Draft pick watch: Bruins' lottery odds improve after sixth straight loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

When the Boston Bruins traded away several veteran players, including captain Brad Marchand, before the March 7 NHL trade deadline, they had the ninth-worst record in the league based on points percentage.

Fast forward to Monday, March 24, and the B’s are tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins for the seventh-worst record after another embarrassing loss Sunday night. The Los Angeles Kings extended the Bruins’ losing streak to six games with a 7-2 victory over the Original Six franchise.

If Bruins management was hoping for a post-trade deadline downturn that would improve the team’s chances in the 2025 NHL Draft lottery, it has come to fruition so far.

This is the worst Bruins team since the 2015-16 squad that missed the playoffs. Sunday’s defeat marked the 12th time Boston has allowed six or more goals in a game this season, the most for the team since the 2006-07 campaign, per 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Ty Anderson.

Moving up two spots in the lottery order over the last few weeks might not feel like a massive jump, but it would be hugely beneficial to the Bruins to end up with the No. 7 overall pick in the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft compared to the No. 9 pick.

The Bruins desperately need an infusion of elite-level young talent to bolster what is considered one of the three-worst prospect pools in the league. This draft has plenty of good centers in the top 15 picks, and that’s a position Boston very much needs to upgrade.

What are the chances of the Bruins falling further in the standings? Well, they would really have to collapse, and get some help from other teams, to fall a few more spots.

The fifth-worst record — currently occupied by the Philadelphia Flyers, based on points percentage — is probably the furthest the B’s could drop. However, the Bruins have the sixth-easiest remaining schedule in the league from now through the end of the regular season, so there are a bunch more winnable games still left for this team.

If the Bruins do finish with the seventh-worst record — which is where they stand today (tied with the Penguins) — here are the odds they’d have in the draft lottery, per Tankathon.

• No. 1 pick: 6.5 percent
• No. 2 pick: 6.7 percent
• No. 3 pick: 0.2 percent
• No. 7 pick: 44.4 percent
• No. 8 pick: 36.5 percent
• No. 9 pick: 5.6 percent

The Bruins could jump up as high as No. 1 or fall as low as No. 9 in the lottery if they finish with the seventh-worst record.

There isn’t much left for the Bruins to play for over the final 10 games of the regular season. The best outcome for the B’s over this span would be to lose as many games as possible and then get lucky in the draft lottery next month.

Jonathan Kovacevic left the Montreal Canadiens last offseason when Kent Hughes sent him to the New Jersey Devils in a swap that saw the Habs land a fourth-round pick in 2026. Since then, the right-shot defenseman has earned a regular spot in the Devils’ top four, forming a pair with Brian Dumoulin and signing a 5-year contract with a $4M cap hit.

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The Devils were having a good season, but things got a bit more complicated lately, with superstar Jack Hughes suffering a season-ending injury, just like defenseman Dougie Hamilton. New Jersey is 4-6-0 in its last 10 games and now only has 80 points, ranking third in the Metropolitan division.

After another loss on Saturday night, this time against the Ottawa Senators, Kovacevic spoke to the media and said:

We’re in a fight, and hopefully, that will get us to that playoffs mentality. We’re 10 or 11 games out, and we carry that into the playoffs, so…yeah, obviously, the results are tough, but we’re in a fight here, and we won’t back down.

His declaration was relayed to the Devils’ coach, Sheldon Kiefe, and the journalist didn’t have time to finish relaying it before he cut him off, saying:

Kovacevic just needs to play better. That would help.

This is not exactly the kind of comment a player likes to hear from his coach, but we’ve seen much worse in Montreal, this is nowhere near Michel Therrien throwing P.K. Subban under the bus after a turnover led to a defeat against the Colorado Avalanche:

We played hard, and I thought we played a very solid game; it’s too bad an individual mistake cost the game late in the game. […] As a coach, I thought he could have made a better decision at the blueline and move the puck behind, and he put himself in that position. […] We play as a team, and unfortunately at the end of the game, when we don’t play as a team with get in trouble and that’s what happens.

In three and a half years behind the Canadiens’ bench, we’ve yet to see Martin St-Louis do that to any of his players, and I don’t think we will see it. When he’s disappointed, he generally says he needs to look at the tape and address what needs to be addressed with the right person in due course.

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