Miserable Bruins season comes with one final gut punch

Stupid me, I actually woke up on Monday feeling somewhat optimistic about the Bruins. Perhaps it was naivety. Or simply being lost in the 'excitement' of the Bruins' best odds at the No. 1 overall pick since the great Taylor vs. Taylor race of 2010. But, again, stupid me actually thought in my heart of hearts — you know, the same heart the Bruins have tried to straight-up stop throughout the majority of my adult life with countless Game 7 overtimes — that the Bruins were going to beat the odds. I couldn't explain it, but I just saw this whole thing somehow shaking out with the Bruins leaving Monday's draft lottery with a damn good pick — better than projected, anyway — in their possession.

But as the ping pong balls bounced the way of Long Island and Salt Lake City, I remembered that this was the 2024-25 Bruins we were talking about and David Pastrnak couldn't be on the ice for this one. So why shouldn't it have come with one final miserable loss, this time with the Bruins dropping as far as they could and down to seventh overall?

Perhaps numb to the losses at this point, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney tried his best to put a positive spin on things.

“Well, I mean, we're still picking in the upper echelon of the draft, which we haven't done for a significant time period," Sweeney, whose previous high from a pick position standpoint was 13th overall (Jakub Zboril in 2015), said in a Monday night media availability. "We feel very comfortable in terms of where the top seven picks are. We'll get a good player and an impact player, regardless of the disappointment of moving back a couple spots. That's just the nature of the lottery.” 

The Bruins entered Monday night with 85 possible number combinations to win the draft lottery or move into a top-two pick. They did not connect for the first overall pick. They were, however, in the running for the second overall pick through three of the four ping-pong ball drawings. At 1-5-12, the Bruins were a 7 or 14 with ball four away from the misery of an 82-game slog of a season being closer to worth it. Instead, a 3 was drawn, which allowed Utah to move from 14th overall to fourth overall, which locked the Sharks into the second overall pick. Of course, the one year the Bruins are legitimately in the running for a top pick, the Islanders make the biggest jump to first overall in league draft lotto history while a team without a name jumped 10 spots.

Pain. Agony, even.

Given the tumble down the board, it was easy to look back on Boston's late-season success. Especially with the Bruins earning five of a possible eight points over their final four games of the season, including a third-period comeback that led to an overtime loss in Game 82. (Don't blame me, I was encouraging the Bruins to pull Jeremy Swayman in overtime of that game and allow an empty-net goal to rob themselves of that extra point.) And though it's easy to do that, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Sweeney and the Bruins performed about as strong a post-deadline tankjob as one could've realistically expected: They shut down their top two defensemen, moved AAAA players up their lineup, and won just five of their final 18 games of the season (second-worst record in the league over that span). "We're trying, but holy [expletive], we just [expletive] suck," one player remarked to me late in the season.

And even then, the team that jumped them in the standings after Game 82 (Philadelphia) also fell as far as they could in the draft lotto.

But ending up with seventh overall is enough to put the Bruins in no man's land, at least based on the current draft projections. Had the Bruins finished in the top six, they would've almost certainly had a shot at one of the top centers in this year's class, likely either Anton Frondell or Caleb Desnoyers assuming that Michael Misa and James Hagens are indeed the first centers off the board, along with defenseman Matt Schaefer and winger Porter Martone. That could still happen, of course, but if the board breaks as expected, the Bruins are looking like a club that may have to venture into 'reach' territory to get what they need.

Drafting is an inexact science, no doubt, and the odds indicate that the rankings we have in May 2025 will not be the same rankings in May 2030 or maybe even May 2027. And it's not as if 7th overall is the same as 200th overall; Vancouver's Quinn Hughes, the Jets' Mark Scheifele, Utah's Clayton Keller, and Nazem Kadri are some of the more notable success stories at 7th overall over the last 15 years.

But for where the Bruins are right now, something closer to certainty — yes, even with something as simple or as hopeful as a top draft pick — would've been beyond welcomed. Because right now, things seem disjointed. While Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs continues to not understand why his fanbase has doubts about the front office's vision while also referring to this past season as 'embarrassing' in the same breath, the GM is entering the final year of his current contract (where making the playoffs feels like a must) and the team president may have to fire him (someone he's known and/or worked with for three decades) if things do not go as planned. Oh, and the Bruins are likely to have their fourth different head coach since 2022 when the puck drops on the 2025-26 season. It's not the kind of mix that screams confidence.

Having the 'gimme' of going with the consensus 'best player available' was always going to be the easiest way for the fans to feel better after the 2024-25 season and with a murky future full of needs ahead of the club. Instead, a drop down to seventh overall will open the door to Black and Gold eyes working overtime, which has not worked out to wins at a clip that leaves one feeling warm and fuzzy. Unless you're a fan of Cam Neely vs. Kevin Paul Dupont throwdowns.

And with this being the most important draft pick of the entire Sweeney-Neely regime, that's a whole lotta weight between now and the draft.

"I think the stakes are a little higher, and they should be. Like I said, you're trying to evaluate players that are impacting your hockey club," Sweeney admitted on Monday night. "You do find players that trickle down and impact later on [in the draft] as well, but I think you have to expect to hit your pick when you're picking where we are.” 

But not before one final parting hit to B's fans in a miserable year.