Remembering Jordan Caron’s career in Boston

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Jordan Caron is no longer part of the Boston Bruins. By now, everyone should be aware that the big-bodied winger was traded to the Colorado Avalanche just before the trade deadline on Monday, for Max Talbot.

This is not what the Boston Bruins envisioned when they selected him #25 overall in the 2009 NHL Draft. They saw a power forward that had a strong defensive game, with untapped offensive potential. He was improving his game on a yearly basis in the QMJHL and was well known as a two-way center amongst NHL scouts (yes, he played center in juniors).

Well some things never go according to plan. In 134 games for the Boston Bruins, Caron scored 12 goals and had 16 assists, for a total of 28 points. He played an additional 9 games in the playoffs, with 1 goal to show for it. That calculates into an atrocious .20 PPG pace. These are not the type of numbers people expect from a 1st round pick. He can safely be labeled as a “bust,” if he hasn’t been already.

But Andy, why is this such a big deal? 1st round busts happen all the time, right?

That is definitely true. 1st round misses do happen in any sport. But that doesn’t make it okay to have busts and in this particular case, it’s hurting the Bruins quite a bit.

2009 was a weak draft class at the time and in hindsight, it still is. There weren’t a ton of talent on the board and the drop off from the top 15 to the talent below was significant. But considering players like Ryan O’Reilly, Jakob Silfverberg, and Tomas Tatar were still on the board, it hurt big time.

That year’s draft also turned out to be quite important because as the roster looks today, the Bruins have no players from the 2008 and 2009 that they drafted, except Tyler Randell. In other words, they wasted two years at the draft, coming out with nothing in the long-term.

The Bruins philosophy of drafting seems to have hurt them throughout the years. They were so intrigued by big-bodied forwards, after the emergence of Milan Lucic, that they drafted them in the 1st round two years in a row (Colborne and Caron), and it backfired on them, although Colborne is starting to carve out a nice career in Calgary now. In 2010, choosing a gritty forward in Jared Knight turned out to be a bad pick. It really wasn’t until 2011 until they made some sort of noise with their prospects, such as Ferlin, Camara, and Khokhlachev.

In the end, it’s always unfair to sit here and say “they should have drafted ____ instead of ____,” but the Bruins swung and missed on two straight years. That doesn’t seem to be much of a coincidence. If any of those prospects were a hit, they would be in their early 20’s, entering the prime of their careers, maybe even playing 1st line right wing alongside Krejci and Lucic. One can only wonder.

Caron logged 13:18 of ice time on Wednesday with the Avalanche, the most he has logged this year in the NHL. Maybe he will carve out a nice career too, who knows?

But it won’t be for the Boston Bruins.



Read more from Andy Hwang by clicking here. Find him on Twitter on @andyhwang05 and follow @BruinsLife for all Bruins news and updates.