Don Sweeney Details Future Of Bruins’ First Round Draft Pick

The Boston Bruins grabbed a first-round draft pick in the 2024 NHL Draft at No. 25 in the Linus Ullmark trade, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll use the pick.

The Bruins scouting team will go to work at finding a future Bruin, but Boston general manager Don Sweeney is not completely ruling out the possibility of trading away the pick.

“No, that’s not 100%,” Sweeney said about keeping the first-round draft pick, per team-provided video. “I mean, ideally, we provided a shock to the scouting staff in a good way. We’re happy to get back in the first round, the players, the board, what it looks like, whether or not we move back.”

Sweeney knows that the Bruins will most likely be unable to move up in the draft with a trade, but they would be willing to move down with the right trade.

Boston has not been in the first round of the draft since 2021 when the Black and Gold selected Fabian Lysell with the 21st overall pick.

“Unlikely for us to probably try to move up, but you never cross it out because there might be a guy that our guys are excited about, but getting back to the top part of the draft was important for us,” Sweeney told reporters.

The draft pick the Bruins received as part of the Ullmark trade was originally the pick they sent to the Detroit Red Wings as part of the package for Tyler Bertuzzi in the 2022-23 season. Detroit sent the pick to Ottawa as part of the Alex DeBrincat trade during last year’s offseason.

Despite Boston starting the year without a draft pick before the fourth round, the scouting staff has been prepared to grab a player early in the draft.

“(The scouting staff) works hard regardless,” Sweeney said. “Sometimes you don’t feel like you’ve given them enough reward for the amount of work that they do and ground they’re covering despite not necessarily seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Boston’s staff is not looking for any specific position to take heading into the draft, but they are not opposed to drafting a player that could fill a hole in what they need.

“We’re going to try and find the best player we possibly can,” Sweeney said. “There’s always an eye towards positional needs if it presents, but it’s a dangerous prospect to just go into the draft thinking you’re just targeting a particular position.”

Even with the late addition of the early pick, the Bruins have had good luck in recent years with the draft, including players like Lysell and John Beecher.