New York Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche looked into using the 16th and 17th picks acquired from the Montreal Canadiens in the Noah Dobson trade to try to flip them for a top-10 pick to land Boston College product and Long Island native James Hagens. However, he could not find a suitable deal and could only watch as the 18-year-old forward went to the Boston Bruins seventh overall.
“He was definitely one of the guys we were looking at,” Darche said after the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft on Friday night. “We had him high on our list. So at one point, when there were a few picks that we thought there would be great value there to get the player, we attempted a few things. But he’s a good player, so that’s why the [Bruins] picked him. So it is what it is.”
Hagens, who grew up in Hauppauge, made it clear throughout the pre-draft process that he wanted to play for his hometown team. In his freshman year at Boston College, he recorded 11 goals and 26 assists (37 points) in 37 games, and nine points in seven games for Team USA at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championships.
“I want to be able to win a Stanley Cup as an Islander,” Hagens told the NHL Draft Class podcast earlier this month. “The last time I think they raised the cup, my dad was a little kid, and it’d mean a lot to my family, to the people of Long Island, to everyone that supports the team, to be able to bring the Stanley Cup home and raise it one day on the Island. Being able to do that where you grow up, where all your friends and family are, it’s special.”
As soon as the Islanders traded Dobson for those back-to-back mid-first-rounders earlier on Friday afternoon, speculation only strengthened that it would be used to move up to get Hagens.
“Sometimes it takes two to tango, right?” Darche asked. “You can propose things to the other team, and if the other team is not interested, and there’s a reason those guys got drafted in the top 10, and we couldn’t move up because they’re good players, and those teams wanted them also.”
The Islanders’ consolation prize was certainly a good one. After taking Mathew Schaefer No. 1 overall, they had winger Victor Eklund and defenseman Kashawn Aitcheson fall into their laps at 16 and 17.
“Sometimes everything happens for a reason, because the guys that we drafted at 16 and 17, we had them much higher on our list, and we’re beyond excited that they were still available at those spots,” Darche said. “We looked at different options all day, but we weren’t going to make a transaction just to make a transaction. It had to make sense for us. So we tried a bunch of things, and at the end of the day, nothing made sense for us.”
