Cam Neely is "frustrated" by the "narrative" that Don Sweeney, Bruins have struggled in NHL Draft

BOSTON -- The first round of the 2015 NHL Draft -- Don Sweeney's first as GM of the Boston Bruins -- was undeniably a disaster. Armed with the 13th, 14th, and 15th overall pick, Sweeney was unable to swing any trades to move up, and ended up using all three picks, whiffing on two of them in spectacular fashion.

It was a misstep that has severely hampered the Bruins, who have struggled to supplement their roster through the draft with Sweeney as GM.

While Bruins president Cam Neely is willing to concede the failure of the 2015 draft -- and even a few misses with some other first-rounders -- he is growing tired of hearing about how bad the Bruins have been at drafting players.

"Well the narrative, quite frankly, is a little frustrating to me," Neely said Monday at the Bruins' media day, ahead of the season opener on Wednesday. "I mean, if ... we've said it many times, from a draft perspective, we have missed on the high side -- especially in '15. And I'm tired of talking about '15. But if you look at who the Boston Bruins have drafted say, maybe, from '15 to '18, because it may be a little unfair to look at players, you know, from '19 through '21 in their development stage. But if you look players the Boston Bruins have drafted and how many NHL games played they've played, I think it's among some of the highest in the league. So the narrative is a little old for me."

Looking at the years Neely mentioned, the Bruins obviously knocked it out of the park with their top pick in 2016, when they selected Charlie McAvoy at No. 14 overall. Jake DeBrusk -- with 92 goals and 84 assists for the Bruins -- has worked out, even if some better players were taken after him in 2015. But the rest of the first-round picks in that span -- Jakub Zboril, Zach Senyshyn, Trent Frederic, and Urho Vaakanainen -- haven't panned out the way the Bruins would have liked.  Vaakanainen and Senyshyn have been traded to other organizations, Zboril has skated in 54 NHL games, and Frederic has 12 goals with 11 assists in 119 career games.

Working the second-round picks into the mix, Brandon Carlo has played a lot for the Bruins, while the rest of that group -- Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson, Jeremy Lauzon, Ryan Lindgren, Jack Studnicka, Axel Andersson -- have not. Lauzon was lost in the expansion draft, Forsbacka-Karlsson left to play in his native Sweden after posting nine points in 29 NHL games, Lindgren was traded to the Rangers in the Rick Nash deal before ever playing for Boston, Studnicka has seven points in 37 career games, and Andersson is now in the Ducks organization, traded in the Ondrej Kase/David Backes swap.

That Kase trade also sent a first-round pick to the Ducks, one of three first-round picks sent away by Sweeney. (The Rick Nash trade and the Hampus Lindholm trade involved the departure of a first-round pick.) Sweeney's also sent out five second-round picks and five third-round picks, making it a taller task for the Bruins to build their roster through the draft. 

Expanding the picture to include 2019, when they took John Beecher with their top pick, the Bruins clearly aren't getting much in the way of contributions from draft picks.

The Athletic also recently ranked the Bruins at No. 32 -- dead last in the NHL -- in their pipeline ranking system.

Nevertheless, Neely -- who fired head coach Bruce Cassidy while keeping Sweeney as GM this offseason -- doesn't see the Bruins as having an issue in that regard.

"Every GM in the league makes mistakes," Neely said. "We're going to continue to make mistakes. But hopefully we learn from those mistakes and limit those mistakes, and I think Don has certainly evolved in the last few years, our scouting staff has evolved. We certainly have high expectations and high standards, but mistakes are gonna happen. But I don't think it's as bad as what the narrative is out there."

The most fair encapsulation of the scenario is to conclude that Sweeney is more comfortable sending away draft picks in order to acquire varying levels of established talents than he is at making impactful selections in the draft. He's also handed out unfortunately large contracts to players like Nick Foligno, David Backes, Matt Beleskey, and John Moore, among others, which further exacerbates the lack of help coming through the draft in a salary-cap league.

Yet for a team with the resources of the Bruins, it seems to work decently enough, as evidenced by their six straight playoff appearances and their run to the Cup Final in 2019.

But unfortunately for Neely, it's not a "narrative" that the Bruins have struggled to build their roster through the draft under Sweeney.