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If 2025-26 Bruins are competitive, a season-opening win mapped out winning formula
"They played exactly how I wanted them to play. And that makes me happy.”
Marco Sturm had plenty to smile about on Wednesday night.
The former Bruins forward left Boston’s bench at Capital One Arena with his first victory as an NHL head coach — a fitting accomplishment after first taking up coaching over a decade ago.
But beyond his own individual achievement, Sturm was pleased with what played out on the ice Wednesday night.
Two points is two points, regardless of the manner in which it’s achieved on any given night.
But after a busy training camp where Sturm and his staff undertook the sizable task to overhaul Boston’s systems and approach on the ice, their collective efforts were validated by Boston’s 3-1 win over the Capitals.
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“It’s the moment I was waiting for, and to grab a win on the road at a tough place like here — it’s even better,” Sturm said postgame. “And on top of it, for the most part, they played exactly what we worked on. They played exactly how I wanted them to play. And that makes me happy.”
Boston’s season-opening win was far from perfect. The Bruins spent far too much time in the sin bin (five penalties) and had regular stretches were they chased play against a fast-paced Capitals club.
But for as imperfect as Boston’s roster might be, a victory like Wednesday at least mapped out the template that Sturm’s club must adhere to if this retooling club wants to exceed expectations out on the ice.
A return to form for Swayman
The Bruins, as currently constituted, don’t have a lot of assured avenues of offense on this roster outside of their top line and power-play unit.
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As such, the onus is going to fall on Jeremy Swayman and Boston’s defense to bail this team out on most nights.
And if Wednesday’s showing was a sign of things to come, the 2025-26 Bruins have a good formula in place if this is the Swayman that they’re getting between the pipes.
The 26-year-old netminder was stellar against the Capitals, stopping 34 of the 35 shots that came his way. He turned aside eight of nine high-danger shots generated by Washington — generating a 3.29 goals saved above expected rate, per MoneyPuck.
For reference, Swayman sported a -9.1 goals saved above expected last season in a season where just about everything went sideways for both the team and netminder.
“I think we just have to stay consistent and know that things are going to get better,” Swayman said. “And right now, we have things to work on. It’s good, something to identify and grow from and just keep building. We have a lot of games to do that.”
While Boston’s penalty kill stood tall with a perfect 5-for-5 showing, Swayman factored heavily in that performance — stopping 11-of-11 shots generated by a dangerous Capitals power play.
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So long as Swayman is dialed in, a stingy Bruins squad can be a hard out.
“That’s something that we need to build on right away and take pride in,” Swayman said of the PK. “And again, I think we did a great job just really sticking to our routes, guys making great reads, blocking shots when needed. And that’s something you really want to see early on.”
Pastrnak serves as Boston’s offensive sparkplug
The Bruins’ collective lineup, on paper, may not strike fear into opposing defenses this winter.
The same can’t be said for the winger anchoring the top of Boston’s depth chart in David Pastrnak.
An offensive cheat code for years now, Pastrnak once again dominated on Wednesday against Washington — factoring in on all of Boston’s goals with a three-point showing.
“It’s huge,” Elias Lindholm said of Pastrnak. “He’s one of the best players in the league. When he has the puck, you’ve got to be ready, have your stick on the ice. It’s a game-changer.”
As the Bruins try to sort through how best to generate offense from their middle-six grouping, Pastrnak should be able to shoulder a hefty portion of the scoring burden — as evidenced by his 5-on-5 tally in the second period and his set-up of both Lindholm’s power-play tally and Morgan Geekie’s empty-netter.
“That’s him, right? It’s why he makes the big bucks,” Sturm said. “No, he was good. You’ve just got to be aware when he is on the ice. Sometimes you think he’s going to slow down, and all of a sudden he gets dangerous again. And you could see it today.”
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“But he was great. I thought he was outstanding on the bench too, very positive, and kept the guys going.”
As Pastrnak and Swayman go, so goes the 2025-26 Bruins. And it’s not unreasonable to expect the 29-year-old winger to stuff the stat sheet through the winter.
Capitalizing on special teams
One of the many reasons why the Bruins floundered last season was due to stagnant special-teams play, with Boston ranking 29th in the NHL on the power play (15.2 percent) and 24th on the penalty kill (76.3 percent).
Wednesday was a step in the right direction, with Boston negating all five of Washington’s power plays while cashing in on one of their two bids on the man advantage.
Shorthanded stalwarts like Andrew Peeke (5:06 time on ice), Hampus Lindholm (4:34), and Nikita Zadorov (4:29) all impressed, but it was also encouraging to see younger players like Fraser Minten (3:58) or offseason pickups like Sean Kuraly (3:37) and Tanner Jeannot (3:16) pull on the rope with those taxing D-zone reps.
Boston’s power play also generated several promising looks against Caps goalie Logan Thompson in the first period before Lindholm struck in the third period.
With assistant coach Steve Spott running the man advantage, it looks as though Boston is overhauling sizable segments of their approach on the power play — as both Lindholm and Sturm credited Spott for drawing up the breakout play that led to Lindholm’s goal.
The Bruins’ days of boasting a top-five power play with the likes of Patrice Bergeron at the bumper and Torey Krug up at the point are over. But the Bruins have the personnel in place to be far better than the 29th-ranked grouping on the man advantage.
A stingy defense
The Bruins will need to clean things up when it comes to cutting down on their penalties and the amount of time spent chasing the play.
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But as the Bruins try to devise a formula to keep themselves competitive most nights, Sturm’s team did a solid job on Wednesday turning the neutral zone into a swamp for Washington.
With Boston trapping the Caps’ puck carries near center ice, the Bruins were able to generate turnovers and limit the number of clean entries that Washington was able to muster.
“Washington, they like to build speed a lot,” Sturm said. “And the thing against speed, we just have to stay a little bit more compact. We gave up the middle a couple times because our F1 wasn’t in the right spot.
“And then puts automatically the other guys in a tough situation, too. I thought we were just a little bit too passive, probably in the third. But that’s something we definitely have to look at it and correct.”
It wasn’t seamless, nor is it exactly the most riveting product on the ice when a team adheres to low-event hockey. But this Bruins roster also doesn’t have the horses to deploy a risk-heavy, run-and-go approach in order to generate offense and push the envelope.
For now, the Bruins’ priority is to turn a track meet into a slog against opponents, rely on their star forward and power play to land a punch or two in the offensive zone, and fall back on a netminder ready to right the wrongs of a lost season.
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It’s not the most sustainable formula, nor will it be a given that all of these facets of Boston’s gameplan will click regularly this winter.
But it’s the best strategy that Sturm has — as of right now — in order to turn what was once a rudderless grouping into a competitive unit.
It sure looked like it worked on Wednesday night.
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