It’s been widely assumed that the Boston Bruins are going to hang onto the No. 7 overall pick in this month’s NHL Draft.
It’s the highest the B’s have selected in the draft lottery since getting the No. 2 overall pick used for Tyler Seguin in 2010, and only the fourth time they’ve been in the top-10 (Dougie Hamilton, Phil Kessel and 2007 draft bust Zach Hamill) in the last 20 years. And it’s plainly obvious that the Bruins need to continue to add to their prospect cupboard as players like Mason Lohrei, Fabian Lysell, Matt Poitras and Fraser Minten graduate to the NHL level, or simply face the crossroads of whether they are going to grow into AHL or NHL fixtures during their career.
The best way to do that is to keep the pick and select in the same spot where Matvei Michkov, Dylan Cozens, Quinn Hughes and Clayton Keller have all been taken over the last 10 years, particularly in a center-heavy draft class where names like Jake O’Brien, Roger McQueen, Porter Martone (he’s a Tkachuk-style wing, not a center) and Brady Martin are expected to be available when the Bruins make their selection, and an outside shot that a guy like Boston College standout James Hagens might slide to them if there’s a surprise or two in the top-5 picks.
Interestingly enough, though, Don Sweeney wasn’t ruling out moving that top first-round pick if the right trade comes across his desk as the Bruins mull over a lot of different options with the majority of their roster retooling still in front of them.
“We're in a unique position this year drafting in the top-10 that we haven't been there for a significant amount of time. We're excited about that. We have two second-round picks. You have two firsts, the following year…two firsts,” said Don Sweeney during Marco Sturm’s introductory press conference. “We've been an aggressive organization, whether or not you want to point out fault in regard to trying to win and accomplish the ultimate goal. That's what we're here for.
“So we will use the draft capital and try and improve our hockey club this year [and] moving forward in every capacity possible. It might be making the selection, but it won't mean that we aren't having conversations that says, ‘How do we improve our hockey club today and moving forward?’
Interestingly enough, the Athletic’s most recent mock draft had the Bruins making an NHL Draft day trade where they’d pick up another first round pick from the Vancouver Canucks (15th overall) along with forward Nils Hoglander in exchange for Pavel Zacha. It might make sense as Hoglander is a younger forward that’s signed for the next few seasons at a reasonable rate, but this also might not be the draft class to load up on first-round picks as the overall talent depth doesn’t seem to be there after the first ten or so picks.
The likely pick if they stay with the seventh overall selection is playmaking center O’Brien, who has good size (6-foot-2) as a right-handed center out of the OHL and is a dynamite force on the power play.
Jake O’Brien is a name #NHLBruins fans should become familiar with
— Michael Sullivan (@_MikeSullivan) May 6, 2025
6’2”
170 Pound
Right Shot Center
66 Games Played
32 Goals
66 Assists
98 Points
Has good size but needs to build up strength for the professional level…plenty of time to build up some mass
VC: FluxxCC - YT pic.twitter.com/h8E48p2hmy
And there’s a great deal of pressure on the Bruins to hit with this one as their first-round picks have come under fire seemingly since Day One of the Sweeney regime, with borderline NHL talents like Urho Vaakanainen, Johnny Beecher, Zach Senyshyn and Fabian Lysell to show for their first-round investments over the last 10 years, along with established NHL players like Charlie McAvoy, Trent Frederic and Jake DeBrusk taken over that time.
Perhaps the great unknown with selecting an 18-year-old player with that pick is tempting the Bruins to move it if there’s a significant, proven young NHL talent available that could immediately improve Boston’s NHL fortunes. And if somebody like 22-year-old LA Kings power forward Quinton Byfield becomes available in an NHL Draft day trade then any team would obviously have to jump at that kind of sweet offer.
But that’s also the kind of short-term thinking that’s run the Bruins into trouble with their draft-and-development efforts over the last 10 years and pushed them into dealing first round draft picks in deadline trades or being forced into selecting at the end of the first round where the talent is obviously much thinner than in the top-10 lottery.
The Bruins should keep the pick, trust their scouts with boots on the ground at CHL, college hockey, junior and high school rinks all across the world, and take the calculated chance to pick a center that could be their franchise guy for the next 10-15 years just as Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci were during their just-passed golden era.
It’s why Sweeney and even Cam Neely were on the road watching these players in person during the course of the hockey season.
There are no shortcuts building things back the proper way for the Bruins to where they had been for most of the last 20 years, and it starts with getting back to loaded draft classes just as the 2006 group with Kessel, Brad Marchand (third round, 71st overall) and Milan Lucic (second round, 50th overall) helped set Boston up for years to come. A team can’t do that if they trade away their best draft pick in a decade and continue punting the future down the road for the present.
ONE TIMERS
• No big surprises here, but congrats to David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha as two of the first six names announced to Team Czechia for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Pastrnak put on a show at the IIHF World Championships and the twosome led Czechia to a medal in the 2024 world championships as that country’s performance in international hockey tournaments continues to rise.
Earlier this morning, Czechia selected its preliminary six players for the #MilanoCortina #Olympics! pic.twitter.com/n7HdGVQgUt
— NHL (@NHL) June 16, 2025
*When you hear the Rafael Devers trade aftershocks with word that the Red Sox slugger wasn’t shopped around the league before being moved to the San Francisco Giants for a middling return with a couple of young pitchers as the centerpieces of the deal, it brings to mind the stunning Joe Thornton trade with the San Jose Sharks where Wayne Primeau, Brad Stuart and new Bruins head coach Marco Sturm was the modest return for a player that ended up winning the Hart Trophy that season.
In fact, Sturm joked about his turbulent introduction to Bruins fans at his introductory press conference last week:
“When I got traded [to the Bruins], Joe Thornton trade, it was not my fault. But I got here, and it was difficult. I'm not going to lie. It was difficult because everyone loved Joe, and it was a big trade, but I understood really quickly why it happened. We had guys in the locker room, they wanted them to lead. I saw that [for a] year or two it was a little painful. It was not easy,” said Sturm. “I mean, soon as you read the paper or social media, or even you go on the street, people will let you know [that the team is struggling]. But also, it will push you. That's what I saw the positive way, and then especially when Claude [Julien] took over…you could see the process.
“You could see every year how we got better, and all of a sudden, I see a big change here in the city of Boston, because they're behind you. That feeling alone, it still feels like yesterday to me, and that's exactly what I want to bring back.”
History will tell us how bad this trade ends up being and certainly the Red Sox organization seems stocked with young sluggers, but it’s never a great idea to deal a franchise centerpiece away unless there are Grade-A prospects and first-round draft picks involved as compensation. That move ended up costing Bruins GM Mike O'Connell his job in Boston and ushered out Harry Sinden as the management figure overseeing all things hockey on Causeway Street.
Certainly, those kinds of Red Sox trades, though, take some of the heat off the Bruins as they go about their business in a tremendously important offseason when it comes to building things back for the Black and Gold.