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6 things to watch for during Bruins training camp
Marco Sturm's system tweaks, lineup reshuffles, and the opportunity afforded to younger players will be things to watch over the next three weeks.
Hockey is finally back in Boston.
And after the Bruins plummeted to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings last season, new head coach Marco Sturm and a revamped roster are looking to right the ship.
It’s a task easier said than done, considering that Sturm and his staff are inheriting a roster rife with question marks.
But, as Boston continues its ongoing retool, there should be no shortage of storylines and lineup battles to follow during Boston’s three-week camp.
Here are five things to follow during Boston’s camp:
What changes do Marco Sturm and his staff have in store?
Boston’s new bench boss has been candid all offseason when it comes to the limitations facing a Bruins team in transition.
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“I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be hard, right,” Sturm told Boston.com in July about the team’s ability to consistently score at 5-on-5 play. “I mean, going back to what I just said, I wish we would have everything, but there is always a path to it. We did that. I believe you always have to build a foundation first, and you can’t look ahead.”
A Boston squad that ranked 27th in the NHL in goals scored per game (2.71) last year is still likely short at least two or three high-impact forwards on this present roster.
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But for Sturm, the Bruins have a template to follow if they want to be playing meaningful hockey this spring.
- Regain Boston’s identity as a stingy, defensive-first club.
- Identity younger players or depressed assets who can pull on the rope and supplement the established talent in place.
- Re-spark a Bruins power play that finished 29th in the league with just a 15.2 percent success rate.
Boston should conceivably be able to tighten up a defensive structure that understandably floundered without Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm last season.
On special teams, new coach Steve Spott will be tasked with augmenting a man advantage that too often struggled to gain clean entries — or predictably ran most plays through Pastrnak in hopes that his blistering one-timer would keep an impotent power play afloat.
For Sturm and his coaching staff, sizable tweaks might have to be prescribed in all facets of the game, especially in terms of adjusting the team’s longstanding zone defense and neutral-zone structure.
The 2025-26 Bruins aren’t going to be the ‘84 Oilers. But, a renewed emphasis on shot volume and forechecking pressure could help boost Boston’s chances of generating scoring chances at 5-on-5 play.
Beyond Sturm’s changes to Boston’s system, it will be worth watching how Sturm shifts the culture in Boston — starting with what he pledges to be a higher standard set on the ice.
“It sounds like — I was here in the past — but it sounds like that got lost a little bit, and that’s what we wanted to attack to be a really competitive group again,” Sturm said of the Bruins’ culture. “Not just in games, but also in practices and on the ice and off the ice.
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“And it’s starting with me too, right? I’m gonna set the tone every day, and I think that was part of what Don [Sweeney] liked about my hiring, too — that I’m not a player, but I do that as a coach as well.”
Who slots in where?
The expectation going into the season is that the Bruins will keep a top line of Elias Lindholm, Davis Pastrnak, and Morgan Geekie intact — especially after they outscored opponents, 16-2, at 5-on-5 play after Boston’s trade-deadline teardown.
After that, it’s anyone’s guess as to how Sturm will fill out a lineup that has no shortage of options in place — but few certainties as far as where those puzzle pieces fit.
Beyond the influx of young talent who will be chomping at the bit to crack the roster out of camp, the Bruins have to sort through the established NHLers in place and how best to build out the club’s middle-six forward corps.
A former 30-goal scorer in Viktor Arvidsson is seemingly set to log reps on the second line. But will it be Casey Mittelstadt feeding him passes, or will it be Pavel Zacha down the middle?
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Could Matej Blumel — the AHL’s leading goal-scorer with 39 tallies last summer — earn a spot on the wing and inject some much-needed scoring on the roster?
And will Boston’s third line either be a landing spot for some youngsters — or a segment of the lineup where the Bruins’ free-agent bruisers like Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly, and Mikey Eyssimont reside?
We rolled out our own Opening Night lineup projection in July — which featured a blend of bottom-six scrappers and younger skaters vying for featured roles at hockey’s highest level.
Odds are that what we mapped out this summer will look very different from the grouping that Sturm rolls out on Oct. 8 in Washington.
Will younger players get a shot?
The Bruins will have to wait until at least the springtime for a chance to see James Hagens don a black-and-gold sweater.
But, as Boston awaits the arrival of its blue-chip prospect, the Bruins should have ample opportunity this winter to see if a few other prospects in their emerging pipeline can stick and become lineup fixtures moving forward.
Even with the logjam of forwards on Boston’s camp roster, younger players like Fraser Minten and Matt Poitras should be given extended looks during preseason action.
Minten has the makings of a future stalwart at third-line center, even if he might have to leapfrog a few older players this fall before carving out that role.
If Mittelstadt can’t make the most of his reps down the middle, a younger playmaker like Poitras could get some run as well — with his poise with the puck potentially meshing well with a shot-heavy winger like Arvidsson.
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On the wing, Fabian Lysell might be starting at a consequential fall when it comes to whether or not his pro career will continue in Boston.
A Bruins team short on high-end skill and skating would welcome Lysell seizing the opportunity in front of him, while a 25-year-old winger like Blumel could develop into a middle-six cog if his offensive talents translate to the NHL level.
Much like how Poitras surprised many a few years ago and accelerated his timeline with a strong preseason, keep tabs on Dans Locmelis, who could also turn some heads this fall after thriving during his limited time with Providence last spring (12 points in six games).
How does Jeremy Swayman fare with a clean slate?
Nothing will hold as much weight over whether or not the Bruins are playing high-stakes hockey this April than Jeremy Swayman and whether or not he can bounce back between the pipes this winter.
The Bruins’ path toward being a competitive club amid their expected scoring flaws rests in the team winning low-event, grind-out games under Sturm’s watch. That gameplan can only be executed if Swayman regains his form as one of the top young netminders in the NHL.
There’s far less drama surrounding Swayman this camp after trudging through an extended contract stalemate in 2024 — one that had him missing all of Boston’s camp.
The pressure remains high on Swayman to live up to both his label as Boston’s No. 1 netminder and the sizable contract he finally secured last October (eight years, $66 million).
But a fresh start, a full training camp, and the momentum secured from a strong showing at the IIHF World Championships (7-0, .921 save percentage for Team USA) should have plenty working in Swayman’s favor as he tries to flush a miserable 2024-25 campaign.
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“I’m a completely different human being,” Swayman said earlier this month. “And that’s a testament to the experience that I gained throughout my career to this point. And I’m so grateful for that — the ups and downs of it all. And standing here, Jeremy Swayman is in a great spot, and I’m really excited about that.”
Who will win the backup goalie spot?
One of the top lineup battles worth following in the coming weeks will be who backs up Swayman in net moving forward.
Joonas Korpisalo — who has three years left on his current contract with Boston — is the odds-on favorite to slot in behind Swayman on the depth chart.
The veteran netminder served admirably in such a role last season, and was candid about wanting to log more reps after appearing in just 27 games this past season.
But, the Bruins also have another appealing option in 26-year-old Michael DiPietro, who took home some hardware as the AHL’s top goalie this past season after sporting a .927 save percentage over 40 games with Providence.
Considering that the Bruins handed DiPietro a two-year, one-way contract in June, Boston seems to have plenty of faith in the young netminder and his ability to further develop into an NHL-level regular moving forward.
If DiPietro impresses during preseason action and pushes Korpisalo over the next few weeks, things could get very interesting.
Korpisalo might have the resume and NHL experience, but DiPietro would also need to clear waivers if the Bruins wanted to send him to Providence at the end of camp. Given both his age and upside, some club desperate for goalie help might love to take DiPietro off of Boston’s hands.
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The onus will fall on DiPietro to make a compelling case for NHL reps. His strong play could prompt Boston to try and find a trade suitor for Korpisalo — or potentially expose the 31-year-old goalie to waivers if the backup gig in Boston goes to the younger option.
Will a captain emerge?
The Boston Bruins are one just two NHL clubs (San Jose) set to enter camp without a captain in place.
With Boston reshuffling their leadership hierarchy in March by trading away Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, and Charlie Coyle, all eyes will be on Boston’s next group of leaders in David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy when it comes to picking up the pieces and cultivating a new culture in Boston.
Those efforts may not result in one of Pastrnak or McAvoy assuming the captaincy by the start of regular-season play, with Sweeney acknowledging that the team is opting for a more gradual approach when it comes to identifying the team’s next leader.
“We’ve been forward with everybody, and honest with everybody, that we’re going to start without it,” Sweeney said of the captaincy last week. “We’ve got a leadership group that’s been meeting amongst themselves and I think eventually somebody will emerge as the guy that should be the next captain.
“It comes with a lot of responsibility. So I’d like to see a little more organic, natural, progression of it.”
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Even if the Bruins don’t stamp a “C” on someone’s sweater in the coming weeks, Pastrnak and McAvoy have both stressed the need to carry on — but also evolve – the culture that was initially set down by the likes of Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron nearly two decades ago.
“I think maybe instead of just the ‘rinse and repeat’ of what it’s been for a long time … we have to try and build it back up,” McAvoy said of Boston’s leadership group earlier this month. “It’s different. It’s a completely different group. It’s different individuals. So it’s going to look different.
“But mostly it’s just a great opportunity, really, more than anything, to have that sort of thrust on us to be responsible for it. I think it’s something that we look at and we’re excited about it. We’re not seeing it as more of a daunting task. It’s something that we’re just honored to be trusted with that.”
Beyond McAvoy and Pastrnak’s growing leadership, focus should be paid to which players continue to assert themselves as leaders in the room — with another “A” up for grabs that could go to the likes of Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov, Sean Kuraly, and many others.
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