BOSTON \u2013\u2013 James Hagens has officially arrived.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old forward skated out at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday, marking his first practice in Boston since signing his three-year, entry-level contract on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cIt was pure excitement walking in here right away, being able to meet everybody. These are guys that were role models for you, people you look up to, and now you\u2019re sitting in a stall next to all of them. It is pretty surreal, and it\u2019s really cool,\u201d Hagens said. \u201cJust how great all the guys are here. How welcoming they are, coming in, shaking everyone\u2019s hands, really getting to know everyone. Just walked around, soaking everything in.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was an optional skate for the Bruins, so Hagens eased into the NHL’s pace and intensity. That is exactly what head coach Marco Sturm wanted for his newest player.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, it is about enjoying being part of this, going out there. And I just want him to go out and work and play and practice and be around us, and then we build from there,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThis is a great day for James\u2026Being a national hockey player, being a pro, being a Boston Bruin. Coming here and hanging out with the guys \u2013 this was his dream, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
It helps, too, that Hagens spent a few weeks in the AHL with the Providence Bruins learning the systems and adjusting his game to meet the team’s needs. Hagens signed an AHL amateur tryout agreement on March 23 and had four points (one goal, three assists) through six games in Providence before joining the main club.<\/p>\n
Hagens is also leaning on his experience at Boston College, where he spent two seasons playing NCAA hockey. He is coming off a dominant second-year showing, during which he finished as BC’s leading scorer with 47 points (23 goals, 24 assists) through 34 games, earned Hockey East First Team All-Star honors, the Three Stars Award and was the league\u2019s scoring champion.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cHaving him play games in Providence was awesome. He decided to go there and have that experience. As soon as I heard that \u2013 this is great. Having a kid like this wanting to play, and having that experience, I think that was the right thing for him as a player, and I think as an organization,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cI was lucky enough to also be part of this in LA, with having college kids coming up and junior kids coming up. They need time, and that\u2019s why I love that when he went down [to Providence], he kind of had a feeling a little bit and experience playing against men. I think this is just another step in his development.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013\u2013 James Hagens has officially arrived. The 19-year-old forward skated out at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-548966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116376541843706146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}