The Boston Bruins have some missed opportunities in their history when it comes to the draft, and it would be to the surprise of no one that two of the five classes included on the list of their worst came from the desk of Don Sweeney. While Sweeney is the general manager that fans point to as one of the worst drafters, there have been some bad ones before his tenure that some could say were just as disappointing.
One draft class stands above the rest as the worst, and there will be no surprises there. However, with the draft getting harder and harder as more teams joined the league, the five worst classes in terms of NHL success all came in the past 30 years. Instead of drafting getting easier with the upgrades in technology and scouting, it seems to have actually gotten harder to discover which players are capable of having NHL futures.
2021
Fabian Lysell's 12 games with the Bruins after being taken as the 21st overall pick will be the highlight of this list, but the other six picks having a combined total of zero games makes this even worse. Brett Harrison had potential for the Bruins but didn't pan out; Oskar Jellvik and Andre Gasseau both let their rights expire to go to a new home this past offseason, and Ryan Mast and Ty Gallagher are nowhere near the NHL. 2015 was a bad one, but it at least came with much more NHL experience than 2021 has produced.
2015
The draft class that completely ruined Sweeney's reputation before it even began. The class produced two players in Jake DeBrusk and Brandon Carlo who were important pieces of some good Bruins teams, but the front office's inability to identify better talent (Kyle Connor, Mathew Barzal, Thomas Chabot, Brock Boeser, and Travis Konecny were all there) with their three mid-first-round picks will always go down as a massive failure. Add in Jeremy Lauzon and Daniel Vladar in the later rounds of this draft and it was clear that Sweeney's best work came in the second day.
2007
The Zach Hamill draft in 2007 was the original drafting mistake that Bruins fans couldn't let go. Instead of taking Logan Couture, Ryan McDonagh, Kevin Shattenkirk, or even Lars Eller with the eighth-overall pick, the Bruins took Hamill, who played just 20 career NHL games. Tommy Cross, their second-round pick, played four NHL games, while they struck out on the other four picks in the class. Their third-round pick, Denis Reul, played just five games in North America before going back to Germany for the rest of his career.
2000
The Bruins should just avoid getting multiple first-round picks. In 2000, they had the seventh and 27th overall picks, and took two Swedish players in Lars Jonsson and Martin Samuelsson who combined for just 22 NHL games. They didn't miss out on any superstars, but Justin Williams, Niklas Kronwall, Steve Ott, Brooks Orpik, and Ron Hainsey all would have been great Bruins. The 12-player class produced only Andy Hilbert in the second round.
1996
New Providence Bruins head coach Trent Whitfield was the only good pick from this draft, as the fourth-rounder played 194 career NHL games. The Bruins' eighth-overall pick, Jonathan Aitken, played only eight games, while their other eight picks would never suit up in the NHL. Ironically, two of the better players from the first-round class whom the Bruins missed out on would eventually suit up in black and gold: Derek Morris and current head coach Marco Sturm.
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