{"id":11641,"date":"2025-07-21T20:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T20:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11641\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T20:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T20:18:08","slug":"bruins-coach-gushes-over-decision-to-draft-james-hagens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11641\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins Coach Gushes Over Decision To Draft James Hagens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Boston Bruins walked away from the <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/07\/bruins-rookie-william-moore-thoughts-landing-boston-extremely-clear\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025 NHL Draft with seven new players<\/a> on their team, with the highlight of their draft class being Boston College Eagles center James Hagens, who was selected with the No. 7 overall pick.<\/p>\n<p>Hagens <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/07\/where-bruins-james-hagens-ranks-among-top-nhl-prospects\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">projects to be a future anchor<\/a> in the middle of Boston\u2019s first line for years to come, which is precisely what this team needs. That\u2019s especially true for the center position, as the Bruins have struggled to find consistent production from this spot in the wake of Patrice Bergeron\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n<p>If all goes according to plan, Hagens could become the team\u2019s next great center. Many folks are high on Hagens\u2019 potential, including Providence Bruins assistant coach Ryan Bourque, who <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NESN\/status\/1947348893131321434\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">worked with<\/a> Boston\u2019s new star prospect during his time with the US National Team Development Program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a charming kid, he\u2019s super popular in the room, he\u2019s motivated,\u201d Bourque said on \u201cThe Hockey Hub.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s one of those kids that, he goes out there and it\u2019s like he\u2019s going on the pond every single day. It\u2019s just a natural detail in his game through practice and in games as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe U-18 tournament in Finland, it was some of the best hockey that I\u2019ve seen at that age level. He\u2019s the type of player that he has the puck the entire game, but he\u2019s not a selfish player.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>In his first season with Boston College, Hagens tallied 11 goals and 26 assists in 37 games, earning him a spot on the Hockey East All-Rookie team. While he just got drafted by the Bruins, Hagens will likely spend at least one more season in college with the Eagles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of excitement surrounding Hagens\u2019 arrival in Boston, and that includes from Bourque. It may take him some time to develop, as he\u2019s still only 18 years old, but if all goes according to plan, he will become a key piece in the Bruins\u2019 long-term future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Bruins walked away from the 2025 NHL Draft with seven new players on their team, with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,13524,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-11641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-james-hagens","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}