Bruins coach talks lineup decisions as Hagens watch continues

The ready sport continues for Bruins blue-chip prospect James Hagens and his arrival to the professional ranks.  

Hagens’ sophomore season at Boston Faculty ended on Friday during the Hockey East semifinals, opening the door for the seventh decide within the 2025 NHL Draft to signal a professional cope with the Bruins.

To date, the 19-year-old ahead has but to place pen to paper on a contract with the Bruins.

​Whereas Hagens might conceivably return to the Eagles for a junior marketing campaign at Chestnut Hill, the playmaking ahead has little left to show on the collegiate sport.

He took one other step ahead in 2025-26, recording 47 factors (23 targets, 24 assists) over 34 video games whereas serving to BC win its first Beanpot title since 2016.

Hagens — a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award — is probably going finest served making the soar to the professional sport this spring.

However the place precisely he begins his profession could be inflicting the delay in his potential arrival to the Bruins’ group.

Hagens might simply signal his entry-level cope with Boston and report on to the Bruins, probably giving Boston’s ahead corps a spark with 12 video games left within the regular-season slate.

Maintaining him up within the NHL ranks for the remainder of the common season (and into the postseason) opens the door for Boston burning the primary yr of his entry-level deal proper out of the gate.

That may get Hagens a yr nearer to a pay increase when his ELC expires, however it could be the price of doing enterprise if the proficient skater hits the ice working on the NHL stage this spring. ​

In fact, the Bruins may want placing Hagens on an identical path because the one which Charlie McAvoy went on when he made the soar from Boston College to the professional ranks in 2017.​

McAvoy initially signed an newbie tryout (ATO) contract with the Windfall Bruins after closing out his sophomore season with the Terriers in March 2017, with the gifted blueliner getting some expertise in opposition to AHL competitors  after two years in Hockey East.

It wasn’t till accidents decimated Boston’s D corps going into the Stanley Cup Playoffs that the Bruins signed McAvoy to his ELC and elevated him as much as the NHL for a first-round bout with the Senators. The remainder is historical past.

The Bruins may wish to see how Hagens fares in Windfall first earlier than throwing him right into a high-stakes playoff race over the subsequent few weeks.

In fact, Hagens and his representatives might not be too eager on a pitstop in Windfall — probably resulting in a stalemate that might drag out these contract talks.

Because the Bruins and Hagens proceed to chart one of the best path shifting ahead, Bruins head coach  Marco Sturm acknowledged on Monday that he doesn’t have any qualms about placing youthful gamers within the lineup — as long as they’re as much as the duty.

“It’s all the time a problem for everybody. Relies upon somewhat bit too what sort of age you’re in. So the great factor is with me, over the previous — particularly in [the Kings’ AHL affiliate] Ontario — I all the time had school youngsters coming in,” Sturm stated. “They’re school youngsters they usually by no means performed in opposition to males.

“So it’s all the time a problem. However, I didn’t see an issue as a result of I really feel like within the league typically, it’s a part of the sport now. … There’s so many guys now. It’s virtually prefer it’s a part of the sport now, having — this time of the yr — school youngsters coming in.”

 

Conor Ryan is a employees author overlaying the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Purple Sox for Boston.com, a job he has held since 2023.