The struggles of the Boston Bruins in the NHL Draft at the beginning of the Peter Chiarelli Era are pretty well documented.
The Black and Gold took epic first round bust Zach Hamill with the eighth overall pick in the 2007 Draft just one pick ahead of San Jose All-Star forward Logan Couture, and then doubled down with D-man Tommy Cross in the second round ahead of Norris Trophy-winning P.K. Subban. The draft produced zero NHL regulars, and Cross is the only player remaining in the organization while filling out a veteran leadership role for the AHL club in Providence.
There was Jordan Caron as a marginal first round pick in 2009 as well, a draft that ended Boston’s string of player picking futility with Lane MacDermid and Caron as the only two players from that draft to make it to the NHL. Clearly the 2008 NHL Draft doesn’t look as bad now as either 2007 and 2009, even if Joe Colborne and Mike Hutchinson had to move on to different organizations to establish themselves as NHL players.
But watching the New York Rangers push to a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final underscores one of the least discussed draft busts from the Chiarelli/Wayne Smith Era in Boston. It was the second round pick in 2008 when the B’s selected Max Sauve, a small, fast-skating French – that’s French, not French-Canadian -- forward out of the Quebec Major Junior League with a limited offensive skill set and little strength to play a pro style game.
Sauve played exactly one game in the NHL for the Bruins in 2011-12, and was unceremoniously knocked out of that contest with a concussion while bottoming out in Germany this past season.
New York Rangers center Derek Stepan was drafted four picks after Sauve by the Blueshirts, and has turned into exactly the kind of player Boston envisioned developing in Sauve. The 24-year-old Stepan has averaged almost 18 goals per season in his five NHL careers, and topped 50 points three times while Sauve is finished with his NHL dreams at 24 years old.
Travis Hamonic, Marco Scandella and Jimmy Hayes were all picked after Sauve in the second round as well, and give you an idea of just how badly Boston was missing on vital first and second round selections in those early years. That’s all changed now obviously with B’s Director of Amateur Scouting Keith Gretzky proving himself quite capable with the selection of David Pastrnak with the 25th overall pick last June.
But those first few draft classes sure are ugly when you look back at them, aren’t they?