While the Bruins took care of some key business in the hiring of new head coach Marco Sturm, the team’s scouting and management staffs have been been grinding through some planning for the future that is just as vital as the next coach.

It is scouting combine week up in Buffalo, where staffs from all 32 teams convene every year to run the top prospects through physical testing and interviews. This week carries extra importance for the B’s, who will be picking at No. 7.

That’s not only the highest they’ve picked since they chose Tyler Seguin with the second overall pick in 2010, it will be just the fourth first-rounder they’ve had since since 2017 and the first time they’ve picked inside the top 20 in that time.

Ryan Nadeau, the B’s director of amateur scouting, understandably has a little more pep in his step than he’s had in past springs.

“It’s been exciting,” Nadeau told reporters in Buffalo on Saturday. “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of excitement with the staff with the team success over the years. But to be put in this situation from a scouting standpoint, it’s fun. You’re fishing in different water. I spent a lot of time, particularly leading in to the trade deadline and thereafter, focused on that we’d be potentially in the lottery range, which quite frankly hasn’t been part of my job for quite a while. Going to the rink and watching these prospects, seeing how good they are and how they can impact games, it’s been fun. It really has been exciting. It’s fun to think we have the opportunity to add a high level prospect to our organization.”

Nadeau estimated the team has had 85 interviews this week with prospects, with a time limit of 15 minutes. This is the first opportunity for GM Don Sweeney and Nadeau to have met many of them as the area scouts do much of the leg work until this point in the season. While he’s seen most of them play, the interview process is a chance to look under the hood.

“We see them so much playing hockey and at the rink, but it’s a chance to get to know them a little bit, ask them some questions and get a better feel for the personality of the kid,” said Nadeau. “We’ll run through 15-17 interviews a day for the first four days, so we’ll get through a big bulk of the kids who are invited here and just get a chance to get a little bit of a feel for their personality.”

Throughout the season, defenseman Matthew Schaefer has risen to the top spot while most draftniks believe center Michael Misa will go second. After that, there’s a wide range of opinion of how the top 10 will play out.

Nadeau expects to get a good player at No. 7. Swedish center Anton Frondell, who played professionally in his home country, is a possibility.

“It’s an impressive thing for an 18-year-old kid to be able to play at that level,” said Nadeau. “He’s a natural center who played on the wing for them, which isn’t uncommon in pro hockey. He really impacts the game with his ability to play away from the puck. He’s got some strength, he’s got a really good frame. He plays a mature game. He’ll shoot the puck, he’ll go to the net.”

Another possibility is 6-2, 172-pound center Jake O’Brien, who had 32-66-98 totals for the Brantford Bulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League.

“He’s worked hard throughout the year in improving his skating,” said Nadeau. “He’s able to play both sides of the puck. He takes a lot of responsibility in the D-zone. His play has been impressive. He plays a pretty mature game and yet he as some excitement offensively. He can really manipulate the time and space. He tends to want to slow the game down a little bit because he’s so good with the puck. But it’s been fun to watch him play and his impact at the OHL level.”

And there are other possibilities, especially at the center position, like Soo Greyhound Brady Martin, the Brandon Wheat Kings’ lanky pivot Roger McQueen, Moncton’s Caleb Desnoyer and even Boston College’s James Hagens, who was projected to go first overall at the start of the season.

But while Nadeau expects to get a good player, he did his best to douse expectations of that player being in the Bruins’ opening night lineup in October.

“It’s certainly remote that a player is going to come in and be able to make the Boston Bruins out of training camp,” said Nadeau. “A lot of them, as we know, don’t even get to camp because they’re going the college route so they don’t even have that opportunity to come in. It’s such a big jump for some these kids. Some of them aren’t physically or mentally ready to handle the grind and the pressure of playing in the National Hockey League. While in each draft there tends to be one, two or three players that we feel could make that jump, we’re certainly more focused on where they’re going to be in three, five, seven, 10 years and where they’re going to end up then than maybe tomorrow.

“The player development process and the process of a player going from a level they’re playing at now to playing in the National Hockey League can take some time. And we’ve been a real patient organization in terms of not having to rush players along and push them through, partly due to our success on the ice at the NHL level, that we haven’t had any holes or needs to fill, nor have we really had the draft capital to fill it anyway,” he added.

But now there are holes that need filling, and it’s imperative that the B’s get it right.