Countdown to draft day – Boston Bruins

Boston is an original 6 team which means they have been a part of every entry/amateur draft since 1963, when the first draft took place. In that first draft, Boston had the 3^rd overall pick and they selected Orest Romashyna. Orest, never made it to the NHL but he did end up playing for the University of Waterloo which is where I did my undergrad degree. We should give the Bruins a break because that wasn’t exactly the most loaded draft in NHL history with a total of 21 players being selected and only 5 making it to the NHL. The best player from that draft ended up being the second overall pick Pete Mahovlich.

The Bruins over the years have had some pretty good luck with the draft with years like 2006, 2004, 1997 all proving to be loaded with full-time NHL players. But when you try to pin down Boston’s best year you need to go a little further back. In my opinion I would have to say their finest year was 1979.

-taken from hockeydb.com

Every player selected in that draft, eventually played in the NHL. In fact, 5 out of the 7 picks would end up playing at least 400 games and the gem of their draft was selecting Ray Bourque with the 8^th overall pick. Other guys like McCrimmon, Crowder and Krushelnyski all would go on to have very successful NHL careers.

It is difficult to determine which draft was the worst in Bruins history. In 1963 none of their 4 picks would skate in the NHL. Boston’s last four drafts have also yielded few NHL skaters at THIS point but it is a little early to classify them as busts. At this point, I am going to have to suggest that the worst draft for the Bruins was in 1996.

-taken from hockeydb.com

For starters you get a gold star if you actually heard of any of these players other than Aitken or Whitfield. They ended up being the only two players out of the 10 drafted that would go on to play an NHL game and even then, their first pick Johnathan Aiken would finish with his NHL career with 44 games, 0 goals and 1 assist. Bruins would make up for this draft the following year when they would use their first overall pick to get Joe Thornton who as of today is one point shy of 1000 for his career.

Interesting fact that year, the San Jose Sharks had the second overall pick that year so they missed out on selecting Thornton but drafted Patrick Marleau. Thanks to a trade with the Bruins, both Marleau and Thornton are united on the same team (picks 1 and 2).