak, Lohrei, Brunet: (2244 games)
Forwards have played an average of 126.18 games in the NHL to this point.
Defensemen have played an average of 280.5 games in the NHL to this point.
I recognize that calculating player value this way is a bit wonky, and I wish for an NHL equivalent to baseball's WAR, but I still think it’s striking how big that gulf is.
Getting back to the development side of things… the Bruins are on the cusp of hiring a new coach with Marco Sturm and Mitch Love being finalists. I think the Front Office’s logic is to have the Bruins return to their identity as a defense-first team that is tough to play against. These two coaching candidates seem to reflect that.
This suggests to me that Forwards will continue to focus on strong two-way play and sacrificing some offense for a strong defensive game.
Maybe using that high pick on Jake OBrien or Viktor Eklund isn’t the best move. Do we trust this Bruins organization to develop this player to his fullest ability?
Maybe the right move is to draft the second best Defenseman in the draft and bulk up our stable of D-Men.
This brings me to my next point.
Boston has next to nothing in terms of Defense prospects.
With the recent focus on drafting/trading for Forwards, and Centers in particular, Boston has some interesting prospects in Dean Letourneau, Poitras, Minten, Zellers, Lysell, Locmelis.
But I saw today that the Bruins gave up on Jonathan Myrenberg, which leaves Freddy Brunet, Jackson Edwards, Loke Johanson, Michael Callahan and Ty Gallagher, That’s not great.
Adding Radim Mrtka, a 6’6” two-way Defenseman that can move the puck, skate well, and dominate in the defensive zone, might be the best path forward for this organization.
Nearly all of our Bruins draft discussion has centered around… Centers, so this post is probably going to get some hate. Cool… let’s discuss.
Drafting is, of course, an inexact science. Teams make their lists and draft accordingly. Sometimes they make a maddening reach for a player that would likely have been available later (Zach Senyshyn) and sometimes they look very smart when they get a valuable player in later rounds (Brad Marchand).
Drafting is also only half the equation, with development being the other crucial piece. What happens between Draft Night and a player making his NHL debut varies between teams, coaches, systems and the routes they take to the pros.
Boston, under Don Sweeney, has a pretty poor record of drafting and developing impact forwards. I get the fact that the Bruins have traded away lots of picks and have rarely been in a position to draft top talent, but the players they have picked have not gone on to become impact players (top 9 Forwards) in Boston.
This could be a product of poor amateur scouting, but perhaps it is more a product of Boston being poor at developing Forwards to do what, well… Forwards should do… score.
Are they too focused on turning Forwards into two-way players that must take care of the defensive side of the game, while sacrificing some of their offensive instinct? Are they too focused on finding Patrice Bergeron 2.0 that they don’t let Forwards play to whatever strengths made them draft picks in the first place?
On the flip side Don Sweeney’s regime has been pretty successful at identifying and bringing along Defensemen. There are a few top-4 stalwarts around the league.
If we take a look at Boston picks from 2015 onwards, focusing on players that actually made it to the NHL, we see the following statistics:
Forwards: Hughes, JFK, Senyshyn, Debrusk, Frederic, Studnicka, Lauko, Beecher, Duran, Lysell, Poitras (1388 games)
Defense: Lauzon, Carlo, Zboril, Lindgren, McAvoy, Vaak, Lohrei, Brunet: (2244 games)
Forwards have played an average of 126.18 games in the NHL to this point.
Defensemen have played an average of 280.5 games in the NHL to this point.
I recognize that calculating player value this way is a bit wonky, and I wish for an NHL equivalent to baseball's WAR, but I still think it’s striking how big that gulf is.
Getting back to the development side of things… the Bruins are on the cusp of hiring a new coach with Marco Sturm and Mitch Love being finalists. I think the Front Office’s logic is to have the Bruins return to their identity as a defense-first team that is tough to play against. These two coaching candidates seem to reflect that.
This suggests to me that Forwards will continue to focus on strong two-way play and sacrificing some offense for a strong defensive game.
Maybe using that high pick on Jake OBrien or Viktor Eklund isn’t the best move. Do we trust this Bruins organization to develop this player to his fullest ability?
Maybe the right move is to draft the second best Defenseman in the draft and bulk up our stable of D-Men.
This brings me to my next point.
Boston has next to nothing in terms of Defense prospects.
With the recent focus on drafting/trading for Forwards, and Centers in particular, Boston has some interesting prospects in Dean Letourneau, Poitras, Minten, Zellers, Lysell, Locmelis.
But I saw today that the Bruins gave up on Jonathan Myrenberg, which leaves Freddy Brunet, Jackson Edwards, Loke Johanson, Michael Callahan and Ty Gallagher, That’s not great.
Adding Radim Mrtka, a 6’6” two-way Defenseman that can move the puck, skate well, and dominate in the defensive zone, might be the best path forward for this organization.
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