The 18-year-old boasts an imposing frame at 6-foot-5 and 198 pounds. Far from just a netfront presence or pure power forward, McQueen is a top playmaker for the Brandon Wheat Kings — recording 31 goals and 71 points over his last two seasons in Canadian juniors (70 games).

For a Bruins team short on high-end skill and rooted in an identity that prioritizes size and snarl, Roger McQueen might be the perfect prospect.

And most importantly for Boston, he’s a center — giving the Bruins a potential top-six stalwart down the middle if the Bruins opted to take him at No. 7 overall in the 2025 NHL Draft.

“On pure talent, he’s a top-three pick,” one NHL scout told The Athletic’s Corey Pronman in a scouting report. “He does what Anton Frondell does while being four inches taller.”

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Even if there seems to be a consensus top-two in this ‘25 draft class between defenseman Matthew Schaefer and forward Michael Misa, McQueen’s profile as a big-bodied playmaking center would seemingly put him as the next man up in what is regarded as a relatively tame draft class.

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“From being here in Buffalo, [6-foot-7] Tage Thompson is the guy that offensively is just unbelievable and can kind of create anything with his size and pace of play,” McQueen said at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo when asked about his player comparisons. “And I think his skill is his top notch.

“I think a guy that I’ve kind of said for my player comp is Ryan Getzlaf — just trying to be able to [play] both a skill game and a heavy game there too.”

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Why is it that McQueen could still be on the board by the time Don Sweeney and the Bruins are on the clock?

There’s a catch, of course: McQueen is coming off a season rife with injuries.

McQueen appeared in 17 games this season with Brandon (10 goals, 10 assists), missing a majority of the year after suffering a fracture in his lower back. He missed close to five months of the regular season before returning in March but was also hindered by a muscle injury during the WHL playoffs that sapped him of his strength down the stretch.

Those injury concerns have hampered some of McQueen’s draft stock, undercutting his high ceiling with the potential that the injuries will linger.

According to NHL.com, McQueen’s back injuries actually began in August 2023, though he played through it during a 2023-24 season with Brandon, posting 51 points (21 goals, 30 assists) in 53 games while also representing Canada at the 2024 World Juniors.

Despite those concerns, McQueen gave himself a clean bill of health at the combine and was a full participant during testing.

“Talking to a couple of the doctors I worked with this year, they don’t see anything coming forward,” McQueen said. “I’m able to take contact right now. For the last month and a half, I’ve been able to take contact. … It’s been the best I’ve felt in the last three years.”

Even with those injury concerns, McQueen still sits at No. 7 on NHL Central Scouting’s final ranking of North American skaters and No. 5 on Craig Button’s TSN rankings.

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McQueen represents an interesting conundrum for the Bruins, who are desperate to add a potential top-six center.

McQueen is exactly the type of player that Boston — and plenty of other teams — would want to add to their system.

As long as he’s healthy, McQueen is the type of big-bodied, playmaking center who can anchor a top-six grouping for the long haul.

But unlike a prospect such as Brady Martin — who projects to be a high-floor player, but with a lower offensive ceiling — McQueen holds a considerable amount of risk if those injuries persist.

Taking someone Martin or Jake O’Brien might increase the odds of Boston adding at least an NHL regular to its lineup. But what if McQueen slips through the Bruins’ grasp and ends up being an 80-point force for a team like the Kraken (No. 8 pick) or Sabres (No. 9)?

McQueen represents many things in this draft class: A potential can’t-miss prospect; an injury risk with several red flags; and potentially a gamble worth taking.

It remains to be seen how Sweeney and the Bruins view such a promising — albeit polarizing — prospect.

Conor Ryan can be reached at conor.ryan@globe.com.

Israel has been operating in Gaza since the Hamas militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. U.S.-led ceasefire efforts have repeatedly stalled.

It was one of the deadliest incidents for the army in Gaza in months and quickly drew the nation’s attention back to the grinding war against Hamas, after nearly two weeks of fighting with archenemy Iran ended with a ceasefire Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday when a Palestinian militant affixed a bomb to their armored vehicle.

Unsuccessful rescue attempt

Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the army’s chief spokesman, said the soldiers were attacked in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where the army has operated on and off throughout much of the war.

“Helicopters and rescue forces were sent to the spot. They made attempts to rescue the fighters, but without success,” he said.

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The army said another soldier was seriously wounded in a separate incident in Khan Younis.

It gave no further details, but Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel it had ambushed Israeli soldiers taking cover inside a residential building in the area.

Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, including more than 400 during the fighting in Gaza.

The initial Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain in captivity, at least 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Deadliest round of fighting

The Israeli offensive has devastated Gaza and killed over 56,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, a branch of the Hamas government.

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The death toll is by far the highest in any round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The ministry said the dead include 5,759 who have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on March 18, shattering a two-month ceasefire.

Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, which operates in heavily populated areas. Israel says over 20,000 Hamas militants have been killed, though it has provided no evidence to support that claim. Hamas has not commented on its casualties.

Palestinian woman killed in Jerusalem

Meanwhile, a local Palestinian official in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces shot and killed a 66-year-old Palestinian woman during a raid in east Jerusalem.

Israeli police said they were investigating the incident, saying a woman had arrived at a military checkpoint with “serious penetrating injuries” and been pronounced dead.

Marouf Al-Refai, the Palestinian official, said Israeli forces stormed the Shuafat refugee camp overnight, killing Zahia Obeidi with a shot to the head around 10 p.m. and seizing her body thereafter.

Israeli forces arrested her husband and sons later that night, Refai said. Their whereabouts were not immediately known, and police had no further details.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.

It considers the area to be part of its capital – a move that is not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Most Russian attack drones are black, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an electronics expert more widely known as Flash. The new one, he told The Associated Press, was white.

It had an advanced camera, a computing platform powered by artificial intelligence and a radio link, allowing an operator to pilot it remotely from Russia. It also contained new, Iranian-made, anti-jamming technology, according to a Ukrainian drone expert.

their cities found a weapon that stood out from the rest.

Inside, there were no markings or labels consistent with Russian-made drones. Instead, the stickers followed a “standard Iran labeling system,” Beskrestnov said.

Experts who spoke to AP said the labels are not conclusive proof but the English-language words are consistent with how Iran marks its drones. It is quite possible, they said, that it was sold by Iran to Russia to test in combat.

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Moscow has pummeled Ukraine almost nightly with Iranian-designed drones throughout the course of the war, now in its fourth year. They swarm above Ukrainian cities, their moped-like sound filling the air, as air defenses and sharpshooters take aim. While some carry warheads, many are decoys.

Russia is improving its drone technology and tactics, striking Ukraine with increasing success. But the U.K’s Defense Ministry said Israel’s strikes on Iran will “likely negatively impact the future provision of Iranian military equipment to Russia,” since Tehran had supplied “significant quantities” of attack drones to Moscow.

Israeli attacks on Iran

Israel’s military would not comment on what it struck. Although it has carried out sweeping attacks across Iranian military facilities and the U.S. bombed nuclear sites, the impact on Iran’s drone industry is not yet clear.

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The anti-jammer in the latest drone discovered in Ukraine contained new Iranian technology, suggested Beskrestnov. Other components in Russia’s drones often come from Russia, China and the West.

Although Russia’s drones are based on an Iranian design, the majority are now made in Russia.

And because much of the technology to make them, including the Iranian software and technical expertise, has already been transferred to Russia, the immediate impact on Moscow’s drone program could be limited, experts said.

However, if Israel struck facilities producing drones and components — such as engines and anti-jamming units — which are shipped to Russia, then Moscow could face supply shortages, experts suggested.

A secretive Russian factory

Moscow makes its Shahed — meaning “witness” in Farsi — drones based on an Iranian model in a highly secure factory in central Russia.

The Alabuga plant in the Tatarstan region took delivery of its first Iranian drones in 2022 after Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal. It later established its own production lines, churning out thousands of them.

The upgrades identified from debris in Ukraine are the latest in a series of innovations that began with Russia buying drones directly from Iran in the fall of 2022, according to leaked documents from Alabuga previously reported on by AP.

In early 2023, Iran shipped about 600 disassembled drones to be reassembled in Russia before production was localized. In 2024, the design was adapted.

Specialists added cameras to some drones and implemented a plan, revealed in an AP investigation, dubbed Operation False Target — creating decoys to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.

Alabuga also modified the Shahed to make it more lethal, creating a thermobaric drone which sucks out all the oxygen in its path — potentially collapsing lungs, crushing eyeballs and causing brain damage. The size of the warhead was also upgraded.

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Jet-propelled drones and AI

In at least one case, Iran shipped a jet-powered Shahed that Russia “experimented” with in Ukraine, said Fabian Hinz, an expert on Russian and Iranian drones at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Ukraine’s air force found two more examples of jet-powered Shaheds in May but it appears they have not been widely adopted.

That’s possibly because the Iranian design uses a very sophisticated jet engine that also powers Iran’s cruise missiles, Hinz said. That likely makes it too expensive to use nightly in Ukraine, he said, even if the engine is swapped to a cheaper Chinese model.

The electronics in the drone most recently found in Ukraine are also very expensive, Beskrestnov said, pointing to its AI computing platform, camera and radio link. It’s unclear why it was deployed but Beskrestnov suggested it could be used to target “critical infrastructure,” including electrical transmission towers.

Previous versions of the Shahed drone could not hit a moving object or change their flight path once launched. They sometimes ended up “traveling in circles all through Ukraine before they finally hit a target,” which made them easier to shoot down, said David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

The radio link means an operator can communicate with the drone from Russia, introduce a new target and potentially control many drones at the same time, the experts said.

The remotely operable Shahed has similarities to drones Russia is already using on the front lines and is particularly resistant to jamming, Beskrestnov said.

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There are eight, rather than four, antennas on the drone which means it is harder for Ukraine to overwhelm it with electronic warfare, he said.

The new drone has markings that suggest the anti-jamming unit was made in Iran within the past year and similarities to Iranian components found in older models of the Shahed, said Beskrestnov.

Such advanced antennas, said Hinz, have not previously been seen on drones used in Ukraine but have been found on Iranian missiles destined for Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In a statement, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense told AP in the past four months it had found drones with eight and 12 antennas made in China and Russia.

Despite sanctions, both Russia and Iran have continued to find ways to procure Western technology.

The drone’s AI computing platform can help it autonomously navigate if communications are jammed. Similar technology was used by Ukraine to attack aircraft deep inside Russia during Operation Spiderweb, when it used drones to target Russian air bases hosting nuclear-capable strategic bombers.

Changing tactics

Russia is improving its technology at the same time as it is also changing its tactics.

Moscow is flying the Shahed drones at high altitudes where they are out of reach of Ukrainian shooters, as well as lower down to avoid radio detection.

It is also carrying out massive group attacks on cities including where drones sometimes dive-bomb a target, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.

The drones can be used to clear a path for cruise missiles or to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses by sending a wave of decoys followed by one or two with a warhead.

The tactics appear to be working.

AP collected almost a year’s worth of Russian drone strike data on Ukraine posted online by the Ukrainian air force.

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An analysis shows that Russia significantly ramped up its attacks after U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January. And Russian hits have increased markedly since March — shortly before reports emerged that Russia was using Shahed drones with advanced jammers.

In November 2024, only around 6% of drones hit a discernible target but, by June, that reached about 16%. On some nights, almost 50% of drones got through Ukraine’s air defenses.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said the Shaheds’ effectiveness is likely because Russia is firing more drones, including decoys, as well as the change in technology and tactics.

But although Russia appears to have had increasing success striking Ukraine, it is not clear if that will continue.

Israel’s strikes on Iran will “certainly” hurt Russia long-term, Albright said.

Moscow, he said, is “not going to be able to get as much assistance from Iran as it has been.”

Associated Press journalists Lydia Doye in London, Volodymyr Yurchuk and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

They have staged small-scale protests, unfurling anti-Bezos banners on iconic Venetian sites. They were joined this week by Greenpeace and the British group “Everyone Hates Elon,” which has smashed Teslas to protest Elon Musk, to unfurl a giant banner in St. Mark’s Square protesting purported tax breaks for billionaires.

About a dozen Venetian organizations — including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups — have united to protest the multi-day event under the banner “No Space for Bezos,” a play on words also referring to the bride’s recent space flight.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — This weekend’s star-studded Venice wedding of multi-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez has galvanized activist groups that are protesting it as a sign of the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots as well as disregard of the city’s residents.

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“IF YOU CAN RENT VENICE FOR YOUR WEDDING YOU CAN PAY MORE TAX,” read the banner, which featured a huge image of Bezos. Police quickly took it away.

There has been no comment from Bezos’ representatives on the protests.

The local activists had planned a more organized protest for Saturday, aiming to obstruct access to canals with boats to prevent guests from reaching a wedding venue. Then they modified the protest to a march from the train station after claiming a victory, asserting that their pressure forced organizers to change the venue to the Arsenale, a more easily secured site beyond Venice’s congested center.

“It will be a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful,’’ said Federica Toninello, an activist with the Social Housing Assembly network. “We want it to be like a party, with music, to make clear what we want our Venice to look like.”

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Among the 200 guests confirmed to be attending the wedding are Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Venice, renowned for its romantic canal vistas, hosts hundreds of weddings each year, not infrequently those of the rich and famous. Previous celebrity weddings, like that of George Clooney to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014, were embraced by the public. Hundreds turned out to wish the couple well at City Hall.

Bezos has a different political and business profile, said Tommaso Cacciari, a prominent figure in the movement that successfully pushed for a ban on cruise ships over 25,000 tons traveling through the Giudecca Canal in central Venice.

“Bezos is not a Hollywood actor,’’ Cacciari said. “He is an ultra-billionaire who sat next to Donald Trump during the inauguration, who contributed to his re-election and is contributing in a direct and heavy way to this new global obscurantism.’’

Critics also cite Amazon’s labor practices, ongoing tax disputes with European governments and Bezos’ political associations as additional reasons for concern.

Activists also argue that the Bezos wedding exemplifies broader failures in municipal governance, particularly the prioritization of tourism over residents’ needs. They cite measures such as the day-tripper tax — which critics argue reinforces Venice’s image as a theme park — as ineffective. Chief among their concerns is the lack of investment in affordable housing and essential services.

City officials have defended the wedding. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called the event an honor for Venice, and the city denied the wedding would cause disruptions.

“Venice once again reveals itself to be a global stage,’’ Brugnaro told The Associated Press, adding he hoped to meet Bezos while he was in town.

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Meanwhile, a Venetian environmental research association, Corila, issued a statement saying Bezos’ Earth Fund was supporting its work with an “important donation.”

Corila, which unites university scholars and Italy’s main national research council in researching Venetian protection strategies, wouldn’t say how much Bezos was donating but said contact began in April, well before the protests started.

The U.S. strikes could even prompt Iran, Russia, China and North Korea to double down on investments in cyberwarfare, according to Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and investor.

But that could change if the ceasefire between Iran and Israel collapses or if independent hacking groups supporting Iran make good on promises to wage their own digital conflict against the U.S., analysts and cyber experts say.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and oil industry companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — but so far have not caused widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure or the economy.

Bellini noted that hacking operations are much cheaper than bullets, planes or nuclear arms — what defense analysts call kinetic warfare. America may be militarily dominant, he said, but its reliance on digital technology poses a vulnerability.

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“We just showed the world: You don’t want to mess with us kinetically,” said Bellini, CEO of Bellini Capital. “But we are wide open digitally. We are like Swiss cheese.”

Hackers have hit banks and defense contractors

Two pro-Palestinian hacking groups claimed they targeted more than a dozen aviation firms, banks and oil companies following the U.S. strikes over the weekend.

The hackers detailed their work in a post on the Telegram messaging service and urged other hackers to follow their lead, according to researchers at the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the groups’ activity.

The attacks were denial-of-service attacks, in which a hacker tries to disrupt a website or online network.

“We increase attacks from today,” one of the hacker groups, known as Mysterious Team, posted Monday.

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Federal authorities say they are on guard for additional attempts by hackers to penetrate U.S. networks.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a public bulletin Sunday warning of increased Iranian cyber threats. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement Tuesday urging organizations that operate critical infrastructure like water systems, pipelines or power plants to stay vigilant.

While it lacks the technical abilities of China or Russia, Iran has long been known as a “chaos agent” when it comes to using cyberattacks to steal secrets, score political points or frighten opponents.

Cyberattacks mounted by Iran’s government may end if the ceasefire holds and Tehran looks to avoid another confrontation with the U.S. But hacker groups could still retaliate on Iran’s behalf.

In some cases, these groups have ties to military or intelligence agencies. In other cases, they act entirely independently. More than 60 such groups have been identified by researchers at the security firm Trustwave.

These hackers can inflict significant economic and psychological blows. Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, for instance, hackers penetrated an emergency alert app used by some Israelis and directed it to inform users that a nuclear missile was incoming.

“It causes an immediate psychological impact,” said Ziv Mador, vice president of security research at Trustwave’s SpiderLabs, which tracks cyberthreats.

Economic disruption, confusion and fear are all the goals of such operations, said Mador, who is based in Israel. “We saw the same thing in Russia-Ukraine.”

Collecting intelligence is another aim for hackers

While Iran lacks the cyberwarfare capabilities of China or Russia, it has repeatedly tried to use its more modest operations to try to spy on foreign leaders — something national security experts predict Tehran is almost certain to try again as it seeks to suss out President Donald Trump’s next moves.

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Last year, federal authorities charged three Iranian operatives with trying to hack Trump’s presidential campaign. It would be wrong to assume Iran has given up those efforts, according to Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency cybersecurity expert who is now vice president of research and development at Hunter Strategy, a Washington-based cybersecurity firm.

“It’s fairly certain that these limited resources are being used for intelligence collection to understand what Israel or the U.S. might be planning next, rather than performing destructive attacks against U.S. commercial organizations,” Williams said.

The Trump administration has cut cybersecurity programs and staff

Calls to bolster America’s digital defense come as the Trump administration has moved to slash some cybersecurity programs as part of its effort to shrink the size of government.

CISA has placed staffers who worked on election security on leave and cut millions of dollars in funding for cybersecurity programs for local and state elections.

The CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies also have seen reductions in staffing. Trump abruptly fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, who oversaw the NSA and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.

The Israel-Iran conflict shows the value of investments in cybersecurity and cyber offense, Mador said. He said Israel’s strikes on Iran, which included attacks on nuclear scientists, required sophisticated cyberespionage that allowed Israel to track its targets.

Expanding America’s cyber defenses will require investments in education as well as technical fixes to ensure connected devices or networks aren’t vulnerable, said Bellini, who recently contributed $40 million toward a new cybersecurity center at the University of South Florida.

There is a new arms race when it comes to cyberwar, Bellini said, and it’s a contest America can’t afford to lose.

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“It’s Wile E. Coyote vs. the Road Runner,” Bellini said. “It will go back and forth, and it will never end.”