An interesting draft overall for the Boston Bruins, who traded away their first-round pick and selected a pair of goaltenders, including a Russian goalie, Yuri Ivanov, with their second-round pick (56th overall), which represented their highest pick in the draft. There was another goalie (Roberto Henriquez) taken in the sixth round out of the USHL, but also a Russian forward Matvei Kotkov in the fourth round (104th overall) and a Swedish forward Oscar Olsson (122nd overall) along with a D-man Jacob Vandeven in the fifth round (157th overall) and a D-man from the USHL in Cullen McCrate in the seventh round (216th overall) to round out their draft.
Some will scoff at drafting a pair of netminders in a year where there were tons of viable defensemen prospects to add to an organization that doesn’t have a ton of top-tier young talent beyond Frederic Brunet and Quinnipiac’s Elliotte Groenewold, and those naysayers will have a point to some degree.
But there’s also zero denying that the Bruins have earned fans’ trust when it comes to recognizing goaltending talent at all levels, whether it was drafting Jeremy Swayman in the fourth round or signing undrafted players like Brandon Bussi before he became a Stanley Cup hero for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Even undrafted Slovakian goaltender Simon Zajicek, who they signed out of Europe a year ago, looks like the kind of player that’s going to get NHL looks at a backup at some point in his career, and that doesn’t even mention Michael DiPietro after they traded for him out of the Vancouver Canucks organization and watched as he’s turned into a viable backup candidate after dominating the AHL.
Goaltender Development Coach Mike Dunham and Bruins goalie coach Bob Essensa have proven over the last 10 years that they know good goalies when they see them, and the Bruins are showing trust and faith in those evaluators.
There is zero wrong with that, even as the Bruins have a wealth of goalie talent at the NHL and AHL level with Swayman, DiPietro, Zajicek, and Joonas Korpisalo there, along with former Merrimack standout Max Lundgren.
“Obviously we selected two goaltenders and our guys have done a lot of work on that,” said Don Sweeney. “It’s not like you’re going to take a goalie every year [at the draft]. We just felt this year there were two players that we could select in [draft] positions that we really valued.
“It does take a long time and in [Ivanov’s] case he’s going to be in Russia for the next two years. So we’ll see where he’s at and sometimes it takes them a little to get to the next level [and eventually the KHL]. We’ll be able to monitor that because it’s going to be a long timeline and we wanted to make sure we got out in front of our depth at that position. So we attacked it today.”
It remains to be seen if it’s all going to work out for the Black and Gold, but one can understand them leaning into a clear strength right now when it comes to stockpiling at a position where they have consistently created NHL assets over a long-time span.
ONE TIMERS
*It feels like in today’s NHL, landing an impact player is as much about that player wanting to play for a specific team as it is about having the assets and salary cap space to go out and get the player. That seems to be the case with 24-year-old JJ Peterka, who arrives in Boston having a past history with fellow German Marco Sturm, and in particular with new assistant coach Matt McIlvane from their time together on German national teams from when Peterka was an 18-year-old during his draft year.
With Peterka having also played with and against Lukas Reichel in Germany and as former teammates in Buffalo with