7. Boston Bruins

If it seems like we’re running into a lot of teams who for a long time were Stanley Cup contenders that wound up in the lottery, you’d be right, and the Bruins are definitely one of those teams.

The Bruins are an older team that’s not going to get younger and their prospect pool is kiddie pool shallow now. An aging team with no younger players to join the ranks is a terrible mix and the Bruins must be deeply aware of that by now. That said, if GM Don Sweeney gets caught in the same cycle the Penguins have been in the past few years with a team where their star players are getting older and they’re trying to keep hope of another Cup run alive, it’s a pick that could be in danger of being traded.

There’s no reason for the Bruins to do something so rash, especially because if they don’t start adding young talent now, it’ll only get a lot tougher for longer later. The draft will be wide open beyond the top-three picks but at seven they’ll still be able to land a very good player for the future. Unless they fumble things the way they did with the three straight first-round picks they had in 2015.