With James Hagens, Boston Bruins add a potential franchise cornerstone

Heading into last season, two ideas seemed obvious. First, the Boston Bruins were in desperate need of a future first-line center to fill the hole left by future Hall-of-Famer Patrice Bergeron after his retirement in 2023. Second, Boston College forward James Hagens was poised to be a top draft pick this summer and by some accounts could be the best player available. 

But what has transpired since created a perfect storm of sorts for the Bruins of 2025-26 and beyond. The B’s drastically underperformed in the 2024-25 season and fell into draft lottery position. Concurrently, Hagens’ draft stock fell after his first season at the NCAA level cast some suspicious doubt on his game.

Whether fair or not, Hagens was judged against his own standards, despite being barely eighteen years old and still producing a point-per-game average for one of the best teams in college hockey.

An argument could be made that had Hagens instead played in the Canadian Hockey League against people his age like some of his fellow first round picks, that perhaps the young Long Island native would have put up numbers similar to 2023-24 when participating in the United States National Team Development program - a campaign in which Hagens tallied 171 points in 91 games across three competitions. 

Make no mistake, Hagens is still a very young player and any NHL projections are nothing but hypothetical. At 5’10” he may end up being an NHL winger rather than a center. However, given the fact that he will return to Boston College and continue to grow and develop, one can only wonder if Hagens will get himself into the Hobey Baker conversation next season. There’s a reason why his hometown New York Islanders tried to trade up for him and why he is already considered to be a steal at number seven overall.

To make matters even better for Boston, he’ll be close by at BC next season playing alongside 2024 Bruins first-round pick Dean Letourneau and possibly 2025 second-round pick William Moore, just to name a few. Team President Cam Neely and General Manager Don Sweeney can only be impressed at this situation and the possibility that the Bruins next franchise cornerstone is only a few miles and years away.