The Boston Bruins announced today that they’ve signed 2020 second-round pick (58th overall) Mason Lohrei to a two-year entry level contract. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but it is believed to be a base salary of $825,500 in the NHL and $80,000 in the AHL. It comes with a $92,500 signing bonus in each season and performance bonuses worth $250,000 in the 2024-2025 season.
There is a very small contingent of fans that believe this means Lohrei will be in the NHL next season. While that’s a possibility, in most cases that rarely happens in deals like this. Much like the Matthew Poitras signing earlier, this is about protecting the team’s rights with the player.
Lohrei has turned into one of the Bruins top prospects since being drafted. But when the Bruins made the pick remotely (thank you COVID) there was a lot of angst from some Bruins fans. Many – even in hockey circles – believed this was a reach. Others believed that you shouldn’t draft a second time eligible player that early.
Even after returning to the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL for the 2020-2021 season where he put up 19 goals and 40 assists in 48 games the angst didn’t decline. Instead, it turned into “a man playing against boys” quarrel.
A great freshman season with Ohio State where Lohrei scored 4 goals and added 25 assists in 31 games brought out cooler heads. He was widely viewed as one of Boston’s top two prospects and at this season’s trade deadline he became “untouchable” for a lot of fans.
In a way, Lohrei’s success to date has probably quashed any question about drafting overagers fans might have had with Frederic Brunet, although the latter was a fifth-round pick and not a second. It just goes to show that drafting is not an exact science and more of a crap shoot than anything else.
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Dom - Hockey 
Thanks for this update on Lohrei.
I especially loved the shot at the armchair GMs who think they can do it better than the professionals.
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