You brought back many memories for me!
You forgot to include some of my favs...Rob Cimetta (I remember watching him play at MLG with the Marlies) and Greg Johnston also a former Marlie.
Also, Doug Morrison was supposed to be the next Mike Bossy after scoring 117 goals in his last two years of Junior.
rob cimetta could have made my list for sure
I didnt buy into every single prospect over the years... Johnston and morrison are two that missed my radar
I probably should have mentioned lars jonsson and martin Samuelsson... im a swede hertitage myself and was so excited when we drafted these guys. ironically I wasnt too high on pj axelsson or michael thelven until they got established.
jay Henderson... a local Edmonton kid... drafted last pick overall... in the same mold as cam stewart and nevin markwart... liked him. honestly I sort of was projecting all 3 of these guys to be early versions of brad marchand
when marchand came along... I was high on him too... so occasionally I get one right
a lot of bruin kids end up making it but are completely off my radar. Patrice Bergeron? milan lucic? torey krug? no clue really
when I tried my hand as the hf prospect reporter for the bruins here... one of the interviews I did was andy Hilbert. I was nervous as all F and he was pretty nervous himself but I thought how cool was it that I was finally a hockey journalist. I guess it elevated my opinion of Hilbert since he took my cherry. even when he ended up leaving the organization I always secretly felt he would turn things around and become a really outstanding player
the special ks… how much hype did they get? In defense of our prospect gurus here... krejci deserved all the hype. but kalus and karsum? im not even sure I got the third guys name right here. I think they started lumping a 4th special k into this hype too?
maybe no kid got more hype here than ivan huml… at least among guys that never came close to making it. I wasnt on his band wagon. seems I was arguing that lee goren would have a much better career than ivan huml
it all just serves to teach me quite awhile ago... im no amateur scout. I participate in a couple sim leagues and ive traded every single draft pick my teams had. history has taught me I know nothing about evaluating prospects.
what I do know... is that no kid has a lifetime ambition of making it to the ahl. no kid prioritizes making the highlight reel in ahl if hes been told that he has to work on the little things if he wants to take the next step to the nhl. on the rare chance some kid is more concerned making highlight reel in ahl then he is playing good defense... that kid is garbage. he will never be a bruin
I know we get frustrated with the development of a lot of our kids when they dont dominate lower leagues... but its obvious our organization wont accept 1 dimensional flashy offensive players. even the kessels and pastrnaks of this world are told to buyin to the defensive aspect of hockey or you wont end up making it here.
our history of graduating prospects to the nhl is the best in hockey. ive been studying it for 40 years now. we always have a wonderful alumni of current nhl players that came through our system. we might never score high on arbitrary lists of who has the best farm system... but our farm system always outperforms the competition.
its more than just draft picks. weve traded for young kids like tuuka rask, johnny boychuk, sean kuraly. weve gone the ufa market with blake wheeler, torey krug, Karson kuhlman, connor clifton
a look at current nhl players who played their first ever nhl game for the bruins... kids we graduated... shows us a guaranteed cup winning team
marchand/Bergeron/pastrnak is a home grown best line in hockey
blake wheeler/tyler seguin/phil kessel are 3 top 20 scorers all developed by us
jake debrusk/david krejci/danton Heinen are home grown
milan lucic/joe thornton/vladamir sbotka are declining but what a hell of a 4th line
anders Bjork is just getting going
dougie Hamilton/torey krug togeher on a pp would be... just amazing
Charlie McAvoy/matt grzelyck… homegrown
brandon carlo/Urho vaikaninen… id live with that as my 3rd pair if im going for a cup
tuuka rask is home grown
our one weakness is we dont have a high quality backup goalie
this list of names would crush the nhl… and they are all ours.
historically... we graduate high impact nhl players better than any other franchise in the nhl. even teams that draft first overall 4-5-6 times cant touch us for our quality and depth
its no wonder weve never gone more than 2 years at a time without making the playoffs in my 51 year lifetime