DALLAS – With the first round of the NHL Draft less than 24 hours away, it’s looking like the Bruins aren’t going to find their way back into the first round after dealing the 26th overall pick to the New York Rangers for Rick Nash at the trade deadline. While it was clearly an understandable move at the time for a player in Nash that seemed like he’d be a great fit for the Bruins, it obviously didn’t work out that way with the 33-year-old power forward struggling to consistently finish off plays while dealing with a concussion just before the postseason.
With hindsight being 20/20 and the Bruins without a pick on Friday night at the American Airlines Center, Don Sweeney admitted it will be a “painful” exercise watching the other NHL teams select the top 31 players among the 2018 draft class.
“This is buyer’s remorse right now in terms of where we sit not having a first-round pick,” admitted Sweeney. “Walking in there tomorrow night [for the first round] is painful. We’ve spent a lot of time with our amateur scouts over the last two days that we’ve been here tightening up the list from top to bottom.
“You feel badly that these guys have covered a lot of ground [to scout players], and I mentioned that the deadline. We took a swing. I don’t feel badly for taking a swing given where our team was, but it didn’t work out. There are probably seven by my count [that traded first-round picks] and only one team won…and they didn’t give it up. We still think there will be a very good player at No. 57 and we’ve improved our position in the third round.”
Clearly, it’s a totally different space for Sweeney than his first few years running drafts in Boston where the reloading B’s had a bevy of first and second round picks and stocked up a prospect cupboard with talented young players that are now filtering through their system.
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Barring any last minute trades, the Bruins won’t be picking until the 57th overall choice in the second round and will obviously be much busier on Saturday morning’s second day of the draft in Dallas when they make all their selections.