Neely admits Bruins made huge mistakes in 2015 draft
The Boston Bruins have been a very successful team over the last decade, that doesn't mean they haven't made some mistakes along the way.
The biggest blunder of all came at the 2015 draft, where they appeared to be in great shape given that they had three picks in a row in the first round (13-15). With those three picks, they chose to select Jakub Zboril, Jake Debrusk, and Zachary Senyshyn. While Debrusk has turned into an NHL regular, Senyshyn has played in just 14 career games and Zboril hasn't been in much more with 44.
Of course, it is bound to happen that teams will sometimes miss on first round picks. What makes this sting so much more however was that immediately after Senyshyn was taken, Mathew Barzal went at 16, followed by Kyle Connor at 17 and Thomas Chabot at 18. Other players who were taken later in the first round were Joel Eriksson-Ek, Colin White, Ilya Samsonov, Brock Boeser, Travis Konecny, Jack Roslovic, and Anthony Beauvillier. In what was a stacked draft class, the Bruins really missed out, something that team president Cam Neely is very aware of.
«I've looked back at that a lot obviously,» Neely said. «The timing of when we hired Don and when the draft took place, I think it would've been good to have a little more time between the hiring and the draft.»
The hiring Neely is referring to is Don Sweeney, who was brought on in place of Peter Chiarelli in May of 2015. While the start of his tenure based off this draft was rough, he has made many great moves since and has kept the Bruins a contender. Still, had they picked better at this draft, they may very well have an extra Stanley Cup banner or two hanging from the rafters.
