A Look Back at Don Sweeney’s Draft History: 2017

If you really want to punish yourself and look back at 2015, you can find that here.

You can look back at 2016 here.

What constitutes a successful draft or a failing draft? The hockey community looks at NHL games played to determine success, although some choose to look at 100 games as successful while others look at 200 games. Fans in droves prefer to look at stats. Harman Dayal and Dom Luszczyszyn of the Athletic broke down the drafts from 2007 on and found your Bruins to be the fourth most successful NHL team at the draft. They took their analysis even further.

General Manager Don Sweeney continued to reorganize and add to the scouting department. Gone was Keith Gretzky who had served as Director of Amateur Scouting. Assistant GM Scott Bradley would assume the role Gretzky walked away from to become Assistant GM of the Edmonton Oilers until Sweeny found a full-time replacement.

Sweeney also hired: Ryan Hardy (U.S. Amateur Scout), Victor Nybladh (European Amateur Scout) and Brett Harkins (part-time Collegiate Scout).

ROUND ONE

With the 18^th overall pick the Bruins selected Urho Vaakanainen. Those that know me remember that once the Bruins were on the clock and Robert Thomas was still on the board, that I was pounding the table for him. It is believed some of the Bruins scouts were in favor of Thomas but someone did a pounding on the table themselves for Vaakanainen.

ROUND TWO

With the 53^rd overall pick the Bruins selected Jack Studnicka. This wasn’t a bad pick by the Bruins as Studnicka showed promise in the OHL and later the AHL. But things just never seemed to click at the NHL level for him. Jonah Gadjovich was an option but he too never lived up to expectations. This pick is really a wash. But they turned it into something by trading Studnicka to Vancouver for Michael DiPietro and Jonathan Myrenberg.

I guess they could have gone with goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, but wait…

ROUND FOUR

With no selection in the third round the Bruins picked again at 111^th overall and selected Jeremy Swayman. Enough said. This was a slam dunk victory by the scouting staff.

ROUND SIX

With the 173^rd pick the Bruins selected Cedric Pare. The Bruins didn’t offer Pare a contract and he became a free agent. I’ll admit, the guy I wanted went 12 picks later in Sasha Chmelevski who only played two dozen NHL games before heading to play in the KHL. The guy they should have picked went one pick later in Morgan Barron. This was a miss for the staff because Pare didn’t get a contract and wasn’t even an AHL player for the Bruins.

ROUND SEVEN

The Bruins had two picks in the seventh round and selected Victor Berglund 195^th overall and Daniel Bukac 204^th overall. This round turns out to be a wash for the Bruins as Berglund eventually left the organization while Bukac is no longer playing and Cayden Primeau is the only NHL’er right now. But they already drafted Swayman so there was no need for another goaltender.

The Swayman pick was obviously the saving grace in this draft, but if they had chosen Thomas over Vaakanainen it would have been a big win for the team. You have to put your faith in your scouts, and two rookie OHL scouts could not convince the team over the veteran Swedish scouts.

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