The Boston Bruins blew up their roster at the 2025 trade deadline, setting the stage for a revamped prospect pool that enabled them to draft James Hagens in the first round. Hagens remains the team's top prospect, while Boston College junior Dean Letourneau is quickly making a name for himself after last season's breakout. However, those are the only two prospects in the system who were worthy of making The Athletic's list of the top-100 drafted prospects.
There are some caveats regarding the Bruins not having many prospects included on this list. Fraser Minten was on there last year but graduated to the NHL ranks with a flourish this past season, giving the Bruins another young player to the core they are building. You can also add Marat Khusnutdinov to that list, along with Frederic Brunet and Docs Locmelis, who might be quietly underrated.
Scott Wheeler did add three Bruins who were among the last cuts from his top-100 list. Will Zellers just missed the list after his NCAA and World Juniors breakout this past season, while the USHL's Cooper Simpson and bubble NHLer Matthew Poitras were also nearly on it.
While the public narrative is slowly shifting against Hagens, Wheeler seems to still be a big fan of the Bruins' top prospect. The hope is that he will become a full-time top-six NHLer this season, and Wheeler believes that to be the case sooner rather than later. Boston will also likely see Letourneau graduate to the NHL ranks at the end of this season, with Zellers having an outside shot as well.
The rankings for the Bruins' prospects might be slightly underwhelming for a team hoping to grow its pool and get a bit younger. It's only a matter of the prospects they do have proving Wheeler wrong and showing that Boston's system isn't quite as bad as this list would suggest.
