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Thanks to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Stanley Cup clinching Game 6 win over the San Jose Sharks on Sunday night, the Boston Bruins officially know where the second of their two first-round draft picks, obtained in a trade with the Sharks last summer, will be slotted, and it’s 29th overall.
In a situation where it the pick was going to be either 29th or 30th, this was of course the best case scenario for Boston. And in this case in particular, best case scenario is a relative term.
The pick honestly looked as if it could have been a lottery pick given San Jose’s 5-5-0 start to the season, and 18-16-2 record by New Year’s Day. But then the Sharks rebounded with a strong finish to the regular season, won their first-round series with the Kings, and squared off with the Nashville Predators in the second round. And had the Preds won that round two showdown, the pick would have been 18th overall. They did not. So then 27th became best case scenario for that Sharks-to-Bruins pick. Then the Sharks handled the St. Louis Blues, and that idea went out the window, so 29th it became.
The status of that pick obviously hinged on the performance of the lone piece sent to San Jose from Boston, a city he called home for a quick minute, goaltender
Martin Jones.
In his first year with the Sharks, Jones won 37 of his 65 games played in the regular season, and posted a .918 save percentage and 2.27 goals against average over that stretch. He followed that noteworthy regular season up with an impressive postseason run that included 14 wins and .923 in 24 games.
The third and final piece of the deal, prospect
Sean Kuraly, agreed to sign his entry-level deal with the Black and Gold back on Mar. 29, and will come to Boston on the heels of a senior season at Miami University (Ohio) in which he scored six goals and 23 points in 36 games played.
But back to the draft pick, it’s expected that if the Bruins
do make a big trade on draft night, that this 29th overall pick could be in play as a potential deal-sweetener for a club. Above all else, it sounds as if the B’s greatest need comes back to the point, where the club is still in search of a top-four defenseman, preferably a right-handed d-man, to plug next to
Zdeno Chara on the first pair.
St. Louis Blues defenseman
Kevin Shattenkirk has long been the name linked to trade rumors (and fits the bill as a right-handed defender with top-pairing experience), but names like Anaheim’s
Sami Vatanen, Winnipeg’s
Jacob Trouba, or one of Minnesota’s
Matt Dumba or
Jonas Brodin (though a lefty) have consistently popped up in the rumor mill.
It goes without saying that the 29th overall pick alone will not get a trade for any of those players even close to done, but it’s just another card in Boston’s deck in what should be an aggressive trade hunt.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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