The Bruins Problem that Nobody is Talking About

It's a good time to be a Bruins fan. They've gone to the Stanley Cup twice in the last three years, have been perennially among the top teams in the league, and they have a well-built core that suggests they will be contenders for years to come.

Most, if not all of the credit to this must be to GM Peter Chiarelli. His vision and knack for talent has given him the tools to build one of the deepest, most well rounded teams in hockey.

However, there is a problem that nobody is talking about.

The Bruins, under Chiarelli, have had a fundamentally flawed system in assessing talent and developing their young players, which has led to prospects burning out, being traded, and sometimes never developing into NHL caliber players.

For example, since being signed in 2006, Chiarelli has drafted 42 players in 8 drafts. He didn't select for the Bruins in 2006 because he was still tied to Ottawa; Interim GM Jeff Gorton did the draft. Guess how many of those 42 are on the Bruins roster today?

Two. Caron and Hamilton. The only other two on an NHL roster are Seguin and Lane Macdermid, who isn't a starter on Dallas' team.

Let's delve a little deeper here. In the 7 drafts he was responsible for, here are the first round picks:
2007: Zach Hamill. Never developed. Played in 20 career games, recording 4 assists before being traded to Washington for Chris Bourque.
2008: Joe Colborne. Part of the Kaberle deal in 2011, the 23 year old has been traded twice and has just now earned a roster spot on Calgary's thin, re-building team.
2009: Jordan Caron. Has yet to truly earn a roster spot, hasn't produced in either the NHL or AHL.
2010: Tyler Seguin. Traded to Dallas after being a key piece of the Cup roster and is now a point-per-game player.
2011: Dougie Hamilton: Just 20, he has produced 22 points in 55 games as a defenseman.
2012: Malcom Subban. Too soon to tell if he will develop yet.
2013: No first round pick due to Jagr trade.

So three picks are busts, one pick was a "gimme" at 2nd overall, one is a starter, and the other is too early to judge. That's not a very good track record for the draft.

Here's are some more interesting statistics. As stated before, the Bruins only have 1 defenseman on their roster that they drafted (who wasn't yet on the team when they won.) A look at the other recent winners shows that the Blackhawks have 4 defensemen on their team they drafted, the Kings have 4, the Penguins have 4 and the Red Wings have 6. All but the 2010 Blackhawks won with a starting goalie they drafted except for the Bruins.

So what does this mean?

It's simple. Peter Chiarelli is not a good drafter.

So why are the Bruins so good?

Well, for what PC lacks in drafting skills, he makes up for in trades. He has made some unbelievable steals of trades and routinely makes opposing GMs look foolish. Here are some of his best moves:

2006: Andrew Raycroft for Tuukka Rask
2007: Matt Hendricks for Johnny Boychuk
2009: Martins Karsums, Matt Lashoff for Mark Recchi, 2nd round pick
2009: Phil Kessel for (2) 1st round picks and 2nd round pick (Seguin/Hamilton/Knight)
2010: Byron Bitz, Craig Weller, 2nd round pick for Dennis Seidenberg, Matt Bartkowski
2010: Dennis Wideman, 1st round pick for Nathan Horton, Gregory Campbell

Each of these trades makes him look like a genius, and you can actually trace the lineage of how this roster was built. He took the core of guys drafted before him (Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci, Lucic), made some big signings (Savard, Chara, Thomas, Krug, Iginla) and built one of the best structured teams in hockey.

However, they are terrible at drafting players and assessing young talent. If I'm Cam Neely or even Jeremy Jacobs, I'm looking at these numbers and asking Chiarelli why his draft-to-roster ratio is a paltry 4.7%. Are we picking the wrong players? Are we doing a poor job of developing them in our system? Why are these numbers so low?

Of course, the only things that matter to an owner are dollar bills and championship, most often intertwined. So generally speaking, Jacobs and CO. have to be pleased with Chiarelli. But any successful businessman will say that it's the little things that count, and if you aren't constantly trying to improve your business practices in every way then you're already 10 steps behind the competition.