Boston Bruins: The Hunt For Jimmy Vesey Begins

Boston Bruins: The Hunt For Jimmy Vesey Begins Now That Harvard’s Season is Over

The Boston Bruins have been known to scout colleges lately for their newest batch of talent, and they have also shown an affinity to signing hometown players over the 92 year history of the franchise. With Harvard’s season coming to an end, Jimmy Vesey, a top NHL prospect who was drafted by the Nashville Predators with the 66th overall draft pick in the 2012 NHL draft, is now ready to sign his NHL contract.

Jimmy Vesey happens to be a North Reading, Massachusetts-native, and the Bruins are always fond of bringing in hometown kids to their franchise. Jimmy Hayes, Frank Vatrano, and even Don Sweeney are current examples of Massachusetts natives currently working with the Bruins. Outside of the current Boston Bruins structure, include Matt Grzelcyk — Boston University — and Ryan Donato — Harvard — who are both Bruins prospects, and are also from Massachusetts.

Jimmy Vesey has shown throughout his college career that he can produce goals and points in general at a very high clip. In his third year at Harvard, Vesey scored 32 goals and added 26 assists for 58 points in 37 games. This season, his final year as a member of the Crimson, Vesey found the back of the next 24 times and added 22 assists for a total of 46 points in 33 games. Vesey is also so much more than just a point producer, however.

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From the words of Dave Poile, the man who drafted Vesey himself, “We really believe he is physically.. he’s a man, he’s big, he’s strong,” Poile continued by saying “We’ve had him here for our development camps each of the last two or three summers and he’s grown so much as a player and a person. Physically, he’s ready to play. As far as a college player, he’s dominant in a lot of areas; one of them is his skating. Obviously, offensively he’s put up a lot of good numbers, so we truly believe that he can come in and play right away.

Another interesting fact about Jimmy Vesey is that his father, Jim Vesey, was a member of the Boston Bruins — albeit only for four games in 1991 — after playing with the St Louis Blues for 11 games. While his father seems like a hidden Ace-in-the-hole for the Boston Bruins, he might actually work against the Bruins in the end. Jim Vesey currently works as a scout with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they have shown that they are also interested in signing the young, talented college winger. The Maple Leafs also drafted Jimmy Vesey’s brother Nolan in the 2014 draft as well, which could be another interesting piece of the puzzle moving forward.

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Out of respect for the franchise who drafted him and gave him their blessing to play at college for the duration of his degree, Jimmy Vevsey will probably speak with Dave Poile and the Nashville Predators first before he looks at any other franchise. Dave Poile has already said in the past “We have no idea how long his season is going to go exactly and we have to sign him.” He also said “But we’ve told him all along (…) that we have a spot for him.” Poile sweetened the deal by saying “I can see him starting right out either on Ryan Johansen‘s line or probably Mike Fisher‘s line. I can say that because (Mike) Ribeiro and (Filip) Forsberg have been playing pretty good together for the last year and a half. But we would really like to give him a try.”

The Boston Bruins are likely going to go all-in to try and sign Jimmy Vesey to an entry level contract the same way they tried to sign Massachusetts-native Kevin Hayes last year before he eventually signed with the New York Rangers. The Bruins have a lot of depth at the left wing position with Brad Marchand, Matt Beleskey, Loui Eriksson, and Frank Vatrano all able to play on the left side currently. If the Bruins can find a way to sign Jimmy Vesey, the potential that the team can lose Loui Eriksson on July 1st isn’t as damaging because they would immediately have found his replacement.

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The Bruins are currently running out of time on their season and their playoff chances are diminishing with every game. Claude Julien and his team will need to let the management side of hockey operations take care of Jimmy Vesey while he focuses on winning games. As the clock ticks down, the Bruins will need to go out swinging if they intend on making the playoffs and avoiding another failed season.