After selecting Boston College-bound center Dean Letourneau 25th overall in the first round Friday night, the Bruins didn’t have much to do for the first couple hours of Day 2 of the NHL Draft on Saturday, as they didn’t own a second- or third-round pick.
The Bruins kicked off the fourth round with a trade, though, moving up from pick 122 to 110 while sending winger Jakub Lauko to the Minnesota Wild and also getting forward Vinni Lettieri in return.
At 110, the Bruins drafted Elliott Groenewold, a left-shot defenseman who is listed at 6-foot-2, 201 pounds. Groenewold is a native of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and is heading to Quinnipiac University this fall, where he will be teammates with Bruins 2023 third-round pick Chris Pelosi.
Groenewold had five goals, 11 assists and 77 penalty minutes in 57 games for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the United States Hockey League last season. He previously attended and played at Bishop’s College School in Quebec.
Groenewold is regarded as a defense-first defenseman with good mobility, good physicality and a good stick. His puck-moving and offensive game need some work and kept him from going higher. Groenewold was a little all over the place in pre-draft rankings, which is common once you get into the middle and later rounds, but he was ranked 82nd overall by Elite Prospects and 66th by FCHockey, suggesting he was pretty good value at 110.
Here is part of Elite Prospects’ scouting report on Groenewold:
Groenewold is one of the rangiest defenders in the draft, capable of getting stops early, correcting mistakes, and winning retrieval races from a significant deficit. When defending the rush, he pivots early and surfs across to force the attacker wide. If he has to concede the zone, so be it, because he’s more focused on preventing any sort of access to the slot.
As the off-puck defender, Groenewold’s high-pace, high-aggression style stands out. He locks down threats around the net, jumps into passing lanes, and diffuses multi-variable situations with ease. He could become even more proactive and better time his close-outs.
The other notable part of the trade is of course the departure of Lauko. The 24-year-old winger played 60 games for the Bruins last season, posting two goals and eight assists in a mostly fourth-line role. His energy and physicality was always appreciated, but he was inconsistent and his offensive game hadn’t really progressed.
Lettieri, 29, returns to the organization after spending most of the 2022-23 season in Providence, where he had 49 points in 48 games and was well-regarded as a veteran AHLer. He found more of an NHL home with Minnesota last season, playing 46 games for the Wild with five goals and four assists.
The Bruins had two more picks Saturday, 154 overall in the fifth round and 186 in the sixth.
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In the fifth round, they selected Jonathan Morello, a 6-foot-3, 192-pound left-shot center. He is one of the younger players in the draft class, as he doesn't turn 18 until July 31.
Morello had 57 points (25g, 32a) in 50 games for the St. Michael's Buzzers in the Ontario Junior Hockey League last season. He followed that up with an impressive playoff showing, posting a team-high 12 goals and 21 points in 11 games.
Morello, a Toronto native, will play for the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL this coming season and is committed to Clarkson University for 2025-26.
Morello was ranked as a top-100 prospect in a couple places, with FloHockey's Chris Peters having him 95th and McKeen's Hockey placing him 100th. Here is part of what Peters wrote about him:
Morello simply got better and better as the year went on. The fact that he’s a higher-end skater in a 6-foot-3 frame with some room to fill out is even better for his overall projection.
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With their final pick of the draft in the sixth round, the Bruins took Swedish defenseman Loke Johansson, another big (6-foot-3, 214 pounds) left shot. Similar to Groenewold, Johansson is a physical, defense-first defender with good mobility, but questions about his offensive game.
He had five goals, eight assists and 59 penalty minutes in 33 games for AIK in the J20 Nationell, Sweden's top junior league, this past season. He also moved up to play 19 games in Sweden's second-tier professional league, the HockeyAllsvenskan.
Here is part of Elite Prospects' scouting report on Johansson:
In a lot of ways, he’s built to be a defensive defenceman in the contemporary NHL. He’s a technically sound skater, able to cover a lot of ground with his four-way mobility and general shiftiness. He’s not necessarily explosive, but at a minimum, a clear average projection to the NHL.
This marks the fourth straight year that the Bruins have drafted at least one player out of Sweden, a trend that certainly has a lot to do with the work of P.J. Axelsson, their European scouting director and a native of Sweden.
Groenewold and Johansson also continue the Bruins' trend of targeting bigger defensemen, as all nine defensemen they have drafted in the last five years have been at least 6-feet tall. Eight of them have been at least 6-foot-2.