Boston Bruins: Latest Expansion Mock Draft Has B’s Losing Two Defensemen
By Scott Roche
We are just over a month away from the Seattle Kracken Expansion Draft, where they will select players from each of the other NHL teams, including the Boston Bruins to build a roster to compete beginning in October.
On July 17, all teams must submit their protected list to the league and when doing so, they will leave some players unprotected that will be intriguing to the Kracken to add to their franchise.
In a recent Mock Expansion Draft in The Athletic, three writers gave their mock draft for each team and who Seattle might take that’s left unprotected. Unsurprisingly, the mock draft had the Kracken diving into the Bruins’ young defensive core.
Bruins are predicted to lose two young blueliners.
In the mock draft, two of the three writers have the Kracken selecting Jeremy Lauzon, while another has Jakub Zboril going out West to Seattle.
Losing Lauzon would be a tough blow to the Boston defense. The 24-year-old had a good season for the Black and Gold, despite playing through injuries in the regular season and playoffs. He averaged 18:43 a night but was one of the top Bruins’ penalty killers on defense for coach Bruce Cassidy. In seven postseason games, he averaged just over 19 minutes a night.
The other young defensemen the mock draft as the Kracken taking from the Bruins roster is former first-round pick Zboril, who played in 42 games this season in the 56-game shortened season. He made the Opening Night roster and was paired with veteran Kevan Miller.
It might be almost a certainty that the Bruins lose one of these two players, but which one is a bigger loss in the long run for Boston? Lauzon showed glimpses this season of being a good penalty-killing defenseman, but when is he going to give them 20 minutes a night?
Zboril fell out of Cassidy’s good graces at the end of the season and playoffs, but one can understand why the Kracken would be interested in adding a young blueliner who has some experience and could be a foundation piece for years to come for an expansion team.
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There are going to be some other names that the Bruins most likely will be unable to protect come mid-July, but you could easily see the Black and Gold losing one of these blueliners come draft night to the Kracken. With impending free agents and the Expansion Draft, Boston’s blueline could have a different look next October.