Boston Bruins
“I feel you would say that we squeezed each drop out of this group.”
COMMENTARY
Amid the frustrations, second-guesses, and pained musings that manifest as quickly as the ultimate handshake line of the hockey season is accomplished, Marco Sturm harped on the positives Friday evening.
“It sucks, proper?” Boston’s first-year bench boss mentioned of the message to his staff after getting bounced out of the primary spherical of the playoffs. “It hurts, completely, it hurts. However I additionally reminded them [of] what sort of season they performed. Nobody actually thought we might be within the combine within the playoffs. Neglect about playoffs, proper?
“Take a look at us, 100-point season and battled actually laborious till the top. I simply wished them to know the way proud I’m, and in addition, now we bought somewhat style. … [Don Sweeney] mentioned it a number of months in the past. We nonetheless have work to do.”
There’s fact in all of Sturm’s message after Boston’s season got here to an in depth in a Recreation 6 house loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The 2025-26 Bruins, all issues thought of, had a profitable season.
Recent off a disastrous 2024-25 marketing campaign the place Boston plummeted to the underside of the standings and the path of the franchise was seemingly rudderless, Sturm steered his former membership into calmer waters.
Buoyed by a bounce-back season from Jeremy Swayman and loads of buy-in for Sturm’s imaginative and prescient of a hard-nosed, grind-out membership, the Bruins collectively punched above their weight all season lengthy.
In a season the place many Bruins followers had been anticipating the Bruins to be entrants within the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes, Boston as an alternative punched its ticket to the playoffs — accruing 100 factors with a reworked roster crafted with franchise fixtures, intriguing children, and several other cast-offs and reclamation tasks from throughout the league.
For the entire fear that 2024-25 was step one in an arduous multi-year rebuild for a staff seemingly working on borrowed time for years, the Bruins seem like properly forward of schedule coming into the summer time of 2026.
However as evidenced by Boston’s abbreviated stint within the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Bruins nonetheless have plenty of work to do in the event that they wish to set up themselves as a respectable contender amid a quickly shifting NHL panorama.
“The satisfaction isn’t simply making playoffs — it’s attending to the highest and being within the high,” Jeremy Swayman mentioned after Friday’s 4-1 loss to Buffalo. “So I feel that we have now loads to be pleased with — and positively loads to work on, too.”
The 2025-26 Boston Bruins had been an entertaining watch for many of this season.
Embracing an identity of “piss and vinegar” bestowed by Cam Neely, Boston seemingly relished the position of being yard bullies throughout regular-season play — touchdown welts towards opponents and dictating phrases on the ice as a consequence of Sturm’s buttoned-up, stingy neutral-zone alignment.
Sadly, a roster solely constructed round snarl and scrappiness can solely go up to now when the stakes are raised within the springtime.
For the entire pre-series proclamations of the Bruins being the more durable and extra skilled membership when in comparison with the Sabres, Buffalo was removed from rattled in its first playoff collection since 2011.
Buffalo didn’t beat Boston at its personal recreation over the course of six video games. They as an alternative performed their very own recreation — one which the Bruins had few solutions for over the past two weeks.
A lineup plagued by glass-eaters and pugnacious skaters holds loads of attraction because the physicality ramps up within the postseason.
But it surely shouldn’t come as a lot of a shock {that a} Buffalo lineup that was deeper, quicker, and extra expert is the group that punched its ticket to the following spherical of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
As sharp as Swayman was in web for the Bruins, Boston wanted him to be all however good if it had any shot of taking down the Sabres.
In Boston’s closing 4 video games of this collection, the Bruins scored only one purpose in regulation in every of these matchups.
If the Bruins wish to take the following step, extra ability and skating skill are paramount throughout all segments of Boston’s depth chart.
Whereas Buffalo’s D corps options 4 dynamic puck-movers in Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson, Owen Energy, and Bowen Byram, who can transport the puck out of hazard, reload, and function the following layer of offensive strain, the Bruins’ defensive fortitude was usually missing.
Offensively, Boston’s D corps ranked 18th within the NHL in targets scored (36), whereas the Bruins were tied for 30th in the NHL in expected goals against per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play (2.93) and twenty eighth in high-danger scoring possibilities allowed per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play (12.5).
Had it not been for Swayman routinely bailing out Boston’s leaky protection (28.8 targets saved above anticipated), the Bruins might need been a featured entrant within the McKenna sweepstakes in any case.
The expertise hole between the Bruins and Sabres can be evident up entrance.
Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch justifiably draw loads of consideration on Buffalo’s high line. However the Sabres’ middle-six grouping additionally has a pair of fleet-footed pivots in Josh Norris and Ryan McLeod, together with a 20-year-old Brad Marchand within the making in Zach Benson, a forechecking menace in Josh Doan, and different expert forwards like Jack Quinn and Noah Ostlund.
The Bruins have … David Pastrnak. Not practically sufficient.
“I’m turning 30 in a few weeks,” Pastrnak acknowledged. “I’ve had one sniff on the [Stanley Cup] up to now. It will get tougher each single 12 months. … You don’t wish to waste any alternative.”
As encouraging as Boston’s offensive capabilities had been throughout the common season, key cogs up entrance like Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt, Elias Lindholm, and others couldn’t persistently pull on the rope as soon as the playoffs commenced.
Extra ability, velocity, and scoring contact are desperately wanted.
Assist may very well be on the way in which through a Bruins’ prospect pool that has been replenished briefly order. A full season of James Hagens in 2026-27 provides loads of hope, whereas Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov earned priceless expertise this season.
Boston very properly may have both the sixth or seventh total choose within the 2026 NHL Draft from Toronto if the lottery balls fall their means on Tuesday, whereas prospects like Dean Letourneau, Will Zellers, and Cooper Simpson seem like future NHLers.
However the Bruins can also’t precisely wait five-plus years down the road of this subsequent wave of expertise to mature into franchise fixtures — not with Boston’s present core already within the midst of their collective prime.
It creates an interesting conundrum for Don Sweeney and Boston’s high brass this summer time.
Does Boston decide to maintain the established order and watch for all these children to reach in due time?
Are a few of these picks or prospects parlayed into extra rapid assist — particularly if respectable star expertise like Brady Tkachuk, Elias Pettersson, Robert Thomas, or Jason Robertson are dangled on the open market?
Does one thing extra seismic want to alter for a Bruins franchise that has now misplaced six straight playoff video games on house ice?
And is that this present core really price pushing in all these chips for — particularly recent off a Recreation 6 loss the place each Pastrnak and McAvoy (a minus-6 within the collection) had been crushed in a foot race en path to Buffalo’s back-breaking third purpose?
The 2025-26 Bruins had been an excellent staff, higher than many anticipated.
How they turn into an awesome staff is the following endeavor — one that gives loads of threat and reward for this Authentic Six franchise.
“I feel you would say that we squeezed each drop out of this group,” McAvoy mentioned. “Stunned lots of people. We made it right here. It’s not what we wished. We thought as soon as we bought right here, we may make some noise. However we simply didn’t play prefer it.”
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