Bruins add another drafted prospect to the pro pipeline
A week after welcoming Ty Gallagher to the pro ranks, the Bruins have brought in another one of their NCAA prospects, with Jake Schmaltz signed to an AHL contract.
The contract for Schmaltz will kick in during the 2025-26 AHL season, meaning that the 23-year-old forward will finish this season with AHL Providence on an amateur tryout agreement.
Drafted by the Bruins with a seventh-round pick in 2019 (No. 192 overall), Schmaltz is jumping to the pro game after posting six goals and 16 points in 38 games for the University of North Dakota this past season.
A 6-foot-2, 190-pound center with a knack for winning faceoffs, Schmaltz totaled 20 goals and 63 points in 147 games for the program from 2021 through 2025.
And after what felt like the longest amateur career out of any Bruins prospect in recent memory with an almost six-year wait from draft night to signing a pro deal, Schmaltz is just the second member of the Bruins’ 2019 class to end up signing a contract with the club, joining first-round pick Johnny Beecher.
Which is a kind way of saying that the Black and Gold’s 2019 draft class is looking like a brutal one for ’em, with Beecher currently the only player able to play NHL games for the squad right now.
The club’s third-round pick in 2019, Quinn Olson, went unsigned by the Bruins and has spent the majority of his 2024-25 season with ECHL Greenville in the Kings organization on a minors-only deal. The Bruins drafted defenseman Roman Bychkov with a fifth-round pick, and while he’s never left Russia and is currently on the reserve list, he’s currently playing in Russia’s second tier of pro hockey. The Bruins also let their exclusive rights to sixth-round pick Matias Mantykivi (37 goals and 102 points in his last 120 games in Finland) expire and did not bring him over to North American ice.
Schmaltz’s signing could be the start of the Bruins trying to change that ugly-looking ’19 draft board for the Bruins, though it will have to begin on a minors-only contract.
