Exclusive 1-on-1: Don Sweeney Says Drafting Players Is “Not A Sprint”

Exclusive 1-on-1: Don Sweeney Says Drafting Players Is “Not A Sprint”

don you just finished general media availability asked lots of questions about the upcoming draft one of your answers that you made very clear was you’re looking for the best player not a positional player i don’t know if this is possible to predict but when you say best player are you do you have enough patience that it might take them three years four years to develop or do you mean best player sooner than later
no i think we have to have an eye towards the best player who you know when and if he gets to the national hockey league obviously you don’t want the if in that case when you’re picking in the top part of the draft you realize you have to take a player that you forecast of being you know having an impact have the ability to impact the nhl lineup that doesn’t mean year one sometimes it’s not even year two you know you get into year three and you’re hoping that that you know the development has taken a natural course but everybody sort of matures physically and mentally at a different at a different rate um it’s not a sprint right you know we want the longevity and and the biggest impact we could find
you also mentioned having your draft board ready you can’t control what other uh teams are doing obviously i’m someone who has decision paralysis so this stuff stresses me out very very much i don’t know how you guys do it but you have a big team scouts and and yourself when you’re making the final decision how prepared can you be with so many moving parts like picking seventh and possible trades happening right before the moment how prepared can you be is it if your player that you wanted is taken off the list you’re just going to the next one or is it always a kind of a shuffle when when moves are made no for the most part uh when you’re drafting up up near the top you have a a hard list that that you’re you’re going to stick to um as you go through the draft there’s some opportunities at times where um a run might happen in a positional goalie run a d run something of that nature that you you sort of like well should we be a little more aggressive if we if we were going to take a d with one pick maybe we jump it up and and realize that that that player might not be available every once in a while that happens but ideally these guys have worked in a lot of times almost two full years to put together the list of players and uh and we try and stick to the script
awesome uh last one a lot of fans are wondering now that after the trade deadline you acquired so many picks and they’re valuable assets are you willing to uh trade some of those for a player that can make an impact right now
the simple answer is yes it would it would require a lot for us to move off of seven um you know but there’s some opportunities to move back that we would consider uh again now you’re bringing in more variables of what players are going to be available and how far you’re willing to move back and and forecast what that player currently you know that you’ve would acquire the impact he’s going to have so probably a little harder when you’re in the top part but not out of the realm we we’ve we’ve obviously had discussions with some teams that are are are trying to be aggressive to move up and and we look at it like well if we can get a similar player and how far back that is plus another player we have to be considering these things
all right well good luck and we’ll talk to you on friday
thanks thank

Don Sweeney spoke after the Bruins Pre-Draft Press Conference about choosing the best possible player, preparing for player draft availability changes, and the potential of trading away players acquired at the trade deadline.