Despite the fact that the Bruins' 2012 draft scenario is far different than it's been in the past few years, GM Peter Chiarelli says he'll utilize the same basic strategy in making his picks. Regardless of organizational needs and their current depth chart, he intends to take the best player available.

“Our philosophy -- and you’ve heard me say this many times and other managers as well -- is really to draft the best player possible,” Chiarelli said. “It’s really a function of those players available. We went through a number of years where we took a lot of centermen and we’ve shown -- not necessarily from those centermen that we’ve taken but from some of them -- that a centerman that can play both the center and the wing is a valuable player. But going into the draft each year, there’s a priority, there’s a need; but the first approach that we’ve taken and we’ll always take is to take the best player. I think it's difficult and risky -- unless there’s a tie on the player that you’re going to take -- to really put need first. But it is part of the equation, it’s just not the primary component of the equation.”

Chiarelli addressed the media in a conference call Monday morning to discuss the upcoming NHL Draft in Pittsburgh this Friday and Saturday. The Bruins will pick 24th overall in the first round on Friday night and then have four more picks in the third, fifth, sixth and seventh rounds, respectively, on Saturday.

Unlike in the past two seasons, when the Bruins were picking in the top 10 slots in the first round -- selecting forward Tyler Seguin at second overall in 2010 and defenseman Dougie Hamilton at ninth overall in 2011 -- Boston will now have to weigh many different scenarios and options picking in the bottom 10 of the first round. That has resulted in plenty of meetings between the Bruins’ scouting department and Chiarelli leading into this week’s draft.

“They’ve (the Bruins’ scouting department) probably seen and heard enough from me,” Chiarelli joked. “You have to really go into more different scenarios for the later pick -- if this player goes there or that player goes there or what about moving down because we can get this player -- and there’s a lot more scenarios to discuss. Then your quality of player, while still good, is obviously not as good at this point than those players higher up. You really drill down more. There’s been more meetings and discussion on more minute detail on these players to try and drill down and get the right player.”

Should he get the chance, though, Chiarelli acknowledged that he’d like to strengthen the goalie position.

“This year we seemed to talk more about goalies, but that kind of quieted down a little bit after we signed [Niklas] Svedberg,” Chiarelli said. “But he’s 23 and that’s an area that -- and we’ve got some good young ones there in the pipeline -- but that’s an area that I’d like to get a little deeper. The size thing I stressed a little bit applying to all positions.”