Boston Bruins Top-10 Prospects
Hello everyone and welcome to hockey prospects.com YouTube channel. I’m Jeron Bilbury and I’m joined by Brad Allen. And today’s we’re going to take a look at our second team uh the Boston Bruins. We we’re going to take a look at their prospect pool. Brad, uh so I’ll just uh put the the the ranking on the screen. Rod, um just maybe your first thoughts on the on the rankings that we uh work on. Um not not the best prospect pool, but pretty some interesting guys. I think they they the Bruins are obviously James Agens pick will be the um you know he’s the top the top guys that they have. Um but um they always find guys they they do draft a lot of from Sweden. Uh a lot of from the US college, you know, USHL rank. Uh they have a I find they have a quite of a unique strategy um for scouting. Um I was looking at you know Haggins LNO um will Wilmore also uh both play all of them playing at Boston College and they also have like three more guys at Boston College. So yeah they have six there’s there’s six brooms prospect playing at Boston College. Um which is you know pretty interesting. Um that’s got to be a record. Yeah it’s not a record. Um, so let’s take a look at that prospect pool here. Um, maybe your first take here um, with the Bruins here. Well, they’re they’re kind of in a a difficult position because they’re they’re trying to figure out exactly what they are as a team still after losing some of their core pieces. And they have to find out if Makavoy can come back from his injuries and look the part of the true number one D. Uh, and that goes for Jeremy Swayman as well. Is Jeremy Swayman a split starter, a full-time starter? Um, is he as good as, you know, initially when he came to the league as he looked? Is is that the real version or the implosion that I’m I’m sure the implosion that happened last year is certainly not the real version. Um, but does he fall in between that or does he come right back and as one of the top five, seven goalies in the league again. Um, these questions are enormously important and they’re going to be answered this season and I think will ultimately determine if Boston decides to uh really go scorched earth and then and then really pump in new prospects on their pool and look more like the Anaheim team we just discussed uh down the road with getting higher draft picks. Um the the main thing I’ll say is uh it happens to every team. Uh it looks like it’s happening to Boston. Let’s start off with the 10 seed here, Jerome. That’s maybe Lysel. Um, listen, we all miss. Um, Fabian Lysel does not look like he’s going to be the part for the Bruins. He’s a first round pick. That’s really tough for a franchise that at the time was contending when they drafted him. So, uh, it’s one of those situations where Lysel needed to hit. It’s looking like this is the end of the road. Like, this is his last shot to me with Boston and Boston’s organization. um he has not improved uh in terms of how he operates and plays on really both sides of the puck uh nearly the level he needs to to be a full-time NHL up to this point. One issue with him, although he has a phenomenal skating base and he can be extremely dynamic uh off the rush, great set of hands, super tenacious at times, uh he’s always been unable to mitigate risk offensively. He also has difficulty with his spatial awareness. And both of those things lead to a tremendous amount of mistakes and turnover rates that simply can’t happen because yeah, he’s dynamic at times, but he’s not that talented, right? He’s not talented enough to put up with the errors. So, um it’s all about understanding where he needs to quiet his game down offensively so that he can operate more efficiently. And uh you know, again, the production’s there in the NHL, but it’s a different beast as you all know in the NHL. So that’s been an unfortunate situation uh with this organization since Lysell is not hit and that means as you know Jerome like that puts a ton of responsibility right now on those top two guys like James Hagens absolutely unequivocally must hit. Dean Lerno who this is a fascinating prospect that we’ll get into here. This this is another example player that absolutely must hit even though he is uh coming off um a season that most people would argue is a uh really just one of the the worst seasons he possibly could have had for numerous reasons. So um that that we go to three if you look at Frasier Minton that’s the first thought I look at and say at least you’re guaranteed a player might be a fourthline center. We’ll see. He might have enough offense for for third line center responsibilities, but at least you know he’ll play. Like Frasier Minton’s going to play for sure. Uh then you look down the list and the only other player I’m like I really think he has a chance. The floor is extremely high would be Dan Lois. Uh but Loch Milis is certainly looking more I would say like a fourthline energy uh player at this stage. Um but they again they need bodies that can really play. So those are two that will play. Um, James Haggins, uh, for all of you that that are unaware of us, we have a 30 minute breakdown of James Hagens from last year’s draft. Uh, we fundamentally disagree with basically the entire industry on this player. Uh, we think that he I mean, he’s a perfect example, honestly, of how little people actually scout. I I’ll call it out. I’ll say it as it is. Um, I watched 40 games of his playmaking last season. Uh, it was incredibly mixed. He’s he had nowhere near the season people thought he had. Uh he he was a perimeter player. Uh he had difficulty with his handling rates in transition. He had difficulty with his playmaking. Uh he forced a ton of play and uh he did not look like he structurally improved in any capacity from the last season. Uh he’s also not as gifted in straight lines as he is uh when it comes to his uh multi-directional skating. Like he has phenomenal edge work. He has exceptional linear crossovers. He can pivot on a dime. he can stay on balance, which is critical for a primary playmaker, which he is. Uh, but in terms of his overall peak power output in open ice, it is lacking. And I bring that up because defense could get back in front of him. And when they did, he had he had unforced error rates that were incredibly high. Um, so that has to be cleaned up here. Um, now can they be cleaned up? Absolutely. He can turn a corner here and look way more the part of what was he expected of him, which was a top three pick in last season’s draft. um his season drum reminds me a little bit of a player that you called out early. I’ll never forget this this what you said about him and that was Atu Ratu uh out of Vancouver there who’s going to play in third line in Vancouver. I remember Jerome told me uh for everybody listening uh when that season started he was expected to be a top two three pick and Jerome watched him in Lia and uh he told me that um he thought there was no chance not a chance that he could be that and came down to the skating base and uh we were definitely correct on that front. So with Hagens it was pretty similar. Jerome came to me and said Brad we got a problem. James Haggin doesn’t look like a top three pick. And um it wasn’t atu ratu type of fall, but it it was um from a public perspective uh to the actual reality of what this player was doing on the ice, I I thought it was pretty uh pretty similar to how the ataratu situation with the hype and and just how he was not performing nearly up to the expectation that people thought. Um what about the middle guys there, Jerome? Where are you with Moore, Blanache, brunette, brunet? What do you think middle crop there? Uh, by the way, if people want more agens scouting uh information from us, uh, they can go back and watch our our draft video. Um, like Brad mentioned, we break it down. We went for like 30 minutes uh on him. So, um, I’ll say this, I’m curious to see how he plays this year with no Ryan Leonard, no Gabrielle Pero on his line. um he didn’t really have to drive he didn’t have to drive to play last year because um you know when he played with those two I mean Ryan Leonard was the the the driver um so without you know this year he’s going to be the top guy on his line no matter who he plays with he’s going to be the top guy so we’ll we’ll we’ll have a real answer if he’s ever going to be a play driver I think with also Jerome just just to top up on what you just said really matters I thought Ryan Leonard and him had zero chemistry. Oh yeah, it was not it’s not good chemistry. Um I thought he actually played better with Dean Lerno in the in the smaller sample and I really thought Dean Laterno and him played well. So maybe that’s something to build upon. And one more point before I give it back to you that we should have mentioned. Um, I forgot to is it’s interesting seeing so many players that are in one organization playing on one college team because it gives them a a different level of chemistry coming in to the NHL relative to most other teams. It’s almost like they’ve built their own program through Boston College and are like, you know, this is basically like the miners for the Boston system. It’s crazy. It’s it’s really interesting though like theoretically it makes sense to do from a development perspective because imagine how comfortable every player would be with each other like they all know each other coming in. So uh I think that that probably benefits them more than anything as long as their I mean it’s pretty interesting. I mean I don’t think like of those six players I’m I’m guessing maybe two or three will be end up being NHLer but you know we’ll see. Um, Latero, as you mentioned, bad year last season. Should have not be in college. Um, he was not ready for for college, even more so in a in a big-time program like Boston College. Um, you know, if you’re not ready, they’re just not going to play you. So, um, you know, should have been, you know, one more year of junior for him. Um, he was drafted as a, you know, long-term project and he still is. Um he looks like unless he really really really improve this upcoming season, looks like he’s going to be a four-year, you know, college guy, um or maybe three, but like he he’s definitely not turning pro after this upcoming season. Like he’s he needs he needs some time. Um but the tools are there for him. Like he’s 67. Um he he can do some some some good things offensively. Um but consistency is even in his draft year consistency was not always there in a a very low level of hockey. Like remember like he was playing you know basically Canadian high school hockey and then go from there to like hockey he’s like that’s a that’s a major jump and um he was not ready for it. Um but you know the the the tools the potential is still there and uh he was also injured too if there was an injury there for a couple months with his wrist which cannot help in any capacity especially when you’re struggling offensively. Last thing you want is a wrist injury. So yeah nothing worked for him. Yeah. So you mentioned Minton um acquired by from Toronto. um like as safe as it gets as a prospect I think like he’s going to be worst case he’s your fourth line center maybe he ends up your third line center is an interesting one I I I I have a hard time you know is he good enough to be a top six guys in the NHL I don’t know does he fit what you want as a turline player I don’t know um the you know he’s not the biggest guy the skating is not like the best also So that’s it was one reason we didn’t have him like that eye in his in his in his draft year. We didn’t didn’t have much time for him. So he kind of to be fair it kind of surprised us the year after that because we’re like it’s the stadium for sure has improved. I you know I’ve talked to uh some of their staff about it. They were very impressed with uh with him and I mean coming in I I I talked to one of the the staff on Boston. They told me they didn’t even think the skating was a weakness because that’s it improved that much over one summer. They didn’t even know it was considered a weakness during his draft year. Like that’s how impressive it was in terms of his development. Yeah. And that was the missing link. Uh so it’s pretty impressive. Some of these kids like they they find a way to to make up their for their deficiencies or the attribute we think is behind the most. They they can make up lost ground pretty quick if they uh get to work. Yeah. Um so the the other thing Jerome about I feel like the player type is super rare. Like Matis Machelli is trying to pull it off here in Toronto. like he looked phenomenal for Utah for well not not when they were at Utah but you know what I mean in that organization he looked he looked apart for two years there then he fell apart um and Max Doi I think is probably the best example of this player type where you’re talking about like a dynamic playmaking uh winger who can do a whole lot in transition makes his teammates better phenomenal passing rates can make dynamic higher passes per 60 at a much higher rate than most other uh forwards but if the playmaking dies they die like that the shot, you know, Machelli doesn’t shoot a puck enough. Max Doi shooting mechanics, they’re actually pretty impressive, but his sense of timing and how to operate within that timing. The only time we’ve ever seen it be successful was in Montreal for that one year where he blew up. Um, and then Puatra runs into this territory, that type of player. Another example, this would be Andrew Bashard out of Calgary, I would say. Dr. Another example, you’re talking about a rush winger who relies almost exclusively on his playmaking. Um, it’s very difficult for this type of player at this size if they’re not a dual threat to make it. Uh, but Potra is very smart. He’s incredibly intelligent. You got to be to make it the with this play style. So, we’ll see. Uh, Will Moore, a a guy uh that he took in the second round this past June. To be fair, I had lots of difficulty with that player last year. Uh, not my favorite type of player. Uh, I felt like he was, you know, uh, offensively just didn’t do enough for me and I thought it was, you know, a bit too passive at times and the skating was like not the best. Um, but the kid is 6’2, 6’3, pretty raw, and if I if I base myself on what I’ve seen from kids from the program the past few years, when they leave the program, they get much better. Uh I’m a bit afraid of what Wilmore Moore might do to me at uh Boston College this year. It might make me look a bit bad. So we we had him ranked 63rd. Uh Boston took him 51. So definitely they didn’t not have any the same concern that you know I had over over him. Um so you know if they took him 51 they probably had him as a top 35 top 40 prospect on the 30s most likely. Yeah. So, we’ll see with with more, but you know, based on what I’ve seen from kids from the program, once once they leave the program, they get much better. Uh, we saw it last year with when Saggy um a person with with Sagena. Uh, you know, so maybe more will be the next one, you know, to uh really improve, you know, post NTDP. Um I’ll maybe say a few words about Fred Frederick Bruner from um well he’s been formerly from the queue. Uh plays I think he has he has played two years with Providence. Uh I think he’s going to challenge for some NHL games this year. Really good athlete. Um can skate really well. Covers a lot of highs. Um the I thought the offense was a bit average in his draft year. Uh creativity was not always, you know, on point. Um and but he was raw and he he did make some pretty good progress uh just the season after he had a big year. Um so, you know, pretty nice fifth round pick by the Bruins in in 2022. And you know, I think he’s really close to get some, you know, NHL games uh with the Bruins uh this season. Might actually it’s it’s he might make the the Bruins out of Trinam. Who knows? Um you know, he’s he’s right there. Um so he’s an interesting one. Uh maybe Brad, you want to touch on on a few other guys um on that we have that we have rank here? Yeah, sure. So I’ll mention Vashek Lash there. He’s like the wild card dark horse for me uh out of this pool of he never managed to get into our book. The irony is one of the reasons that he didn’t get in our book is because I had to do such an enormous playmaking sample of James Hagen. So it comes full circle here. Um uh but he he’s a very interesting talent. I was watching him in J18 last season. U 6’4 naturally pretty gifted kind of kind of thinks the game like an offensive player um more than a defensive player. He’s he’s more of an offensive defenseman at this stage in his development. Uh who can attack and activate off the rush. Phenomenal set of hands that I’ve I’ve watched him here in the early going of J20 and everything looks improved. It just physically he looks different. He looks extremely comfortable, extremely confident. He’s always had a moxy to him. There’s always been that swagger to this kid where he thinks he can he can make very high-end plays uh at will. And um so far in J20, I think uh Boston’s probably pretty happy with what they’re seeing. This is like for sure the most underrated prospect in their system and a player in three to four years, you can quote me on it, they will probably be talking about um as he as he enters um uh that long look where he dominates the AHL and then it’s all about trying to figure out if they can round out his defensive game enough and get the retrieval rates up enough. Uh but he’s a very very interesting talent. Yeah. That should have been in our book 100%. But sometime it happens uh some guys feel you know they fell from the from the cracks. Well I want to say something about him. Uh like as as soon as he got drafted I had like flashback of Mason Mason Lorai. Uh yeah yeah somewhere when Laurai was drafted by the Bruins he was a secondy year eligible player that was not in our book and the Bruins took him in the second round and then you know with this kid I’m like oh 6’4 65D with with some you know skill and some you know some confidence with the puck um I was like oh the Bruins you know we’ll see if the Bruins have done it again but the the low right pick is is looking really good for them. Um, so anybody maybe you want to mention uh you know uh the the Latvian kid maybe or the other Swedish kid before we Lis. Yeah, Lis I thought I thought was a great pick at the time. Uh he reminds me a little bit of um Sakura in the Ranger system uh in the sense that you’re getting a smaller versatile uh hybrid center who can play the wing or center position. uh brings a tremendous amount of pace and energy and is relentless and never backs down. I always thought he looked very good in Lafia uniform at the U20 level and at the international level in general. Uh and I think like you know even honestly I’m looking at this now eighth might be a bit too low for him because this just the floor is so much higher to me uh than even Vet Lash or more at this stage. But I’m with you on the Will Moore front. Um he’s one for me where like out of any prospect that if he turns a corner can make us look horrible, Lil Moore is absolutely on that list. And like the problem with the program is as Jerome mentioned specifically last year uh it was a tire fire structurally. Like no I felt like no kid developed. I felt like no kid got better on the program in any capacity. The only one that seemed to stay consistent was McKini. Um the rest seemed like it was just hit and miss all over the map. And you just never know until you get them out of that system. And Moore does have a lot of talent. Like he can make plays. He’s a natural playmaker. He’s a gifted thinker of the game. Um, you know, not the highest offensive ceiling, but he he’s one for me too, Jerome, where it comes down to like fast twitch development. Like he needs to become a more explosive athlete. He needs to fill out his frame. He was very lanky. He was easily knocked off pucks last season. His forch checking rates are eh. Um, and he needs some of that because again, he’s not like a dynamic topline player. Um, I I’ll also finish, I think, on on the most significant aspect of of development with Dean LNO. So, I went back to St. Andrews College because I I was pretty interested in like what happened to this player. Um, was any of this predictable like the the fact he was going to be this poor uh at Boston College? And the it there was some there was some indicators there that that were going to suggest this was going to happen. the main one, which admittedly I didn’t pick up on in his initial draft season when uh it was probably the right time to do so, but I watched every handling play he had in transition u at St. Andrews College, his handling rates were abysmal. That and now when you’re a 6, seven, 200 pound kid at the at 17 years of age, your handling rates aren’t going to be what they actually are, right? that that your your dexterity it’s it’s not going to be um nearly as developed as it will be when you’re 21 22 years of age. It just comes down to to nerve signaling. When you’re that tall, it takes longer for your nerves to fully uh become operational and functional. Uh like for instance, Elmer Solder Bloom always had his hands, but that is incredibly rare. It was one of the best indicators that Elmer Solder Bloom was actually become what he is now, which looks like a top nine uh like crazy power for like one of the most unique unicorn power forwards in the history of the game. Like he’s on the top line in camp here with Detroit. We’ll see what happens, but the handling was always there. Dan Lernos was not with Ta Thompson. Ta Thompson’s shot specifically from his wheelhouse was always there. He was always that power play threat. He always had that shot quality. That was the translational translatable uh component that we knew was always there, right? Demetri Vorenov, that one’s trickier. That one’s a lot trickier. The skating wasn’t there. He was nowhere near as efficient or as smart looking as he is now. And the handling was all over the map, as was the shot and the playmaking. Nothing nothing was was solidified. So, that one was way harder to figure out. Dean Lerno falls more in the Voronov camp because again, the handling’s not there. The shot is incredibly inconsistent. always was the only thing that was really ever consistent was the playmaking. The problem is in order to be able to pass the puck at the college level successfully, you need to be able to create faints. You got to be able to create speed differentials. You have to be able to uh untelegraph your intentions. Once once you telegraph what you’re going to do with a puck, if you’re massive, it’s much easier to collapse on somebody because the bigger you are, the harder it is to be evasive. Dean Lerno does not play a power game. He is a finesseoriented forward. The problem with Lerno, Mark Edwards has talked about this is that he’s 67, but he plays like he’s 5’9 sometimes. Mhm. So with Boston, what they have to do is figure out how to turn into at least a hybrid forward, meaning he will he will occasionally learn how to cut through hands with his frame, occasionally understand how to protect the puck with his frame u and do it the right stages on the ice, but then still have that blend of of uh of of faints, the ability to to be able to be elusive, remain evasive at that right time. Because if he doesn’t have that, if he doesn’t know how to blend it, then there’s no chance he can become something similar to, let’s say, a Matthew Ny who who does blend both and he absolutely needs that. If he doesn’t have that, then this kid’s never going to translate successfully. The the good news is though, when you compare his handling rates at Boston College to St. Andrews, they did improve and then his off puck play improved and he did fill out somewhat. So the next stage here is to figure out how to get the faints implemented and how to create a hybrid power forward and how to understand when to be tenacious to when to be finesse oriented and to how to use his speed correctly because that’s one of his gifts is his skating and he doesn’t use it right now. So yeah, I deep dive LNO this off seasonason because I found him pretty fascinating. One of the most unique players in the game and who comes from St. Andrews College and plays uh Big 10, right? Like nobody. So, it’s one of those situations where when you have unique unicorns, it can it can teach you a lot about the sport. And uh that’s that’s the camp that Latero fell in for me. All right, that’s going to wrap up the uh our look at the uh the Bruins prospect pool. Uh our next video will be about the Buffalo Sabres. So stay tuned for that. Uh subscribe to our channel. Tons of video are coming up. Um so and thank you for all the subscriber that have like support us uh you know since we’re start really making more YouTube video you know basically at the start of last year. So um thanks for watching and we’ll talk to you guys for the Buffalo Sabers in a few days. Take care everybody.
Jérôme Bérubé and Brad Allen break down HockeyProspect.com’s Top-10 rankings of the Boston Bruins prospects.
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