Boston Bruins Miss on Kaprizov in 2015 Draft

In his first offseason as Boston Bruins general manager, Don Sweeney went scorched earth and didn’t waste any time gaining young assets for expiring contracts or declining veterans.

There were several noteworthy deals made pre 2015 draft in order to stockpile draft picks (which the front office debatably whiffed on everyone). These moves included trading away fan favourite and hard-nosed winger Milan Lucic and promising young defenceman Dougie Hamilton for packages that included the 13th overall pick and 15th overall pick respectively. With the Bruins having the 14th pick, the front office had three mid-first-round picks to work with. No way they could mess that up, right?

Anyways, that 2015 draft will haunt Boston Bruins fans forever and there is an under the radar move made during the draft day that can only be seen as salt in the wound.

Boston Bruins – Minnesota Wild pick swap.

Now, this is fairly speculative as who knows who the B’s would’ve selected with their draft history under Don Sweeney.

The fact that the Bruins had a chance to take the Russian winger though is a slap in the face for us fans and truly digs a deeper grave for our recent draft history.

An ‘older’ rookie who paid his dues before moving to the NHL this season at age 23 – Kirill Kaprizov is an early Calder Trophy favourite with 15 points in 16 games played with the Minnesota Wild.

Kaprizov, drafted 135th in 2015, is currently playing top-six minutes for the Wild and looks like one of the future pieces to break the organization out of the lull they’ve been in for the past half-decade.

This transaction wouldn’t hurt as bad if Cameron Clarke had turned out to be anything for the B’s. In his defence – he is a young player that could eventually become a depth option for the Bruins. As of right now though, he is an ECHL stalwart.

Kirill Kaprizov’s fit on this Boston Bruins team.

Kirill Kaprizov would’ve been an excellent addition to this Boston Bruins roster. If you watch the Bruins you know they have two general positional needs and that is wing depth and defensive depth (especially on the left side).

They have a solid prospect pool of young defencemen, but when it come to forward prospects (especially at the wing) this organization is pretty thin.

Kaprizov could’ve been a great answer to David Krejci’s long search for consistent and skilled wing help. An immediate secondary scoring boost.

Especially with the Bruins current focus on injecting young players into their roster – a young and impactful player like Kaprizov would’ve helped the team now and into the future.