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The Boston Bruins aren’t rebuilding.

Sure, captain Zdeno Chara is nearing the end of an illustrious career. But other key components – Tuukka Rask, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, and Dougie Hamilton – are all on the right side of 30. This core has time to win together again.

Ex-GM Peter Chiarelli’s regime oversaw a series of underrated drafts that provided the team with high-quality stars and trade chips. Strong drafting, especially early in the draft, provided the Bruins with currents stars and the pieces needed to make high-profile, sometimes-successful deals.

However, through trades and NHL promotions, the Bruins’ prospect pool is now somewhat shallow and uneven. At the start of the season, Hockey’s Future rated the Bruins’ farm system 22nd in the league, and explained the team’s weaknesses like this:

The Bruins do not possess a lot of depth on the blue line outside of Morrow and Boston University captain Matt Grzelcyk. Many of the older forward prospects in the Bruins system have had difficulty adapting to the NHL level or have not lived up to their offensive potential.

As the Bruins ponder the options for their next general manager, here’s a look at the Bruins’ track record at the draft table during the Chiarelli era. How did the Bruins compare to the NHL average when identifying draft-worthy players during the Chiarelli era? Let’s take a deeper look.

Methodology

Before diving in, let’s set some groundwork for evaluating the players selected by Boston Bruins during the Chiarelli draft years; 2006-2014.

First, players drafted since 2012 are still 21-years-old or younger. These prospects are mostly too young to evaluate as they are still early in the development process.

Second, some context is needed to set a standard. We’ll borrow from TSN’s Scott Cullen. He writes that forwards picked in the first round have a 73.5 percent chance of playing 100 games or more. The percentage drops to 70.6 percent for defensemen and drops further to 50 percent for goalies.

Cullen adds data for the remaining rounds, writing:

Beyond the first round, there is better than a 34.0% chance that a second-round pick (31-60) plays 100 NHL games. This falls to about 29.3% of third-round (61-90) picks, 19.3% in the fourth round (91-120), 14.7% in the fifth round (121-150), 15.5% in the sixth round (151-180) and 9.2% in the seventh round (181-210).

Analyzing the 54 players drafted under Chiarelli’s watch definitely leaves lots of room for noise in Chiarelli’s draft history, especially when broken down to a round-by-round analysis. That’s worth keeping in mind as we check Chiarelli’s draft history.

First Round Success Rate

The Bruins scored a couple of stars with their first round picks during Chiarelli’s tenure as GM. Over the course of nine drafts, Boston hung on to their first choice eight times. In the time period we’re considering, their six choices include:

2006 – Phil Kessel (520 points in 668 games)

2007 – Zach Hamill (4 points in 20 games)

2008 – Joe Colborne (62 points in 160 games)

2009 – Jordan Caron (28 points in 153 games)

2010 – Tyler Seguin (282 points in 354 games)

2011 – Dougie Hamilton (83 points in 178 games)

Kessel, Seguin, and Hamilton are clearly successful selections. With more than 100 games played, and a slowly growing role in Calgary, Colborne is safe to include as a successful pick as well.

Hamill is an obvious bust. Caron, though past the 100 games threshold set in Cullen’s general standards, is a miss as well.

With 4/6 first round draft picks safely called successful, the Chiarelli regime scored on 67 percent of its first rounders. This is close enough to the 70 – 74 percent range described by Cullen as average.

Second Round Success Rate

In the drafts we’re reviewing, the Bruins have made seven second round picks:

2006 – Yuri Alexandrov (o pts, 0 gm)

2006 – Milan Lucic (342 pts in 566 gms)

2007 – Tommy Cross (0 pts, 0 gm)

2008 – Maxime Sauve (0 pts, 1 gm)

2010 – Ryan Spooner (29 pts in 56 gms)

2010 – Jared Knight (0 pts in 0 gms)

2011 – Alexander Khokhlachev (0 pts in 4 gms)

Alexandrov, Cross, Sauve, and Knight have never played an NHL game. They are re misses.

Spooner is regarded as the team’s best prospect at centre. Khokhlachev is Boston’s second-best centre prospect. Lucic has developed into a key power-forward and has won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins. All three players are hits.

Cullen notes a 36 percent chance of landing a 100-game player in the second round. Though only one of Chiarelli’s seven second-rounders has met that standard, Spooner and Khokhlachev are both reasonable bets to cross that threshold.

3/7 prospect hits gives Chiarelli and company a 43 percent success rate in the second round, which is better than average.

Third Round Success Rate

Love this game. #FistBumpKid @HammondsPlains @NHLBruins @Bmarch63 pic.twitter.com/axAaP8cNZI — Ben Jessome (@BenJessome) April 28, 2015

In the draft between 2006 and 2014, Chiarelli only drafted in the third round four times. The picks were:

2006 – Brad Marchand (228 pts in 377 gms)

2008 – Michael Hutchinson (23-11-5, .916 SV%, 2.33 GAA)

2009 – Ryan Button (0 pts in 0 gms)

2011 – Anthony Camara (0 pts in 0 gms)

Button is the only clear miss here. Camara has a “D” rank for probability of success at Hockey’s Future, which makes him a tough call as well. Hutchinson has developed into a solid 1B-type NHL starter. Marchand is a key component of the Bruins roster.

Even if Camara is left out, Chiarelli still connected on two of his four 3rd round choices – that 50 percent success rate outpaces the 29 percent NHL average drawn from Cullen’s draft pick study.

Fourth – Seventh Rounds Success Rate

Between the fourth and seventh round, teams stand a between a 10-19 percent chance of landing a 100-game NHLer. The probability is low enough to consider this group of draft choices together.

In all, Chiarelli made 20 picks in these rounds. No player selected has surpassed Craig Cunningham, who has played 51 NHL games and scored seven points. Sixth round pick Zane McIntyre ranks behind Malcolm Subban as the team’s next-best goalie prospect. He still has time to develop into an NHL-level netminder.

Justin Florek, Rob O’Gara, and Brian Ferlin, the best of the rest in the fourth-seventh rounds, are middling prospects – none of this group are sure bets to play 100 NHL games.

With McIntyre the surest prospect find out of the 20 selections, Chiarelli’s success rate in the late rounds of the draft is five percent. That is below league average.

Final Analysis

A playoff miss with an inconsistent team sunk Chiarelli this season. He’s moved on to Edmonton where his first draft choice as GM won’t be a tricky one.

Looking back, Chiarelli’s time in Boston draws a mixed review. His team won a Stanley Cup. His drafts were above average. His trade record has its spots as he was always willing to deal away his top prospects. Some of his most successful calls – Kessel, Seguin, and even Colborne – were all traded away. Ups and downs.

Yet Chiarelli’s draft record is strong – he and his scouts consistently identified future NHLers at an average or higher than average rate and have consistently drafted stars. Lucic, Marchand, Hamilton, Pastrnak and Subban are all homegrown stars or high-end prospects that remain in Boston.

The only knock on Chiarelli has been his inability to identify any NHL talent beyond the third round. But, on average, NHL GMs draft 100 game NHLers less than 19 percent of the time in the last four rounds. It’s a blemish but it’s small.

As the Bruins continue their search for a new candidate to handle Chiarelli’s old job, an emphasis on a draft-capable general manager will be key if Boston hopes to avoid sliding backwards into a rebuild.

What do you think, Bruins fans? Was it time for Chiarelli to move on or did he take too much blame for the lost 2014-15 season? Are you happy with the draft results under Chiarelli’s watch?