sorry for the table formatting. This looked great when I originally pasted from Word ...
I started working on this in October, but kind of forgot about if until recently. So apologies if parts of it sound rushed, it's still a little of a rough draft. But here is a detailed look at the Bruins drafting of Forwards:
Is it a cap problem? An offense problem? Whereever you point the finger,
the Bruins have not drafted and developed a NHL forward in 8 years. The current roster has 7 forwards that were drafted by the Bruins: Bergeron, Krejci, Lucic , Marchand and Griffith, Caron, and Cunningham. 4 of them (the only ones that really matter) were drafted in 2006 or before.
That 2006 draft was legendary -- Kessel, Lucic and Marchand all in the first 3 rounds. Hard to beat that. Unfortunately, the 2007 draft was an epic disaster, with none of the players drafted getting any meaningful time anywhere. Plus the missed opportunities continue to haunt B’s fans. (more on the year by year drafts below). Keep in mind Chiarelli was hired in May 2006.
So let’s take a look at the forwards the drafted since the KLM draft (this table is from early in the season, so the NHL GP stat is out of date):
FORWARDS DRAFTED BY THE BRUINS UNDER PETER CHIARELLI:
Year
Round
Overall
Player
NHL GP
2014
1
25
David Pastrnak
2014
2
56
Ryan Donato
2014
4
116
Danton Heinen
2014
5
146
Anders Bjork
2013
3
90
Peter Cehlarik
2013
4
120
Ryan Fitzgerald
2013
6
180
Anton Blidh
2013
7
210
Mitchell Dempsey
2012
5
131
Seth Griffith
3
2012
5
145
Cody Payne
2012
7
205
Colton Hargrove
2011
2
40
Alexander Khokhlachev
1
2011
3
81
Anthony Camara
2011
4
121
Brian Ferlin
2011
6
181
Lars Volden
2010
1
2
Tyler Seguin
288
2010
2
32
Jared Knight
2010
2
45
Ryan Spooner
32
2010
4
97
Craig Cunningham
5
2010
5
135
Justin Florek
4
2009
1
25
Jordan Caron
124
2009
4
112
Lane MacDermid
21
2009
6
176
Tyler Randell
2009
7
206
Ben Sexton
2008
1
16
Joe Colborne
103
2008
2
47
Max Sauve
1
2008
4
97
Jamie Arniel
1
2008
6
173
Nick Tremblay
2008
7
197
Mark Goggin
2007
1
8
Zach Hamill
20
2007
7
189
Jordan Knackstedt
Source:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BOS/draft.html
It’s not that hard to find the 3 guys that are currently playing in the NHL. One is currently leading the league in golas, one has actually been playing on the Bruins top line, and yes, Joe Colborne is good enough to play for the Flames.
There’s a pretty good chance that Colborne will be the only Forward drafted by the Bruins from 2007 to 2009 to have any NHL impact at all.
Take out Tyler Seguin, and even 2010 is on the verge of becoming a bust. Yes, take out Seguin. While Chia should get tons of credit for his ability to create value through trades, picking anyone but Seguin at #2 would have been a jailable offense.
Comparing to the rest of the League:
Before we take a year by year look at Chia’s results, lets look at the draft overall. This is
very subjective, but I wanted to have some kind of baseline. Looking at the first 2 rounds of the draft by year, I made a call on each player and whether or not they have “made the NHL”. For most of the years, I decided that if a player played ½ of the games in one season at the NHL level, or had played a game this season, they “made it”. Here’s the results by draft:
Made the NHL
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Top 1st Rd
13
11
14
11
14
12
Bottom 1st Rd
7
8
12
10
5
4
2nd Rd
5
11
7
10
7
2
So picking in the top 15, you have about an 80% chance of getting an NHL player. In the next 15, the chance goes to 1/3 to 2/3. In the 2nd round, 1/6 to 1/3.
So let’s see how the Bruins did starting with
2007:
Chia drafted Zach Hamill with the 9th pick. As we all know, Hamill never made it. Neither did a single other player out of the draft. But that’s not the worst part. Right after Hamill, the B’s watch the following players go in the draft: Logan Couture, Brandon Sutter, Ryan McDonough, Lars Eller, Kevin Shattenkirk. A pretty good draft for everyone else. Oh and in the 2nd round, just a few picks after D Tommy Cross, Montreal picked a guy named PK.
2008:
Colborne and Sauve. Sauve was a bust, let’s leave it at that. Colborne, as mentioned above, is currently on the Flames and played the whole 2014 season with them. Let’s not forget that Colborne was traded for Tomas Kaberle, along with a 1st (2011) and a 2nd (2012) rounder. The 2011 pick went to the Ducks who took Rickard Rackell, and Dallas took Mike Winther in 2012. Neither of those drafts were particularly good, so while that was almost certainly an overpay for Kaberle, we probably didn’t miss anything trading those picks.
2009:
The outstanding question is, can Jordan Caron become a regular NHL’er? It won’t be with the Bruins, which also means they probably can’t get anything for him. Although technically Caron has played enough games to qualify as an actual NHL’er, no one else from that Bruins draft is still playing. But it was a pretty deep draft, so it has to be considered a huge bust.
2010:
Again, Seguin was a layup. Can’t give them too much credit for that pick. Like 2009, this draft was pretty deep, with 10 2nd rounders playing in the NHL today. That includes Spooner, for now. If Spooner actually makes it somewhere, then we can upgrade this draft. Instead of taking Knight, they could have taken guys like Justin Faulk, Devante Smith-Pelly, Tyler Toffoli.
I will just allow that a player drafted in 2011 or after shouldn’t be reasonably expected to be an NHL player today.
So the first and second round draft performance for the Bruins from 2007-2010: 6 Forwards drafted, ex-Seguin. The “NHL-ers”: Caron and Colborne.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BOS/draft.html
http://bruins.nhl.com/club/draftstats.htm?year=All&round=All&team=BOS&supl=N
Just for second-guessing fun:
Players picked after Bruins 1st and 2nd picks:
2007 – 1st: Logan Couture, Brandon Suter, Ryan McDonough, Lars Eller, Kevin Shattenkirk 2nd: PK Subban
2008 – 1st: Jake Gardiner, Michael Del Zotto, Jordan Eberle 2nd: Derek Stepan, Travis Hamonic
2009 – Kyle Palmieri, Ryan O’Reilly, Kyle Clifford, (no 2nd pick)
2010 – (Seguin’s year, 2nd round picks) 2nd: Instead of taking Knight, they could have taken guys like Justin Faulk, Devante Smith-Pelly, Tyler Toffoli.
2011 – (Hamilton’s year) 2nd: Brandon Saad, Matthew Nieto,
2012 – 1st: Tanner Pearson (no 2nd rounder)
Related articles:
http://thehockeywriters.com/bruins-gm-peter-chiarellis-draft-history-an-analysis/ (June 2011)
http://www.stanleycupofchowder.com/2013/5/29/4376050/the-architect-in-praise-of-peter-chiarelli (May 2013)
http://www.stanleycupofchowder.com/bruins-top-25-under-25/2014/10/7/6074981/whos-the-lone-wolf-of-our-top-25-under-25-voting (Aug 2014)