The 2026 NHL Draft is officially here, and with it comes another exciting draft for the Boston Bruins.
The Bruins enter the draft with eight total selections, including three fourth-round picks.
Here's their full draft pick ownership: Picks 23, 56, 88, 104, 111, 122, 157, 216
The Bruins make 4 separate selections within a span of 34 picks, a stretch of picks that likely makes-or-breaks this particular draft class for the Bruins.
The first-round pick continues to be in play, according to Don Sweeney on Wednesday.
"It’s always on the table, to be honest with you," Sweeney said. "We’re trying to improve our hockey club. We’re competitively driven as I said, our players are going to be important in that regard.
"Organizationally, we've tried to look at this as, 'What's our window?' We did a good job to get back [into the playoffs] and be competitive this year relative to where we were a year ago.
"We had some players, you know, young players get integrated and take steps. We'd like to add to the group, you know, so it has to be. Whether that's in a move up or move back or if that's in a player acquisition, you know, we have to be in the marketplace.”
Later in the same press conference, Sweeney doubled down on the sentiment of everything being an option.
"I think everything has to be on the table at this time of the year," Sweeney said.
"Ultimately, our goal is to improve now and moving forward, and having depth in positions or having, as I said, maybe it's a younger player that's able to grow into a role and situation as we did with, as I referenced, with both Fraser [Minten] and Marat [Khusnutdinov]. So we may need to identify the next one and, sometimes, that's a half a step back for two steps forward, and that just might be what the deal represents, and you know we'll be open-minded about that."
Despite the stretch of inactivity aside from the Andre Gasseau trade, it seems incredibly unlikely that the Bruins continue to stand by on the sidelines.
Sweeney identified a top-four, right-shot defenseman as his biggest priority to add, while stating he's comfortable and happy with his current center depth.
In round one, the likeliest fit for Boston would be a right-shot defenseman, with links to Ryan Lin and Tommy Bleyl continuing.
Offensively, targets may include JP Hurlbert, Jack Hextall, and Ilia Morozov.
After round one, boards get messy. I'd look for the Bruins to add to their defensive prospect corps, along with a center or two.
