Boston Bruins
Hagens and Zellers combined for three goals in Team USA’s win on Monday night.
The future is looking bright for the Boston Bruins.
A disastrous 2024-25 Bruins season gave Boston an ample opportunity to restock its barren prospect pool — headlined by gifted talents like James Hagens and Will Zellers.
And on Monday evening, both Bruins prospects showcased their playmaking talents for Team USA during the IIHF World Junior Championship in St. Paul, Minn.
Hagens and Zellers left their fingerprints all over Team USA’s 6-5 comeback win over Slovakia at Grand Casino Arena. Hagens — the seventh-overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft — earned Player of the Game after scoring two goals in the span of 1:03 of game action.
Hagens’ first tally of the tournament tied the game at 4-4 with 45 seconds to go in the second period, with his second giving the Americans a 5-4 advantage just 18 seconds into the third.
“Its going to be a lot of ups and downs, you’d be lying if you say everything’s going to go well in a hockey game, but it’s just how you handle that,” Hagens said of Monday’s win while speaking to Jon Morosi on NHL Network. “Everyone on our bench, everyone’s so poised, everyone’s so calm. So you’ve just got to make sure that when adversity hits you, you have a response.”
Zellers — acquired by Boston from Colorado in the Charlie Coyle trade last March — scored the eventual game-winning tally 4:34 into the third period. Zellers, once considered a roster-bubble candidate on Team USA, has been a force throughout the tournament.
The 2025 USHL Player of the Year has scored four goals and two assists through three games, with all three of Zellers’ tallies standing as game-winners. Hagens has two goals and two assists over that same stretch.
With the Bruins struggling to find their footing amid a six-game losing skid, some optimism can be found in the Original Six franchise’s burgeoning prospect pool.
Hagens — expected to be a playmaking top-six center in the NHL ranks — was viewed as one of the top talents in the 2025 NHL Draft class and has 18 points (10 goals, eight assists) over 16 games at Boston College so far this season.
Zellers has continued to raise his stock since arriving in Boston as one of the key returns for Coyle. The 2024 third-round pick stuffed the stat sheet in the USHL in 2024-25 — scoring 44 goals and 71 total points in 52 games with the Green Bay Gamblers.
That scoring surge has continued since making the jump to the collegiate ranks, with the winger scoring 10 goals in his first 18 games as a freshman at North Dakota before breaking out at World Juniors.
“He’s just a greasy goalscorer. He gained more confidence at North Dakota as he was going – that’s why we added him,” Team USA head coach Bob Motzko told reporters after a win over Switzerland on Saturday night. “And right from day one, we saw it.”
The continued emergence of Hagens and Zellers on the international stage should be a welcome sight for the Bruins, who are continuing to cultivate promising talent as they go through their ongoing rebuild.
Beyond Hagens and Zellers, 6-foot-7 forward Dean Letourneau is having a bounce-back sophomore campaign at Boston College — with the Bruins 2024 first-round pick now up to 11 goals and 19 points over 18 games with the Eagles.
The Bruins could add more talent to their system during the 2026 NHL Draft, as Boston also holds its own first-round pick as well as Toronto’s first-rounder (top-five protected).
As of Monday evening, Tankathon has Boston in line to select both the 10th and 12th picks in the first round of the 2026 Draft.
Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
