Brown Bears Should Consider Drafting Jake O’Brien’s Seventh – Hockey Writer – Boston Brown Bears

The 2025 NHL enters the first round of the draft will be held on June 27, with the Boston Bruins ranking seventh. It’s a strange territory for the Bruins, and they haven’t chosen such a high place since 2010. The last time they were in the top ten was a year later, choosing Dougie Hamilton in ninth place. These picks are in a period when the Brown Bears are a rising strong, and both options are the deal that brings Phil Kessel to Toronto Maple Leafs to make luxury.

This time, the Bruins are not the team at the forefront of the Stanley Cup running. They are in the process of improvement, looking for cornerstone talents to speed up the process. For this reason, the Brown Bears need to handle it correctly this time and attract a player who is not only suitable for their needs, but is more suitable for driving the franchise. Enter Jake O’Brien.

The most prominent feature that O’Brien brings to the table is his ability to dominate entertainment. Located in Toronto, Ontario, the 6-foot-2-foot-weight, 170-pound center offers game-changing passing skills that only his usual impressive vision is complemented by. O’Brien has an NHL-sized framework that he needs to add quality, but when he gets into the NHL training room, it’s not a problem. Along with his elite gaming abilities, the right ball center also offers a good shot, which forces the defender to respect him instead of cheating at his teammates and shutting the pass lane.

In addition to offensive ability, O’Brien is also a strong passer, excellent vision and obvious stick skills, and is also a very powerful defender. Since veterans retired in 2023, Brown Bears have been trying to fill Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci’s shoes, and while they won’t be able to replace them, O’Brien offers a skill that can help offset some of the losses. When players offer so many powerful, proven traits and also show a high level of character, coaching, accountability and captain qualities, it’s hard not to be excited about what you can turn into a situation.

His total pass count was impressive in 2023-24, with the Brantford Bulldogs just like the Brantford Bulldogs, who then 16-year-old scored 51 assists and 64 points in just 61 games. O’Brien also added 4 assists and 5 points in six playoff games that season. His assists in his second season with the Bulldogs will rise from 51 to 66, but his goal total jump from 13 of his sophomore campaign to 32, which does stand out and promote him from a potential late-stage first-round draft pick to the player team, which must be seriously considered. It’s no joke to score 32 goals and 98 points in 66 games, adding 3 goals and 11 points in 11 playoff games, which shows that the stage will never be too big for him.

How O’Brien fits in Bruins’ blueprint

If O’Brien is ranked seventh in the draft, it will be hard for them to find a better value pick to help them get controversial. While it is unlikely that he will jump to the NHL immediately and become an OHL contributor immediately, it is impossible not to ignore how O’Brien improves the team based on their current flaws. Adding a powerful two-way player to the lineup can be both a scorer and a playmaker, which is enough to get any team to notice. However, it should immediately trigger some Brown Bears’ alarm when O’Brien received an impressive 40 power-play assists in 66 games last season.

When the Brown Bears were most successful in their actions over the past decade or so, they always found themselves in the top 10 and were usually in the NHL’s top five in terms of power success and fine kill success. Unfortunately, the Bruins will be ranked 29th in the NHL with a bleak percentage of power effects of 15.2. Their free throw kills were not good, with the team killing only 76.3% of free throws last season, putting them at the lowest 10th in the league and 24th in total.

Related: 3 Bear Predictions for the 2025 NHL Draft

While ideally it would be not an issue for O’Brien when he was promoted to the NHL now, it’s nice to see him fix some of these issues. Nevertheless, the team should draft based on the best talent and not the current needs, so these should be just gravy, not the reason they chose him.

O’Brien is a great and smooth skater with a lack of elite over the category. He doesn’t have the highest speeds of some of his peers, but he can still get the job done. His ability to stand out will be another area of ​​improvement, perhaps the biggest area that O’Brien needs to perfect and improve technology. On Bergeron and Bruins of Krejci, the team doesn’t have to worry about winning the standoff. O’Brien offers a lot of advantages, but his ability in DOT will need to improve, especially after winning a draw of only 44.7% last season. Other notable things about O’Brien are that as a pass-first center, he often takes off shots and prefers to pass. Not a deal-breaker, but his coaching staff must drill in his brain as early as possible.

The Brown Bear needs skilled players who provide strong IQ and two-way abilities. O’Brien has some work to improve his game, but when the Bruins are in seventh place, the Bruins may have performed much worse than him. When everything was said and done, it was no surprise to see O’Brien pick O’Brien earlier than seventh. The Bruins will have options on draft night, especially in the very strong center class on the top.