The biggest weekend in recent Bruins history has come and gone, and it can be considered a success (to some degree). Everyone and their mother knew that the Bruins were going to take whichever of the top two forwards that the Edmonton Oilers passed on, and they did. Tyler Seguin, while not as NHL-ready, likely has just as much, if not more, upside than #1 pick Taylor Hall. Some will speculate that Seguin spends another year in the OHL, playing for the Plymouth Whalers, or even in the AHL with Providence. But make no mistake about it, he is still ready to play in the NHL, and he will. Barring a trade of Marc Savard, it looks as though the natural centerman will kick-off his NHL career on the wing, a switch he is willing to make. But this was the easy part of the weekend. Taking Seguin once Hall was gone was a no-brainer.
Now, move past the second pick. And this is where you would have liked to see a more active Bruins team in the first round. They traded away the 15th pick in this years draft last week to acquire bruising and talented winger Nathan Horton. Now, I'm sure that Peter Chiarelli didn't see Cam Fowler and Brandon Gormley dropping as far as they did when he pulled the trigger on that deal. Both Fowler and Gormley were projected top-6 picks, and they ended up going at 12 and 13, respectively. Had Chiarelli kept the pick, he could have much more easily dealt it in order to move up and select one of the two defenseman. Also, towering D-man Derek Forbort dropped all the way to 15, and the Bruins could have used the pick to select him as well. But, hindsight is always 20/20. There's no way Chiarelli should have nixed the Horton deal because of what they could have had at 15. The frustrating part of the draft, however, was the Bruins lack of movement to get back into the first round. Armed with two second round picks, and two 2011 first-rounders, the Bruins failed to sneak back into the teens-to-early-twenties in order to select one of the many young defenders in the draft. Mark Pysyk, the smooth-skating offensive dman, ended up going 23 to Buffalo, a steal for the Sabres. The Bruins could have traded back to 15 to take Forbort...a steal. Then, on day two, they selected 36-goal scorer Jared Knight instead of defensemen Jon Merrill and Alex Petrovic. Now, Knight is a mystery to me. I'd never heard of him prior to the B's selecting him, and he could end up being a very good player. But I thought, and still think, that it was foolish for the team to pass up a guy like Merrill, who offers top-pairing upside.
All things considered, it was a very good draft for the Bruins. They got their franchise player in Seguin, they got a hard-nosed scorer in Knight, and they got a great two-way player (and a huge steal) at pick 45 in Ryan Spooner.
In other news from the weekend, the B's locked-up Johnny Boychuk for two more years (and he's making less than Andrew Ference, a head-scratcher) and also re-inked Mark Recchi for another year. Yea, Recchi's 42 years old, but he was the B's best winger last year. Now, being the best Bruin winger last year isn't saying much, but the old man still has plenty to offer.
The worst news of the weekend came late on Saturday, when Chiarelli had announced that they had traded Vladimir Sobotka to St. Louis for 20 year old, unsigned defenseman David Warsofsky (currently playing at BU). The move just doesn't make any sense to me. What was Chiarelli looking at during the Buffalo series last year? Sobotka was busy playing the role of "wrecking ball" and was arguably the best player on the ice (both teams) for the series! No, he doesn't have the offensive upside of a 20 or 30 goal scorer, but he plays a high-energy style and creates opportunities with his physical play. They traded Sobotka for a 5-foot-9 defenseman! What good is a 5'9 defenseman these days? Overall, a poor move by Chiarelli. The Bruins acquired two NCAA dmen this past season (Matt Bartkowski and Steve Kampfer) and had no pressing need for another development prospect at the position. Yea, you'd like to see them draft a guy like Forbort or Merrill for down the road, someone capable of being a top tier player. But stockpiling NCAA defensemen with 3rd-pairing upside makes zero sense.
well bruins can be blamed for not having 15. their reasoning was 'its such a deep draft that we can get our 15th ranked player at 32'.. well using the same logic they could have assumed thats its such a deep draft that they could have gotten their 5th ranked player at 15... granted later in draft depth muddies predictions and more likely for guys to fall later than early... but terrible scouting and management not to have foreseen this possibility a little. and horton was third overall pick 7 years ago and each year his value has gone down. he isnt worth 15th overall. should have thrown sobotka in the trade and given 32 or 45 and their own first rounder next year.
ReplyDeleteChiarelli made it clear he thinks they can contend now. Anyone they got at 15 was two to three years away from being NHL-ready, and Horton has the potential for 40 goals. I'll take the immediate offensive help over that pick.
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