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Joe Colborne Becomes Newest Bruin

Ottawa, ON- Just as was expected, defense was the story of the first round in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. Following Steven Stamkos to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the next four picks of the draft were all blueliners. Overall, 12 of the 30 players selected Friday night were defensemen. As surprising as it may be, one of those twelve is not the newest member of the Boston Bruins. When General Manager Peter Chiarelli stepped up to the podium, he elected to take a forward. Chiarelli went with Joe Colborne from the Camrose Kodiaks of the AJHL.

Joe Colborne is an 18 year old left winger, checking in at six feet five inches, 190 pounds. Although it may surprise some fans that the Bruins didn’t take a defenseman with the 16th pick, seeing Colborne’s height and weight should at least make some sense. It’s been said multiple times before that the emphasis during the offseason for Boston was to add size and scoring for both now and later. With the height mentioned above, it’s pretty obvious that Colborne covers the size category. He could put on a few more pounds down the road to really become an intimidating force on the wing. As far as scoring goes, Joe put up almost two points per game this past season for Camrose. In 55 games, he had 33 goals and 57 assists for 90 points. His penalty minute total was a very respectable 48. According to the NHL’s Central Scouting Report, this youngster patterns his game after former Bruin Joe Thornton, as well as Jason Spezza and Vincent Lecavalier. If Colborne can put up 100 points per season like Thornton does, a lot of fans at the TD Banknorth Garden will be very excited.

Unfortunately, it will still be at least a couple of years until Joe Colborne appears in a Black and Gold uniform. Joe has committed to the University of Denver for the fall of 2008, and will play college hockey for the Pioneers. If he spends the full four seasons at Denver, Colborne won’t see the pros until at least the spring of 2012. When he does decide to finish up with schooling, it could still take some time for this first round pick to reach the NHL. According to the Hockey News, Joe is a project forward. This means that unless he really tears it up in the NCAA and has a phenomenal training camp, Colborne will probably see at least one year or possibly two with the Providence Bruins in the AHL. According to the schedule on Denver’s website, the Pioneers will not come east this season, but they will face Holy Cross and either Boston University or RPI in January at the Wells Fargo Denver Cup in Colorado.

As far as the rest of the first round is concerned, there were a few surprise picks here and there with nothing too far out of the ordinary. Aside from the high amount of defensemen taken early, the other big story from Friday night was the trading. A record 12 moves were made during the first round. Most of the trades were just flip-flopping picks, but a few NHLers did see their addresses get changed. Of the 12 deals that took place, five involved current players. The two biggest trades saw Olli Jokinen go from the Florida Panthers to the Phoenix Coyotes, and Alex Tanguay from the Calgary Flames to the division rival Montreal Canadiens.

The 2008 NHL Entry Draft resumes on Saturday from Ottawa for rounds 2-7. Coverage will begin at 9:30 with first pick scheduled to happen at 10:00. It can all be seen live on the NHL Network or online at NHL.com. The Boston Bruins have the following picks on day two: one second round (47), one third round (77), one fourth round (107), one fifth round (137), one sixth round (173 from Anaheim), and one seventh round (197). Boston originally had the 167th overall pick (sixth round), but traded it to the Colorado Avalanche on draft day last year in exchange for a sixth round pick during last season’s draft. The acquisition of Anaheim’s sixth round pick comes courtesy of the deal that brought Shane Hnidy to Boston for Brandon Bochenski.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 12:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.