When you're the defending Stanley Cup Champions, it's rare that the days leading up to the Draft are wrought with concern, and there's little agonizing to be done over who to pick, where to select them or how to move up to get that crown jewel.
At this point, all Chicago Blackhawks fans can collectively sigh.
For the newly-crowned champion Boston Bruins, there was even less fretting to be done heading into Minnesota - in part because Brad Marchand's shirtless antics had taken front and center, in part because there wasn't really enough time between victory parade and cross-country flight to Las Vegas and red-eye back to Minneapolis to spend working up a good fret, but mostly because they'd put themselves in position to come out of this draft perfectly okay, no matter who they got and when.
The first team since the New York Islanders in 1983 to win the Stanley Cup and then pick in the top ten, the Bruins selected Niagara's Dougie Hamilton, a 6-5, 190-plus pound puck-moving defenseman with a shot as strong as his defensive stickwork and a vision as developed as his frame.
Oh, they also picked in the top ten of the second round, too, thanks to clever maneuvering by GM Peter Chiarelli long, long ago (and it what seems like a galaxy far, far away). With the 40th pick, the Bruins selected Alexander Khokhlachev, a forward with a great shot - lacking for speed a bit, perhaps, but bringing a scoring touch to the organization that they'll surely be looking for in years ahead after players like Michael Ryder have come and gone.
The rest of the draft was fairly non-descript, in part because it didn't need to be and in part because it was, well, the rest of the draft. At 81 the Bruins picked Anthony Camara, a gritty winger who can learn a lot from the likes of Milan Lucic; Brian Ferlin - a Florida native with hands befitting someone of his size and a skating style befitting one who manages the Bells of Notre Dame - came at 121; defenseman Rob O'Gara - a New York native currently playing in Milton, MA - came in the fifth round, and the Bruins finished stockpiling with goaltender Lars Volden from Finland, a big kid in need of a lot of polish.
It wasn't the flashy draft haul that Boston had last year - in part because there was no Tyler Seguin or Taylor Hall anywhere in the pool (and definitely no Jared Knight waiting for them in the second round), in part because the Bruins didn't have a pick high enough to get him if there was, but mostly because it didn't need to be.
The Bruins, after all, weren't looking to do any rebuilding, or even restocking, with this draft - not with almost everyone from their championship roster guaranteed to come back, anyway. These Bruins are much more concerned with repeating.