Boston Bruins fail to get lottery luck & end up with lowest pick possible

The Boston Bruins and general manager Don Sweeney are facing a vital off-season for several reasons. They need to quickly turn things around after missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season in what is expected to be a retooling of some sort. 

There are many off-season decisions ahead of the Black and Gold, from roster construction with additions and subtractions, as well as hiring their next head coach. It’s safe to say that Sweeney needs to get these decisions right for the future of his job. The first pivotal moment of the off-season happened on Monday night with the NHL Draft Lottery.

Finished tied with the Philadelphia Flyers for last place in the Eastern Conference, the Bruins entered Monday night’s draw with the fifth-best odds to land the top pick, with the Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, and San Jose Sharks the teams ahead of them with better odds.

The Bruins get 7th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft 

The NHL held the NHL Draft Lottery live, something they have never done before. It had always been drawn earlier in the day and put into an envelope, and revealed live on TV that night. Not this year. In the end, the Bruins will draft seventh overall next month in Los Angeles.

Stating that this draft is huge for the Black and Gold and their future is an understatement. Their primary goal should be to draft a center, and one that is not too far off from being ready for the NHL. There are some options that Sweeney and the scouting staff are going to have when it comes time to pick next month. The first domino on the 2025 off-season has dropped and now it’s on to the next for a franchise looking to get back into the postseason in 2025-26.

Bruins’ Don Sweeney vocal on 2025 NHL Draft Lottery slide

Bruins general manager Don Sweeney discussed his team's slide down the order during the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery.

The 2025 NHL Draft Lottery took place on Monday night before the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers kicked off the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was a rather stunning outcome, as well. The Boston Bruins slipped in the top 10, as many other teams did. In the end, it was the New York Islanders who landed the first overall pick.

This is certainly an unfortunate outcome for Boston. The Bruins are looking for a head coach after a disastrous season. Having a top five pick would have been a great selling point. Instead, Boston will pick seventh overall. And general manager Don Sweeney has already found a bit of a silver lining.

“Well, I mean, we're still picking in the upper echelon of the draft, which we haven't done for a significant time period,” Sweeney said Monday night, via Ty Anderson of 98.5 The Sports Hub. “So, we feel very comfortable in terms of where the top seven picks are and we'll get a good player and an impact player, regardless of the disappointment of moving back a couple spots. That's just the nature of the lottery.”

The Islanders jumped nine spots to earn the first overall pick. However, what was truly backbreaking for Boston was what happened during the draw for the second overall pick. This was won by the Utah Hockey Club, but there was a catch. Utah had the 14th highest odds of winning a lottery draw, and teams can only jump 10 spots in the NHL Draft Lottery.

Utah jumped from 14 to the fourth overall pick as a result. The San Jose Sharks — the team with the best odds of winning the lottery — fell to No. 2. Utah jumping up caused the Bruins to drop two spots from fifth overall to the seventh overall selection.

The Bruins will still have a chance to add a potential high-impact player. Still, for a team in flux, this slide could sting for a year or two. It will certainly be interesting to see what Boston does when the draft rolls around in late June.