Bruins
“I believe Marco is aware of precisely what he’s getting from me.”
The ball was in Viktor Arvidsson’s court docket this offseason when it got here to his subsequent vacation spot.
Though his particular person manufacturing waned in 2024-25 with the Oilers (15 targets, 27 factors in 67 video games), a spot in Edmonton has seemingly assured a protracted playoff push every spring, particularly with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl main the best way.
However, even with Arvidsson signed by means of 2025-26 in Edmonton at an agreeable $4 million cap hit, the 32-year-old winger opted to waive his no-trade clause final week to approve a commerce to the Bruins.
A spirited postseason run will not be the playing cards for a retooling Bruins roster in 2025-26.
However, getting the chance to reunite with considered one of his former coaches in Los Angeles in Marco Sturm stood as an attractive proposition for Arvidsson transferring ahead.
“I didn’t carry the names [of Boston’s free-agent additions with links to Los Angeles] up. They did. Let’s begin that method, proper?” Sturm told Boston.com. “It simply turned out I had them and we had been in the identical group, humorous sufficient. And that helped, particularly with Arvy.
“He had a no-move clause, and he did it, not simply because he needed to return to Boston and have a terrific alternative, but additionally the connection I had with him previously.”
Coming into a contract season, Arvidsson believes the chance afforded in Boston to each play for Sturm and probably earn featured offensive reps was too good to move up.
“I’m gonna come there, I’m gonna play a accountable recreation, and I believe Marco is aware of precisely what he’s getting from me,” Arvidsson mentioned. “I’m gonna assist offensively and convey scoring. I do know I can do this. I do know I had a little bit little bit of a tricky time final 12 months with that and the chance. I’m gonna carry that, I do know that. I’m actually assured that I’m gonna make the staff higher.
“Understanding Marco from earlier than, me and him have a very good relationship,” Arvidsson mentioned. “I believe (it’s) gonna be a enjoyable 12 months.”
The Bruins are hoping final week’s commerce advantages all events — particularly if Arvidsson can add a scoring spark to a ahead corps quick on high-end expertise.
Boston’s prime precedence this offseason was evident: extra firepower up entrance.
Regardless of David Pastrnak’s continued offensive brilliance (43 targets, 106 factors) and a breakout season from Morgan Geekie (33 targets), Boston nonetheless ranked twenty eighth within the NHL in targets per recreation, twenty ninth in power-place proportion, and twenty ninth in photographs on purpose per contest.
However, Boston opted to focus most of their signings and offseason pickups on hard-nosed, bottom-six gamers like Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly, and Michael Eyssimont — with Arvidsson standing because the lone outlier as a winger with reliable 20-goal upside.
Beefing up Boston’s ahead corps might make them more durable to play in opposition to, evening in and evening out.
But when the Bruins nonetheless can’t put pucks on web and generate offense, they’re seemingly set to get stung by the identical flaws that dismantled all hope of a aggressive product in 2024-25.
As such, loads is driving on Arvidsson to inject some offense into his new staff, doubtless on a second line that might additionally function the likes of Pavel Zacha and Casey Mittelstadt.
Arvidsson’s observe report speaks for itself with regards to knack for lighting the lamp.
He has scored 20 or extra targets 5 occasions in his profession, together with a pair of 30-plus-goal campaigns in 2016-17 (31 tallies) and 2018-19 (34 targets) with the Predators.
However, the previous few seasons haven’t been as fruitful for the Swedish ahead.
Arvidsson handled accidents in the course of the 2023-24 season with the Kings — present process again surgical procedure in October earlier than later coping with a nagging lower-body difficulty. In simply 18 video games, Arvidsson nonetheless scored six targets and posted 15 factors that season.
With Edmonton, Arvidsson struggled to get right into a rhythm additional down the lineup, particularly on a power-play unit the place he has historically served in additional of a shifty netfront position. He scored only one purpose and posted two assists on the Oilers’ elite man benefit.
It was a far cary from his earlier outcomes on the facility play, such because the 2022-23 season in L.A. the place Arvidsson scored 10 targets on the person benefit to associate with 15 assists.
“A number of elements performed into it, I believe,” Arvidsson mentioned of his dip in manufacturing final 12 months. “I’m as accountable [for it] as all people else was … I simply have to take a look at myself as an individual and a participant. I actually imagine that. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
With Boston, extra featured reps needs to be obtainable for Arvidsson — be it on the highest power-play unit or in a second-line spot, the place his shot-first strategy ought to stand as a breath of recent air with playmakers like Zacha and Mittelstadt.
As Sturm prioritizes shot quantity and tempo as he augments Boston’s offensive strategy, Arvidsson needs to be a prepared participant.
Of the 596 NHLers final season who logged not less than 500 minutes of even-strength ice time, Arvidsson ranked nineteenth with 9.57 photographs per 60 minutes (per Natural Stat Trick).
However, as Boston braces itself for a season the place 5-on-5 scoring goes to be laborious to unearth when Pastrnak shouldn’t be on the ice, Sturm and his workers are banking on a rebound season from a power-play unit that, personnel-wise, ought to have some upside.
That optimism is echoed by Arvidsson, who mentioned that Sturm served as his power-play coach in Los Angeles earlier than the now-Bruins bench boss made the transfer to the AHL ranks.
“I believe it was loads of communication between him and the gamers, how we had been going to make it higher, how we had been going to achieve success,” Arvidsson mentioned of his new head coach. “It wasn’t simply X’s and O’s. It was attempting to all the time and on daily basis enhance it, having a giant financial institution of performs, situational performs that had been efficient. He performed the sport and he is aware of what it’s all about.”
If Arvidsson’s skating capacity can generate cleaner entries — and people wheels are utilized down low to get well pucks and tip residence blasts from Pastrnak and Co. — Boston’s offseason pickup might be a treatment to the staff’s special-teams woes.
“Groups are killing in a sure method after taking away Pasta — you understand you need to execute on the opposite facet,” Don Sweeney mentioned of Boston’s power-play struggles final season. “However when that puck comes up prime, it’s imagined to go to the web — as a result of that’s what they’re providing you with. … We weren’t executing on the stage it is advisable to to achieve success.
“And we’d like a greater job. We’ve to take possession of that. Our gamers need to take possession of it. The humorous half about it was — they had been top-15 energy play the 12 months earlier than, 4 out of the 5 guys [were there]. However different groups made changes, and so they didn’t. They didn’t do a adequate job. They’re greater than succesful. We simply need to do a greater job being linked and executing what we’re imagined to do.”
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