Buffalo Sabres division rivals’ 2023 offseasons Part III: Trouble in Boston?
By Sion Fawkes
State of the Bruins prospects pool
If you want to succeed long-term in the NHL, and by long-term, I mean enjoying relevant seasons year after year, and ideally, decade after decade – historically good, might I add – then you need two things going for you:
- Before anything else, you need to draft well.
- And you also need to maintain at least a halfway decent prospects pool.
Boston has done neither of these over at least the last half-decade, but thankfully, the Buffalo Sabres have been building their own pool. And in contrast to the Bruins, Kevyn Adams drafted quite well, as you can see plenty of prospects he’s taken either entering the NHL, or they are at least becoming major assets in the AHL. And nobody summed up the state of the Bruins draft woes better than Mike Harrington of Buffalo News.
"“The Bruins may finally be paying the piper for their stunning incompetence in drafting. In the five drafts from 2018-2022, the only one of Boston’s 27 selections to play a single NHL game has been 2018 third-rounder Jakub Lauko, and he has scored just four goals while playing in only 23 games.” – via Buffalo News"
Source: Atlantic Division summer outlook: Huge questions surround Bruins, Panthers after their big seasons by Mike Harrington, Buffalo News
This year can easily be Boston’s last stand for quite some time unless they do something to fix this mess that has been unraveling behind the scenes of the greatest regular season run in NHL history. And honestly, the best way to fix it would be to look to at what Adams is doing in Buffalo then try and replicate it.
But it might take a while, as per Ian Kennedy of Yahoo Sports Canada, the Bruins pool currently ranks 27th out of 32 NHL teams. So yeah, it’s safe to say this organization has a long way to go barring anything unforeseen over the next few seasons if 2023-24 is a wash.