A first look at the Bruins' diverse 2018 draft class

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Photo credit Steve Mitchell/USA Today Sports

There wasn’t much buzz surrounding the Bruins at the 2018 NHL Draft in Dallas.

General manager Don Sweeney had traded this year’s first round pick to the Rangers for Rick Nash at the trade deadline, something he told reporters yesterday he doesn't regret. So other than trade rumors, Friday night was silent in terms of the actual draft.

That doesn't mean the whole weekend was a wash. As with many draft classes, it’s impossible to predict the impact any of the Bruins’ five picks will have in the future. But if players selected past the first round like Brad Marchand and Reilly Smith are any indication, some of these future B’s might surprise us down the line.

Let’s take a quick first look at the 2018 draft class before we meet at least some of them at development camp next week and get a better sense of how they can play in the context of the National Hockey League.

WEEI’s Scott McLaughlin already gave an overview of the first two picks: Swedish defenseman Axel Andersson (second round, 57th overall) and Czech center/left wing Jakub Lauko (third round, 77th overall). Read up on them here. 

Next, the Bruins took Curtis Hall (fourth round, 119th overall). Hall is a 6-foot-2, 200 pound center/left-wing from Princeton, New Jersey. The 18-year-old right-shot was most recently with the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms, scoring 13 goals and 18 assists for 31 points in 54 games last season.

Hall is headed to Yale University next season, so we’ll see how his game translates at the next level. He’s said he likes to model his game after David Backes, and that’s not a huge surprise considering his size. Maybe they’ll meet at development camp -- Hall said he’s coming in a video the Bruins tweeted out:

Curtis Hall would like to say hello. #NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/BtsQDSbcit

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) June 23, 2018

Boston’s fourth pick was Dustyn McFaul (sixth round, 181st overall). The Waterdown, Ontario native is a 6-foot-2, 185 pound left-shot defenseman. The Bruins love drafting those, huh?

McFaul is verbally committed to Clarkson University, so he’ll spend some time playing against Hall before he joins his left-shot defensemen brethren Jakub Zboril, Urho Vaakanainen, and Jeremy Lauzon.

He tallied four goals and 15 assists for 19 points in 38 games with the OJHL’s Pickering Panthers. Scouts describe him as an “active defenseman” as opposed to a stay-at-home, say he can log a lot of minutes (which says nothing comparing OJHL to NHL, mind you), and say he needs to work on his shot. We’ll learn more about him next week:

Nice to meet you, Dustyn.#NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/b5NuS4FY19

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) June 23, 2018

The Bruins’ last pick of the 2018 draft was Russian center Pavel Shen (seventh round, 212th overall). If nothing else, people named Pavel going late have a relatively high success rate -- ask 171st overall Pavel Datsyuk.

Shen, a 6-foot-1, 183-pound Ufa, Russia native, spent half of last season in the KHL and the other half in the MHL. The left-shot 18-year-old got two goals in 29 games with Khanty-Mansiysk (KHL) and 12 goals and 14 assists for 26 points in 29 games with Mamonty (MHL).

Shen was expected to go way earlier than he did -- Central Scouting had him in the early 30s for European skaters -- so this could be an unexpected steal for the Bruins. Possibilities!