BRIGHTON – It was clear that Thursday’s practice day for the Boston Bruins was all about 19-year-old James Hagens.
The seventh overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft made his B’s practice debut and got his dressing room stall in the far corner opposite the entrance of Boston’s locker room at Warrior Ice Arena. It was a childhood dream achieved after reporting to the Providence Bruins for a handful of AHL games, where he was good, but not dominant, and posted just two 5-on-5 points in six American League games.
It was perhaps a wee bit surprising that Hagens was signed, given that he wasn’t a dominant force at the AHL level after reporting there from Boston College, but the timing made sense in terms of assimilating Hagens into Boston’s way of doing things given that they had a break in the game schedule until this weekend’s Saturday matinee against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"This is a dream come true for me, something I grew up my whole life dreaming of, and to be able to be here, part of an NHL organization, it's a really special moment,” said Hagens after signing his three-year entry-level deal with an AAV of $975,000 that begins with this season. “I just [want to] stay where your feet are, take it day by day. There's no need to look ahead or anything like that. Just be in the moment, learn where all the doors open to and learn where everything goes. That's first, so it's just stay in the moment."
As far as the nuts and bolts of it go, Marco Sturm made no guarantees about when Hagens would get into the lineup this weekend, and said he would 100 percent not be playing in Saturday's matinee against Tampa. The most likely scenario is that Hagens isn’t going to suit up for the Black and Gold until they’ve clinched a postseason spot, and therefore, some of the pressure will be off in terms of the teenager getting his feet wet at the NHL level.
"He just needs time to get used to our system," said Sturm. "He's on the right track."
Either way, it will be exciting to get the youngster’s speed and skill into the lineup and see what he can do with NHL-level players, as he’s just scratching the surface of his vast potential.
"Obviously [he’s a] very high-skilled, good on the power play," said Sturm. "Structure-wise, that's something that the details in the structure, he had to be aware of, and so he was focusing on that [at the AHL level]. I asked him about it, said, yeah, no, it was faster too, so it was a big jump for him (in Providence).
"But feedback was good. He did overall a good job. Still obviously needs to learn a lot of things, but that's more structure-wise than anything else."
But it was also very clear that Hagens isn’t going to be playing any center during this late-season stint with the Black and Gold, and that instead he will focus on the wing as he did for Providence, and for the Eagles in the second half of his collegiate season. The clear message from the Bruins' head coach after Thursday’s skate was that Boston isn’t going to put Hagens into situations that he isn’t ready to handle physically or mentally on the ice at the NHL level.
"To answer the question, it's probably a wing for sure," said Sturm. "Because right now we feel very comfortable with our centermen and it's not fair to put him in as a centerman because he didn't play it all year long. I think he's in a safe spot here as a wing. Moving forward [after this season], we'll see. I would love to see him as a centerman because he has that speed and ability to move pucks, but definitely not this year."
The bottom line with Hagens is that fans will need to temper their expectations for this season. There may be times when he can make an impact on the power play and there may be instances where he can add some offensive pop to a B’s lineup that’s struggled offensively recently, but it’s also very likely that Hagens isn’t going to make a sizeable impact on this year’s group given his youth and inexperience.
There will be challenges with his physical strength and he is going to be a target as a 5-foot-10 player playing with the puck that still hasn’t fully filled out physically, but that is also something he’s had to overcome at every level he’s played at up until this point.
Certainly, the fan posts about Hagens centering Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak for the playoffs, or about Hagens immediately jumping on Boston’s top power play unit, are not really based in hockey reality. And then on the other side of the spectrum, there is Mike Felger's analysis after not watching a single shift of his play at any level.
What does Felger think of James Hagens?
— 98.5 The Sports Hub (@985TheSportsHub) April 8, 2026
"I think that kid is going to suck." @FelgerAndMazz pic.twitter.com/IBndlpVkbr
Instead, the hope might be that Hagens can enjoy a few impactful moments between now and the end of Boston’s season, akin to what Tyler Seguin did as an 18-year-old rookie for the Bruins when he exploded for two goals and four points in Game 2 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning en route to Boston’s last Stanley Cup title.
To his credit, Hagens was saying all the right things and sounded like somebody who’s looking to watch, listen, and learn while readying himself for whenever his No. 44 gets called by the Black and Gold this season.
“I’m just walking around soaking everything in,” said Hagens. “I grew up working for this my whole life and I just want it really badly. It was pure excitement walking in here and being able to meet everybody. These are guys that have been role models for [me] and that [I’ve] looked up to, so now being in a locker room stall next to them is just something that you have to soak in.
“I want to be able to give it my all in whatever spot they need me to. It’s a day-by-day process so for right now I’m just worried about today and where I am right how. I don’t want to look too far into the future.”
Certainly, Hagens is saying all the right things but now comes the tough part where he’s going to need to prove he belongs in the best hockey league in the world while making the jump from being in college hockey just a month ago.