We saw swings and misses twice in Boston, the Bruins hitting leadoff in 1982 (Gord Kluzak) and 1997 (Joe Thornton). The big, talented Kluzak, a strapping defenseman, had his career curtailed at 299 games by a nagging knee. Jumbo Joe started slowly, began posting offensive bona fides well into his third season, then was abruptly wheeled to the Sharks Nov. 30, 2005, after totaling 454 points in 532 games with the Black and Gold.
Surrounded by a different, stronger roster ensemble, perhaps Thornton indeed would have become a first pick turned Stanley Cup-winning legend with the Bruins. We’ll never know. Unquestionably, his longevity (25 seasons) and point production (1,539) have a spot reserved for him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Of the 61 No. 1 picks in draft history, only 18, including most recently Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado, 2013), have gone on to play for Cup winners.
The first of those, goalie Michel Plasse (Canadiens, 1968), was a member of the 1973 Cup-winning Habs, though he played only 17 games that season and didn’t log a minute of playoff work. Coach Scotty Bowman left that job to his anchor goaltending talent by the name of Ken Dryden (originally a Bruins draft pick, No. 14, in 1964).
If the Sharks indeed select Celebrini No. 1, it’s possible he’ll one day add his name to the Cup list. Entering Game 4 of the Cup Final Saturday night, the brotherhood was guaranteed to grow by one or two this year, because the Panthers’ roster included Aaron Ekblad, whom they chose No. 1 in 2014, while the Oilers held a pair of draft aces, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011) and Connor McDavid (2015).
Thornton, by the way, tops all No. 1 picks for games played (1,714). He suited up for another 187 playoff games, also the most by a No. 1 pick, but the closest he came to the Cup was in 2016, when the Penguins clipped the Sharks, 4-2, in the Final.
The best No. 1 pick not to have his name on the Cup? Solid cases can be made for Thornton, Dale Hawerchuk (Winnipeg, 1981), Pierre Turgeon (Buffalo, 1987), and Mats Sundin (Quebec, 1989). The pick here: Gilbert Perreault (Buffalo, 1970).
A dynamic, dazzling centerman, Perreault pivoted the legendary French Connection Line flanked by Rene Robert and Richard Martin. Perreault scored 30 goals or more in 10 of his 17 seasons and finished with 512 goals and 1,326 points. He played in only one Cup Final, the Sabres losing to the Canadiens, 4-2, in 1975.
The Canucks had the second pick in 1970 and chose Dale Tallon, who decades later became the Panthers general manager (2010-20), his fading fingerprints on the club that Saturday night had the chance to win the franchise’s first Cup. The Bruins owned picks 3 and 4 in 1970 and chose Reggie Leach and Rick MacLeish, just weeks after Bobby Orr’s Cup-winning goal over the Blues.
Perreault, like Celebrini today, was considered the top pick going into the draft. But had the Sabres and Canucks hiccuped that day, Perreault surely would have landed in Boston, while Orr was in his prime and the rest of the Big Bad Bruins were at their swashbuckling best. How different those next 10-15 years might have played out with Perreault in Black and Gold.
IT’S IN YOUR HANDS
Sharks make surprise choice
Marshfield, hometown to Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, on Thursday added a second homeboy as NHL bench boss, the Sharks surprisingly choosing Ryan Warsofsky, 36, to stand guard over their on-ice rebuild.
Warsofsky, who played at Marshfield High and Cushing Academy, is a decidedly off-radar selection for GM Mike Grier, another Bay Stater, who hired Warsofsky two years earlier as an assistant on David Quinn’s staff.
Never drafted, Warsofsky played two collegiate seasons at Sacred Heart, two more at Curry College, and was only 24 when he launched his coaching career in the autumn of 2012 at Curry. In the season prior to joining Quinn’s staff, he coached AHL Chicago to the Calder Cup title — a season in which the Wolves suited up no fewer than eight goaltenders (contrary to rumors, AHL teams must defend only one net).
David Warsofsky, Ryan’s younger brother, played three seasons on the Boston University backline and spent four-plus seasons in the Bruins organization, most of it with AHL Providence. He suited up for 10 games on the varsity during Claude Julien’s long tenure.
Grier, after executing his painful two-year plan to strip down player payroll and assets, is taking a gamble with a neophyte NHL coach, a move few GMs would dare make. It is vaguely reminiscent to Tampa Bay turning to a relative unknown in Jon Cooper during the 2012-13 season, less than a year after Cooper, then 45, won the Calder Cup with Norfolk. Unlike Warsofsky, though, Cooper never had worked day to day in the NHL.
Cooper, remember, inherited a lineup with some exceptional young talent, including Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, as well as aging stars Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier. Even then, it was Cooper’s seventh season before the Lightning won their first of what would be back-to-back Cup titles (2020, ‘21). Cooper’s Lightning also lost to Joel Quenneville’s Blackhawks in the 2015 Cup Final.
Warsofsky’s task with Team Teal looks far more daunting. In less than two weeks, Grier is expected to bring Celebrini aboard as the No. 1 pick. Warsofsky also will have talented collegiate forwards Will Smith (Boston College, Lexington) and Collin Graf (Quinnipiac, Lincoln) to integrate. Otherwise, there isn’t much there there on the roster.
It’s possible Grier, with plenty of cap dough available ($30 million-plus), lands a couple of veteran anchor talents when free agency opens July 1. But as that ink dried on Warsofsky’s new deal in the exclusive club of 32 coaches, the road to bountiful looked longer and trickier to navigate than a backroads hike from Marshfield to Bar Harbor.
ETC.
Nothing doing on DeBrusk, Swayman
There are no plans for Bruins GM Don Sweeney to speak to the media until June 27 in Las Vegas, the day prior to Round 1 of the draft. Ergo, nothing from the corner office about an effort, if any, to keep Jake DeBrusk from becoming an unrestricted free agent, or where things stand with franchise goalie Jeremy Swayman on a contract extension.
Swayman’s agent, Lewis Gross, did not respond to an email from the Globe late in the week, seeking comment on Swayman’s contract status.
DeBrusk’s agent, Rick Valette, of High River, Alberta, likewise did not respond to a text seeking comment about his client’s next contract. For those planning a trip out there, High River is west of WHL Swift Current, where DeBrusk starred as a junior. Pro tip: Bring bear spray if you’re in the Greater Banff neck of the woods.
Swayman was awarded $3.475 million for 2023-24 via salary arbitration and could end up in that greenbacks taffy pull again this summer, if Sweeney and Gross again fail to negotiate a landing spot on a new deal. The Bruins are in the window that allows them to elect arbitration. Swayman can trigger it as of July 5.
A one- or two-year award could see Swayman, 25, double his pay of last season. As noted in this space recently, a long-term pact (maximum eight years, per CBA guidelines), could boost him to the $9.5 million-a-year echelon, if the deal were measured against the eight-year extension that Tuukka Rask signed in Boston at age 26 in 2013 (fresh off a run to the Cup Final).
Rask’s average annual value was $7 million. Adjusted for a cap boosted to $88 million next season, that would be $9.5 million. Currently, Sweeney has that cash on hand and potentially $10 million-$15 million more for UFA shopping.
DeBrusk, the club’s leading playoff scorer (13 games, 5-6–11) this spring, earned $4 million each of the last two seasons. When he packed up in Brighton on the traditional lockers-and-lamentations day, he said he never imagined the prospect that he could be leaving the training facility for one last time.
With July 1 a mere two weeks in the offing, the former first-round pick looks like he’ll hit the open market. He has been a streaky, sometimes slumping, regular-season scorer in his time on Causeway Street, but those playoff numbers this spring are guaranteed to catch eyeballs.
As Game 4 of the Cup Final approached on Saturday, DeBrusk’s 11 points ranked among the league’s 28 most productive forwards this postseason. Reasonable to think he’ll see offers of, say, five years/$30 million from clubs such as Chicago, Detroit, Anaheim, and San Jose.
The Flames, less than 200 miles south of DeBrusk’s hometown of Edmonton, have slightly more than $20 million in shopping dough to shore up a roster that has not made the playoffs the last two seasons.
Could Krug land back in Boston?
DeBrusk is the highest-profile/highest-producing Bruin to get this close to the UFA threshold since Torey Krug, their onetime point man. According to Krug at the time, the Bruins pulled an offer off the table in the weeks leading to his UFA eligibility, triggering his move to the Blues in October 2020 for seven years/$45.5 million. Now there are increasing hints Krug could be on the move again, only this time via buyout in the next 5-10 days. Still guaranteed three more years at $6.5 million per, Krug would be paid out across six years, the remaining value of $19.5 million reduced to $14 million.
If sent packing, Krug immediately would be rendered an unrestricted free agent, a scenario experienced in recent years by Zach Parise and Ryan Suter with the Wild, Kevin Shattenkirk with the Rangers, and others.
Krug, now 33, has delivered between 32 and 43 points in his four seasons under the Arch. He also invoked his no-trade clause to nix a 2023 deadline deal that would have sent him to the Flyers. Sounds increasingly like Blues management, amid a front office overhaul, is ready to move on from the diminutive blue liner.
Though never a stout defender, Krug did put up points in Boston, particularly on the power play. In the seven seasons leading up to departure, he scored 67 goals (24 on the power play) and 335 points — only six defenseman leaguewide scored more points in that stretch from 2013-14 to 2019-20.
In his four seasons wearing the Blue note, Krug has scored eight power-play goals in 255 games. Here in the Hub of Hockey, the entire cast of Bruins defensemen since his departure scored 17 power-plays goals, led by eight from Charlie McAvoy. The runners-up: Hampus Lindholm and Shattenkirk with two each.
All of which is to say that Krug, if sent packing, could be an interesting low-budget returnee for the Black and Gold. He is a left shot, still capable of sliding between pairings 2 and 3, and that left stick could offer interesting first- or second-unit balances to McAvoy’s right shot on the PP.
Oh, and the rekindling of the Krug-Brad Marchand insults from Twitter days, often centered on their challenged height, alone could be worth the price of acquisition.
Loose pucks
The Blues’ front office overhaul, announced on Thursday, will have ex-forward Alexander Steen, a member of their 2019 Cup-winning squad, take over as GM for the start of the 2026-27 season. Meanwhile, longtime GM Doug Armstrong has added president/hockey operations to his title, with Steen the special assistant to the GM until assuming full duties. Ex-Bruins forward Tim Taylor, here for two seasons (1997-99) was promoted to assistant GM from his role as director of player personnel . . . David Quinn, who survived two torturous years behind the Sharks’ bench during the San Jose teardown, landed a spot on Mike Sullivan’s Penguins staff. The ex-Boston University backliner was named assistant coach in charge of defensemen, a pack that includes ex-Sharks wizard Erik Karlsson. Perhaps Quinn will arrive with the bag of wizardly tricks that Karlsson clearly left behind in San Jose.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.
