Don’t look now but 19-year-old James Hagens is developing quite nicely for the Boston Bruins.
Like other members of the Bruins youth movement, “Slim Jim” is pushing the B’s into interesting territory, and they’re probably a year ahead of schedule in terms of overall team expectations. The Black and Gold look and feel like a legit Stanley Cup contender as they keep putting together quality wins like the 6-4 victory over the San Jose Sharks at TD Garden on Saturday night
The Bruins are now 9-2-1 on the season, first in the Atlantic Division and second in the league behind just Washington and lead the NHL by a wide margin with a plus-22 goal differential on the season.
And Hagens has been in the middle of it all while scoring a key goal in a third-period offensive explosion by crashing the net and popping in the rebound of an Elias Lindholm scoring bid. The celebration afterward was just as good as Hagens had capped off two goals in 40 seconds for the Bruins, and the teenage puck prodigy was basking in the love from the TD Garden faithful as he moved into the corner for a good, old-fashioned goal celly.
James Hagens has scored all four of his goals this season right around the netfront. https://t.co/QOsoXmLPyi
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) October 25, 2026
“It’s crazy how loud the crowd was tonight. It’s a super cool feeling,” said Hagens, who is on pace for a solid 27 goals and 62 points this season. “It’s something I’ll be able to remember for the rest of my career and the rest of my life.
“It’s not easy to score in this league. If you keep going to the net, hopefully good things are going to happen. To be able to be there, you just take the shovel out and try to whack it in the net. That’s all you can do.”
Certainly the net front adventures are something that’s been encouraged by the B’s coaching staff, but it also takes a level of courage and fearlessness to do it when you are far from the biggest, toughest guy on the ice.
“We’re pushing him pretty hard to get more to the paint and to the inside. That’s what you score the goals,” said Marco Sturm. “Good for him that he realizes it. Look at the four goals he’s scored [getting to the net]. So he’s listening and obviously taking it very seriously. Glad it works out.
“A weird game today with a lot of up and downs, but 5-on-5 was pretty good. Celebrini is a special player and it’s hard to defend him every time he’s on the ice. We need five guys to be alert and overall I thought the guys did a good job, [Hagens, Lindholm and Mittelstadt] have got a lot of trust and they scored a few goals too. So good for them.”
Hagens leads all rookies with four goals and nine points in 12 games, his plus-5 is a strong mark among first year players and the youngster has gelled in a third line shutdown role with Lindholm and Casey Mittelstadt where they got the bulk of the shifts against Mack Celebrini’s line on Saturday night. That’s exactly the kind of production and performance B’s fans might have hoped to get out of Hagens a few years down the road from now, but instead they’re getting it right out of the starting gate.
“It’s awesome. He’s hilarious. Obviously, that was a huge goal, and you can already see the type of player that he is,” said Mittelstadt, who opened up the scoring with his fourth goal of the season. “It’s been a blast playing with [Hagens], so hopefully we can keep it going.”
The question now is whether Hagens, or