Bruins go all American in NHL Draft

The Bruins have been known to go against the grain in the amateur draft — with some famously mixed results. But the B’s again went confidently on their own path on Wednesday, drafting 6-foot-4, 200-pound left defenseman Mason Lohrei with their first pick in the draft, 58th overall.

The B’s are clearly hoping Lohrei is a late bloomer. The Green Bay Gambler was passed over in his first year of draft eligibility last year and was not ranked by the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau at the midway point of last season before coming in at the 132nd spot among North American skaters in the final rankings.

With good reach, mobility and work ethic, Lohrei’s got some offensive pop. He was second on the Gamblers in scoring last season with 8-29-37 totals.

“I felt like I was being overlooked but it’s the way things go,” said Lohrei. “I was never on any of the central scouting’s (lists) until the final one this season. I think, when coaches and scouts get in the rink and they see a player, it’s a whole lot different. You get to meet them and they get a feel for who you are as a person and what your game is like. I wouldn’t say it was a struggle not being on lists or not getting drafted. I just kept my head down and went to work every day because I knew that this would come. And here we are. I couldn’t be happier.”

Son of ECHL coach David Lohrei, Lohrei was born in Baton Rouge, La., and moved to Reading, Pa., before winding up in Wisconsin. He’ll be headed to Ohio State next year.

Judging by the interactions he had with some front office types, Lohrei wasn’t as surprised as some others that he went so high to the Bruins.

“I had really good conversations with a bunch of different guys,” said Lohrei. “I had probably a 35, 40-minute phone call with (GM Don) Sweeney at one point this summer. A lot of good things. I had a good feeling. I was confident but you never know what is going to happen in the draft. Obviously, a dream come true to get picked to the Boston Bruins, an Original Six organization. It’s kind of just surreal right now.”

The B’s went the same route with their second pick, taking second-year eligible center Trevor Kuntar in the third round with the 89th pick. Kuntar posted 28-25-53 totals in 44 games for the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL. He had planned on going to Harvard, but with the Crimson going all online for school, Kuntar switched course and is now at Boston College.

The Williamsville, N.Y., native, known to play with some edge, compares his game to those of Jamie Benn and Matthew Tkachuk. Getting passed over in last year’s draft did nothing to shrink the chip on his shoulder.

“Yeah, it was definitely super motivating. I’ll never forget that day for the rest of my life. I thought about that day every day and that’s one of the things that motivated me to keep pushing and keep going,” said Kuntar.

Director of amateur scouting Ryan Nadeau explained what made the first two players more interesting the second time around.

“We certainly on both players have seen some growth. I’ll start with Mason Lohrei. Physically, there’s a lot of growth to the player. He’s gotten significantly bigger. He’s a player that has somewhat recently transitioned from forward to defense and then made the jump from Culver (Military Academy) right into a USHL team. We really liked the way that he made that transition and his game continued to grow over the course of the year,” said Nadeau. “On Trevor Kuntar, he was in Youngstown last year and had a solid year. In watching him year over year, the continued growth to his game, his skating has improved and he just worked hard and he’s just constantly a kid who’s really abrasive to play against. That continued this year and we’re very intrigued by the growth he’s had. So those are two players who really fit what we were looking for.”

The B’s stayed in the family with the 151st pick, selecting defenseman Mason Langenbrunner, son of B’s director of player development Jamie Langenbrunner. The younger Langenbrunner, a 6-foot-2, 165-pound right-shot D-man, is committed to Harvard for 2021. He’s currently training with Sioux City in the USHL but may go back to Eden Prairie High School, depending on what the pandemic will allow the Minnesota schools to do.

Langenbrunner was the B’s runner at the 2017 draft, handing Urho Vaakanainen his jersey.

“Going back through all the interviews and last spring when the draft was originally supposed to happen in June, the people I talked to in the organization just kept repeating that, ‘This isn’t because your dad is working here. We love you as a player,’ ” said Langrunbrunner.

With the 182nd pick, the B’s went local, taking Woburn’s Riley Duran, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound center who went to Lawrence Academy and is now playing for Youngstown in the USHL. He’s committed to Providence College for next year. He was ecstatic over being taken by his hometown team.

“When I saw my name, I think I legit blacked out,” said Duran.

The B’s traded their last pick at 213 to Toronto for a 2021 seventh-rounder.

Sweeney now turns his attention to the free-agent and trade markets. With the flat cap-induced financial crunch across the league, the free-agent market has grown as teams decided not to qualify some legitimate NHL players. The likes of Andreas Athanasiou and Anthony Duclair are joining players like Taylor Hall and Tyler Toffoli as well as a big goalie market. The market opens on Friday.

“Ultimately, I’d like to improve our club. We’ve tried to look at our roster and explored some opportunities over the past three weeks. It hasn’t come to fruition that we’ve changed anybody at this point in time. We may, there’s just been a lot of conversations going on about the financial aspects and the landscape and how things are going to look. Some teams have made some moves on that regard. We’re trying to look at it from a wide lens and realistically, knowing that our club has to improve,” said Sweeney. “You’re seeing a new non-QO market emerge. You have to assess where those players fall into it. Maybe a little bit of an excess supply. There’s a tremendous amount of goalie talk out there, so I think the pieces to the puzzle are uncertain as to when we start and how all those things factor together. We know we have a good hockey club where we’re at. We’d like to get better. We’d like to improve. We’re not as good as we need to be. That’s the bottom line. We’re going to explore absolutely everything, but there are some financial constraints. I think our club and our cap situation is pretty good right now, but you can tip that upside down in a hurry.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2Sy8O1M