Boston Bruins
“We got bounced in the first round. So yeah, we need more talent. We need more speed.”
Don Sweeney and the Bruins have their work cut out for them this summer. (Jonathan Wiggs Globe/Staff)
Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs, team president Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney addressed the media Wednesday at the team’s season-ending news conference at TD Garden.
“I feel like we’re on the right track toward becoming a true Stanley Cup contender in the coming years,” Jacobs admitted in his opening remarks.
While the 2025-26 Bruins team may have exceeded expectations in Marco Sturm’s first year at the helm, Boston’s top brass also acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to be done if this team plans to take another step forward in 2026-27.
Here are seven takeaways from Wednesday’s speech:
More speed and skill required
If the Bruins’ goal last summer was to reset Boston’s culture and add more “piss and vinegar” to their lineup, the Bruins achieved said goal largely through offseason pickups like Tanner Jeannot and veterans like Viktor Arvidsson and Sean Kuraly.
But even if Boston’s depth chart filled with bruising skaters like Guinot, Nikita Zadorov and Mark Kastelich does a lot of damage on the ice, Neely admitted Boston will need to shift gears this offseason in order to add more high-end skills to this group.
Even with David Pastrnak leading the charge and youngsters like James Hagens and Fraser Minten building their offensive skills, Boston is in desperate need of more speed and scoring power, with a six-game playoff series against Buffalo’s deeper roster showcasing some of the talent gap between the two clubs.
“Obviously, we stumbled in the first round. So, yeah, we need more talent,” Neely said. “We need more speed. That’s something we have to try to gain in some way, shape or form. But when you look at the elite teams in the league, we’re not there. We need more speed.”
“And like I said a couple of years ago, when you strip it like we did, you’re not going to be there in one season. So it’s going to take some time. But what we’ve accomplished this year, we’ve got to give credit to the players. But early on, that was the building blocks. So we still have work to do to improve this club.”
New captain?
While Sturm admitted Sunday that he has no concerns about Boston playing an entire season without a captain, Neely indicated that discussions will continue this season about sewing a “C” onto a player’s jacket.
“I think, obviously, we would love to name a captain, but we have some great leaders here, so one of the things we want to do is make sure we pick the right guy, and Marco is going to be a big part of that,” Neely said. “So, with a new coach coming in and a new system in place, and getting to know the players, I think it made sense to see how the season goes.
“We’ve already started discussions about that, for sure, and we’ll have a lot more this season.”
Boston had several leaders in the locker room this past season, led by alternate captains David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy.
“Leadership is a team process, and I think we proved this year that these guys captured it,” Swinney said. “We’ve grown, they’ve grown, and now you’ll finally get to the point where you feel comfortable that we’ll have another leader here.”
The waiting game with venture capital
The Bruins took a nasty beating during the NHL Draft Lottery on Tuesday. Going into the draft with more than a 58 percent chance of getting Toronto’s first-round pick (No. 6 or No. 7 overall if traded to Boston), the Bruins instead saw the draft pick being pushed to a potential unprotected 2028 pick.
To make matters worse, Toronto not only kept their 2026 first-round pick, but won the lottery outright. For all the concerns in Toronto about the Leafs heading into a painful rebuild, landing a premium talent like Gavin McKenna could be exactly what the Bruins Original Six foe might need to orchestrate a retooling quickly, especially if Auston Matthews sticks around.
Presumably Boston could leverage some of those future assets — whether it’s prospects like Dean Letourneau and Will Zeller, its own first-round picks for the next few years, Toronto’s future No. 1 player, or Florida’s 2028 No. 1 player — for immediate returns.
But Sweeney acknowledged that Boston will need to toe the line between helping the current position while not limiting Boston’s long-term future as it pivots around guys like Minten and Huggins.
“If that means we use the assets of what you stand for, that’s it [of] Project 2028 or is it all at once? [2027]? “That is still somewhat to be determined,” Sweeney said of the options on the table. “The ping pong balls have dictated that it won’t be the case this year, so we have to have everything in play in terms of how we can continue to improve our club, and we have that mentality.
“We didn’t sit down last year and say, ‘This is a five-year process.’ “We just said we need to attack these areas.”
Even if Boston doesn’t have the appetite to deplete its entire prospect pool after refilling it over the past two years, Swinney will need to find a balance this summer in terms of bolstering Boston’s prospect pipeline and adding impact talent to the 2026-27 roster.
These dueling roster ideologies came to the fore after David Pastrnak admitted Friday that he hasn’t gotten any younger entering his age-30 season.
Swinney had concerns with Pastrnak’s comments — and the urgency his comments might create for a Bruins team trying to build a sustainable contender.
“I applaud David in the sense of asking for immediate help,” Swinio said. “I would say 10 years ago, when he was working his way into our lineup, maybe [Patrice] Bergeron, [Zdeno] Chara said: How good is this young man? “We can say the same about Fraser Minten [Marat Khusnutdinov] And James Huggins, like that [it’s] It will require some patience.
“We all hinted at that last year, which we needed to get back to [being] Deeper, skill-based [team] And adding speed to our club. I like the competitive nature of what this comment represents in terms of his desire [help]. …This is a reactionary comment from a high-level competitive star player in the NHL, and he’s not wrong in the sense that we like to hurry when we can.
Home ice struggles
For all the potential Boston has shown this season, their impressive record on home ice during the regular season (29-11-1) did not translate to the playoffs, as Boston dropped all three of its postseason games against Buffalo at TD Garden.
“We left it on the table in terms of not taking advantage of the situation at home for sure,” Sweeney said. “Our players are either baffled or disappointed that they couldn’t do it, especially the way we played during the season.”
Since 2023, the Bruins are just 3-10 in playoff appearances at TD Garden — and are now mired in a six-game losing streak in those games. Boston’s last playoff win was the overtime winner in Game 7 against the Maple Leafs on May 4, 2024.
“The way we played at home in the playoffs is disappointing, and we can’t get around that,” Neely said. “Our regular season record at home was outstanding. For whatever reason, we couldn’t do that in the playoffs, so that’s on us.
“We have to understand that a little better, but the experience that some of the players who haven’t played hockey in the playoffs has gained is invaluable, so we’re grateful for that, but we realize there’s a lot of work we have to do.”
Upside down the middle
Although the Bruins have some work to do this offseason when it comes to adding talent to this current position, Neely noted that Boston could have two potential impact centers in the pipeline already with Minten and Hagens.
“I think they both have that skill set,” Neely said when asked if the duo has the upside of top-line positions. “They are two slightly different players. One is more like Berge [Patrice Bergeron] As much as a 200 foot player perhaps [doesn’t] Seeing ice as Hagens does.
“Huggins’ head is up all the time, and he’s constantly looking to distribute. … Whether they become the No. 1 or not, it’s up to them and how it goes for them and what the path is for them. You know, we want to give these guys every opportunity to take the job that’s staring at them.”
Loose pucks
- Don Sweeney said he has had conversations with both of Boston’s pending unrestricted free agents, Viktor Arvidsson and Andrew Beck, about a potential return. Boston currently has just over $16 million in cap space entering the offseason.
- “I’ve had conversations with Andrew’s agent in particular for most of the year,” Sweeney said. “In terms of the update, I told Arvi the same thing: I will work out their positions now that the season is over and we will explore whether or not we can bring either or both back.”
- Swinney confirmed that none of the players on the Bruins roster need offseason surgeries — beyond a little dental work for Charlie McAvoy. Nikita Zadorov — who tore his MCL in Game 3 against Buffalo — will not need to undergo surgery in order to correct the knee injury.
- Boston will have six players participating in the upcoming 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Switzerland later this month: James Hagens (USA), Mason Lohry (USA), Sean Kuraly (USA), Fraser Minten (Canada), Joonas Korpisalo (Finland), and Henri Jokiharjo (Finland).
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