In an improving Atlantic Division, the Boston Bruins will need everything they’ve got to repeat last season’s 100-points, back-to-the-playoffs performance.
The Bruins are one of the few teams in the National Hockey League that can endure a 2026-27 playoff miss, so long as the long-range goals remain intact and the team gives a solid account of itself over the new 84-game schedule that begins at home on Sept. 29 vs. the New York Rangers. You won’t hear any of the above from management, executive or hockey-operations level. They’re competitive, they want their cake and they want to eat it, too.
“We’ve got a coach (Marco Sturm) that’s got his hands firmly on the wheel now after a full season and a successful season getting us back into the playoffs, and our group is excited. Fortunately, we’ve had extra time off, and we’re entering camp healthy, and we’re looking to take the next steps,” said General Manager Don Sweeney in his address to the media today at Warrior Arena in Brighton.
That means continue climbing back toward Stanley Cup contention, as in be competitive once again and use last year’s experience as a platform for improvement when it comes to the 2027 playoffs. It’s a scenario that the pundits are not expecting of the Bruins, whose offseason was relatively quiet compared to their Atlantic Division rivals.
At Rink Rap, win now or win later is not a philosophical choice. I do not believe there is evidence to prove that sinking to the NHL abyss is the necessary passageway back to glory. The inconvenient truth is tanking promises nothing and usually delivers an extended stay wandering the maze while searching for traction.
That is not meant to argue that the Bruins did not conduct a mini-tank of sorts for the final several weeks of the 2024-25 season. While moving out key players for futures and clearing salary-cap space, they used March 2025 as an opportunity to acquire stop-gap players identified as components to ensure the mini-tank would not take on a life of its own. Mission accomplished. The Bruins had a plan to bounce back on a cultural level and on an immediate schedule. They did so.
In order to sustain that progress, the Bruins need another relatively healthy season (and probably another below-par performance out of the Metropolitan Division). Beyond that, they need to improve their collective net drive, especially without Viktor Arvidsson, who was ostensibly replaced in the top six by the younger, faster J-J Peterka.
With center Matt Poitras signed on Wednesday, there are neither holdouts nor injuries when the Bruins take to Warrior Arena ice Thursday morning for the first skating session of what will be a shorter-than-usual training camp.
Sweeney more than hinted his objection to the amended Collective Bargaining Agreement’s scrapping of annual, team-conducted fitness testing. In clarifying a question from The Athletic writer Fluto Shinzawa, Sweeney make it clear he did not wish to expound on his opinion of the change. He did confirm that the Bruins had found the data from that exercise to be very useful.
“Just to clarify, you don’t want my actual view on there’s no fitness testing, right? Okay. Because I don’t want to give it,” said Sweeney. “There’ll be some challenges, and the shortened camp is part of that. So, we’ve got to navigate; the players themselves have to navigate how to get ready. Does that mean it shows up in the first 10 games? We’re going to find out. Obviously, the players do an awful lot of work in the offseason to be prepared from day one. The practice time is precious.”
In this era of sports as big business, hockey players earning big money and training on a 12-months-a-year basis don’t want to be bothered with the punishing rituals of wearing a mask and peddling on a stationary bike until they puke. It does make one wonder if the skating to commence at 10 am Thursday at Warrior will take on a more cautious tone so as not to pull groin muscles or if, in response to the players’ increased power, teams use what precious little leverage they still have by finding out right away exactly how those players have responded to greater freedom and responsibility. No doubt, the stats hats will be tallying up individual days missed in NHL camps this month over against the longer camps of the past.
If players want to excel, it’s more on them than it had been in quite some time. If these next two weeks go by smoothly and without incident, then little by little training camp could be going the way of the NHL All-Star Game.
Blink at this camp and you’ll miss it. Or keep your eyelids open and watch for the following:
Where will James Hagens line up for his two preseason tilts, center or wing? Given the obvious depth at center and the work-in-progress identity along both wings, the answer should be wing. This is reliable regardless of Hagens’ obvious vision, hand-eye, skating and overall zone-entry and playmaking ability. It’s early yet, there is much physical ground to cover and two-way reliability to establish.
Either way, Assistant Coach Steve Spott should be licking his chops at Hagens’ powerplay performance during the weekend’s two-game Prospects Challenge in Buffalo. The former Boston College forward scored at will from the right circle, his left shot (stick inside) connecting on the powerplay and at 3v3.
Next, how will right-shot defensemen Will Borgen and Connor Clifton look, especially as Sturm admittedly looks to improve the Bruins 5v5 breakout game? They’ll get their chance on opening night while Charlie McAvoy begins serving his six-game suspension for chopping at Zach Benson’s forearm with time running out on the playoff series won by the Sabres in six.
Right-shot defenseman Will Borgen will aim to smooth out the Bruins’ breakout game when Charlie McAvoy is taking a breather on the Boston bench.
“Not too many changes in the back end. We have Borgen and Clifton – (whom) I think everyone knows – so we know what we’re getting. The areas we wanted to improve, including maybe breakouts and stuff like that, I think hopefully with those additions it will help us. And knowing me, knowing the language, knowing the system, I think it’s a little bit of a combination of everything. Hopefully it’s going to help our D out,” said Sturm, who felt that, amidst all the adjustment, offense from the defense “kind of got lost a little bit.”
Two defensemen meant to offer critical assists in the transition game last season were Mason Lohrei and Henri Jokiharju. Both are in Boston’s camp but, in a manner of speaking, have effectively been replaced by the Borgen and Clifton acquisitions on the right side and on the left by sophomore NHLer Jonathan Aspirot and aspiring NHLer Frederic Brunet. Even without Charlie McAvoy to start the season, there cannot be room on the 23-max NHL roster for all three twosomes. No slight intended to Jordan Harris, who after an injury-plagued 2025-26 season, will need the runway of significant time in AHL Providence.
Poitras, by the way, chose to sign his qualifying offer rather than miss camp. Smart move, even though it’s a one-year, two-way contract (at $850,000). With his full season in Providence, Poitras obviously felt he had earned a one-way deal and the NHL start that goes with it. He is waivers eligible after the expiration of his three-year rookie deal, so 31 other teams now have cost certainty should Poitras wind up on the waiver wire. Given how well the centerman played for the P-Bruins down the stretch, it is hard to believe he could get cut from NHL camp and clear waivers.
Perhaps the even-more inconvenient truth is that, while it remains hard to believe the Bruins are apparently willing to part with Poitras with zero return (via waivers upon probable AHL assignment), management doesn’t see sufficient progress in his game.
If there was a swinging point regarding Poitras’ plight, his season-long improvement last winter in the AHL notwithstanding, it wasn’t Fraser Minten’s seven-year extension, nor does it have anything to do with Pavel Zacha (entering the final year of his deal). If there is a swing, it’s in the recovery and apparent readiness of Latvian forward Dans Locmelis, the former UMass star who has proven himself on the international stage as well as in the AHL. Having rehabbed a shoulder following a surgery that cut short his 2025-26 season, the versatile forward is back, feeling great, and eager to sell the Bruins on his long-range future.
As it now stands, NHL training camps are shorter, cuts will be made sooner, and fewer jobs will be at stake over the course of four preseason games that, by the way, begin with the Washington Capitals’ visit to TD Garden at 5 pm Sunday. No player will play more than twice (that’s apparently in the amended CBA, too).
Building construction has hard costs and soft costs. So do professional sports franchises. The Bruins did not get as better as some of their Atlantic Division rivals in hard areas such as big-name player acquisition. They were reportedly in on Darnell Nurse but lost out when a Boston defenseman exercised his no-trade clause.
While it’s not clear that the Bruins passed on Chris Kreider or if Kreider did not want to play in his hometown, another thing to watch for in the preseason is the naming of the next Bruins captain. Kreider was still a Ranger when Sturm mused as to the possibility that some veteran acquisition could be considered as a viable choice for captain. We now know it won’t be Kreider.
The guess here is the “C” will be sewn onto the sweater of David Pastrnak, who will be vying for his fifth straight 100-point season. That is the historic territory of Bobby Orr (six straight times from 1969-70 through 1974-75 inclusive) and Phil Esposito (1968-69 and 69-70 through 74-75). With a 99-point 69-70 season, Espo was one point away from what would have wound up a seven-year, 100-point streak.
Pastrnak has made the Bruins his team from the day Brad Marchand was traded to Florida. He is in line with the succession plan well established since Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron turned the C and the A into one of the great partnerships in sports leadership for 14 years. Over the last year, McAvoy has certainly made strides as captain material, his blown gasket in the final seconds of the Buffalo series notwithstanding. It just seems like this is Pasta’s time if he approves the wearing of that mantle. Sweeney said an announcement will be made before the season opens on Sept. 29.
Rink Rap with Mick Colageo 