What Bruins had to say about lottery odds going wrong way

In the draft lottery for the first time in almost a decade, the Bruins entered Monday night clinging to their slim — 8.5 percent, to be exact — hopes of winning the No. 1 overall pick. Instead, it quite literally went as bad as it could've, with the Bruins dropping down as low as they could've, all the way down to the seventh overall pick.

But even seventh overall is still better than anything the Bruins have previously experienced throughout this current front office's tenure, and the Bruins know it.

“Well, I mean, we're still picking in the upper echelon of the draft, which we haven't done for a significant time period," Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said Monday night. "So, we feel very comfortable in terms of where the top seven picks are and 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.” 

And while Sweeney opted to take the bright side approach to what can only be described as crap luck, there's still a definite downside that comes with the Bruins falling down to No. 7 overall.

Saying this with the understanding that drafting is by and large an inexact science and things may not play out exactly how we project and how things can (and will) change five years from a draft's date, seven may be just far enough out of the range for the Bruins to grab one of the top center options. That grouping, as of early May, is headlined by Michael Misa and James Hagens, along with Anton Frondell and Caleb Desnoyers. All four of those players are expected to be off the board by the seventh overall pick, and same for the top defenseman in the class (Matt Schaefer) as well as the top winger (Porter Martone).

That means the Bruins could be reaching in some fashion at No. 7.

All things being equal here, the Bruins could believe that they could find a strong center option in Roger McQueen or Jake O'Brien. Sweeney was actually part of the contingent that scouted McQueen in person earlier this spring, and O'Brien just feels like a Bruins kind of pick. But neither is what you'd consider a lock. The 6-foot-5 McQueen, while uber-talented, has been dealing with a back injury, and was limited to just 17 games for Brandon (WHL) this past season, with 10 goals and 20 points over that 17-game sample. O'Brien, meanwhile, is a player who certainly checks a lot of boxes for the B's (he's a 6-foot-2 center and every scouting report lauds his two-way play) but could also present the Bruins with a case of reaching given their organizational need for help down the middle.

"They’re still young men, still a lot of development to take place, but they've generally been picked over to a large degree, at a much higher scrutiny than maybe players down below, because it's wider, wider lens of a lot of different people, not just your own staff, evaluating, writing and bringing focus to the attributes that the players have, both on and off the ice," Sweeney said of the decision-making process and analyzing that comes when having such a high draft pick. "So, 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.

"You do find players that trickle down and impact later on as well, but I think you have to expect to hit your pick when you're picking where we are."

And though center seems to be a natural focus for the Bruins, Sweeney made it clear that their scope will extend beyond just one position.

“Well, I don't think we're going to be anchored in positionally, we're just trying to take the best player that has a chance to be the best player in the National Hockey League that he's capable of being," said Sweeney. "You know, we always value the hockey sense, you always value skating, always value how competitive a player is, and you try to take the best player that you possibly can.

"We're just in a position now where we're drafting in an area that we haven't been for some time, and we expect to add an impact player.”