{"id":591857,"date":"2026-04-09T05:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T05:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591857\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T05:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T05:45:09","slug":"bruins-sign-james-hagens-to-entry-level-contract-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591857\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins Sign James Hagens To Entry-Level Contract \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

5:00 p.m.:\u00a0The team over at PuckPedia revealed <\/a>the details of Hagens\u2019 three-year, entry-level contract:<\/p>\n

Year
\nNHL Salary
\nSigning bonus
\nPotential performance bonuses
\nMinors salary<\/p>\n

2025-26
\n$877.5K
\n$97.5K
\n$12.5K
\n$85K<\/p>\n

2026-27
\n$877.5K
\n$97.5K
\n$1MM
\n$85K<\/p>\n

2027-28
\n$877.5K
\n$97.5K
\n$1MM
\n$85K<\/p>\n

3:00 p.m.: The Bruins signed top center prospect James Hagens<\/a>\u00a0to a three-year, entry-level contract on Wednesday, per a team press release<\/a>. The contract begins immediately and carries a prorated cap hit of $975K.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hagens, last year\u2019s seventh overall pick out of Boston College, made the decision to turn pro weeks ago. The B\u2019s didn\u2019t want him to jump straight to the NHL roster, though, so they opted to sign him to an amateur tryout<\/a> instead so he could report to AHL Providence. If he had signed his entry-level deal with immediate effect at that time, he wouldn\u2019t have been eligible for an AHL assignment. Signing him to the ATO first allowed Boston to give him a run-up period in Providence before joining the NHL squad.<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s signed, Hagens will remain on the NHL roster for the rest of the season and will be a playoff option for the Bruins if they choose to use him. He didn\u2019t look too out of place with Providence, recording a goal and three assists for four points with a -1 rating through his first six professional games.<\/p>\n

Hagens, the Bruins\u2019 consensus #1 prospect by a wide margin and the #8 prospect in the league entering the year according to Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff<\/a>, wrapped up his second and final season at Boston College last month when the Eagles failed to make the national tournament. That wasn\u2019t for a lack of trying on Hagens\u2019 part. Once viewed as the likely first overall selection in the 2025 class, he slipped several slots because of concerns about his 5\u201911\u201d, 193-lb frame and his point-per-game freshman season at BC that left a little to be desired offensively. Most of those concerns have been quieted now as Hagens led the Hockey East conference in scoring with a 23-24\u201347 scoring line in 37 games, also leading the conference with six game-winners and 133 shots on goal.<\/p>\n

While Hagens didn\u2019t finish as a top-three finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, given to the best player in college hockey, he was one of the top 10 names in voting. He was also one of the offensive nexuses of the United States team that took home gold at the 2025 World Juniors back in his draft year, recording five goals and nine points in seven games there.<\/p>\n

The Bruins have essentially locked themselves into the first wild-card spot in the East. They haven\u2019t mathematically clinched a playoff berth yet, but only have a 20% chance of dropping to the second wild-card slot and only a 1.2% chance of falling out of the playoff picture entirely, per MoneyPuck<\/a>. Boston hasn\u2019t won a game this month and is 0-2-2 in its last four, though. They got an offensive burst last night, scoring five in an overtime loss to the Hurricanes, but had only scored one goal each in their prior three contests.<\/p>\n

Many of the team\u2019s top support pieces to the ever-reliable\u00a0David Pastr\u0148\u00e1k<\/a>\u00a0have been on cold streaks.\u00a0Morgan Geekie<\/a>\u2018s hat trick last night was his first goals in 18 games and his first points of the month.\u00a0Elias Lindholm<\/a>\u00a0only has nine points in 18 games dating back to the trade deadline. There was a clear need for a bit of a spark in Boston\u2019s middle six, where Hagens will presumably get a few trials over the team\u2019s final three games to determine whether they should use him in their playoff lineup.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Kirby Lee-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5:00 p.m.:\u00a0The team over at PuckPedia revealed the details of Hagens\u2019 three-year, entry-level contract: Year NHL Salary Signing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[740,43,21200,44,4247,41,39,42,40,4584],"class_list":{"0":"post-591857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-boston-bruins","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-james-hagens","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newsstand","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-transactions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}