Bruins finally admit to making this major draft blunder
By Bryan Murphy
You know it. I know it. NBC Sports for sure knows it, as they never fail to bring it up. The rest of the NHL knows it and laughs at it every chance they get.
And while the Boston Bruins front office has probably known it, it has taken them six years to admit it – the 2015 NHL Draft for the Bruins was a complete disaster.
President Cam Neely discussed the infamous draft for the Bruins on Tuesday, admitting that there should have been more time spent on looking at the entire list of potential draft picks for that year.
"“I’ve looked back at that a lot, obviously,” Neely said Tuesday. “I think the timing of when we hired Don [Sweeney] and then the draft was taking place, [it] would have been good, I think, to have a little bit more time between the hiring and the draft. Not to say that Don wasn’t involved in the amateur meetings, but he wasn’t involved at the time, most of the time thinking that he was making the picks. “I think Don did everything he needed to do leading up to that draft to get three first-round picks. I thought the moves that he made were really good and poised to set us up for the future,” Neely admitted. “The guys put the list together. I think maybe during that time, we should have taken some time out. As everybody knows, we tried to move up in the draft. It didn’t work. We probably should have taken the time out and really just digested that list a little bit more.”"
Just how bad did the Bruins miss on their 2015 first-round picks?
As most remember, the Bruins held the No. 13, 14, and 15 picks in the draft. They proceeded to draft Jakub Zboril, Jake DeBrusk, and Zach Senyshyn with the three picks, which were seen as reaches at the time. At the time of the draft, Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Willis gave the Bruins a C-, D+ and F for the three picks, and CBS Sports’ Chris Peters followed in a similar fashion with C+, C- and D ratings.
It was a pretty accurate foreshadowing for things to come. While DeBrusk has had a decent career in four years with the Bruins – 134 points in 244 games – Zboril and Senyshyn have been more AHL players, with Zboril playing in 44 games with Boston and Senyshyn just a lowly 14.