Cooper Simpson and Will Zellers dress next to each other at Bruins development camp, which makes sense on several counts. Both grew up in Minnesota. Both flew to Boston together. Both spent the past few months training together back home. And later this month both head to North Dakota, where they become teammates for the first time.
Boston’s prospect pipeline gets discussed mostly through James Hagens and Dean Letourneau, the two centers at the top of it. The wingers behind them have quietly turned into the more interesting story.
Zellers set the template
Zellers joined the organization in March 2025 as part of the Charlie Coyle trade with Colorado, and he has gotten better at every stop since.
The 6-foot winger won USHL Player of the Year in 2024-25 with the Green Bay Gamblers, leading the league with 44 goals and putting up 71 points in 52 games. The scoring carried into tougher competition. As an NCHC freshman he finished with 18 goals and 34 points across 38 games.
Adam McQuaid, Boston’s director of player development, put a top-six ceiling on him and pointed at the parts that have nothing to do with the shot. McQuaid described a player who studies the game, picks his moments to create, and committed himself to playing all 200 feet this past season.
Zellers framed the college year as evidence for himself more than for anyone else. Scoring against grown men, he said, made the NHL feel like a shorter distance than it had before.
Simpson is walking the same road
“I’m kind of following in his footsteps,” Simpson said.
The literal version: Zellers is a year older, has taken each step first, and Simpson has been asking him about all of it.
Boston took Simpson in the third round of the 2025 draft, 79th overall, on the strength of a high school season that reads like a typo. He put up 49 goals and 83 points in 31 games for Shakopee High School in Minnesota.
Then he moved up a level and kept scoring. In his USHL season with the Youngstown Phantoms he finished second in the league with 34 goals and 74 points.
The shot was already obvious at last summer’s development camp. What makes him more than a shooter is the creativity and the hands, which is where the 25-goal projection comes from.
Simpson’s own account of the season was about the unglamorous parts. Better small habits, better stick positioning, a clearer read on what to do in a given moment.
Zellers, for his part, treated last season’s ending as fuel. North Dakota came close and lost, and a group of young players who went through that is coming back.
They will not be short on company. The Fighting Hawks are coming off a Frozen Four appearance and bringing in a freshman class that also includes Carson Carels, the sixth overall pick in the 2026 draft.
