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The 2025-26 Boston Bruins exceeded expectations. But they’ve got a lot of work to do.
"I think you could say that we squeezed every drop out of this group."
COMMENTARY
Amid the frustrations, second-guesses, and pained musings that manifest as soon as the final handshake line of the hockey season is completed, Marco Sturm harped on the positives Friday night.
“It sucks, right?” Boston’s first-year bench boss said of the message to his team after getting bounced out of the first round of the playoffs. “It hurts, absolutely, it hurts. But I also reminded them [of] what kind of season they played. No one really thought we would be in the mix in the playoffs. Forget about playoffs, right?
“Look at us, 100-point season and battled really hard until the end. I just wanted them to know how proud I am, and also, now we got a little taste. … [Don Sweeney] said it a few months ago. We still have work to do.”
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There’s truth in all of Sturm’s message after Boston’s season came to a close in a Game 6 home loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The 2025-26 Bruins, all things considered, had a successful season.
Fresh off a disastrous 2024-25 campaign where Boston plummeted to the bottom of the standings and the direction of the franchise was seemingly rudderless, Sturm steered his former club into calmer waters.
Buoyed by a bounce-back season from Jeremy Swayman and plenty of buy-in for Sturm’s vision of a hard-nosed, grind-out club, the Bruins collectively punched above their weight all season long.
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In a season where many Bruins fans were expecting the Bruins to be entrants in the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes, Boston instead punched its ticket to the playoffs — accruing 100 points with a reworked roster crafted with franchise fixtures, intriguing youngsters, and several cast-offs and reclamation projects from across the league.
For all of the worry that 2024-25 was the first step in an arduous multi-year rebuild for a team seemingly operating on borrowed time for years, the Bruins appear to be well ahead of schedule entering the summer of 2026.
But as evidenced by Boston’s abbreviated stint in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Bruins still have a lot of work to do if they want to establish themselves as a legitimate contender amid a rapidly shifting NHL landscape.
“The satisfaction isn’t just making playoffs — it’s getting to the top and being in the top,” Jeremy Swayman said after Friday’s 4-1 loss to Buffalo. “So I think that we have a lot to be proud of — and definitely a lot to work on, too.”
The 2025-26 Boston Bruins were an entertaining watch for most of this season.
Embracing an identity of “piss and vinegar” bestowed by Cam Neely, Boston seemingly relished the role of being backyard bullies during regular-season play — landing welts against opponents and dictating terms on the ice due to Sturm’s buttoned-up, stingy neutral-zone alignment.
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Unfortunately, a roster solely built around snarl and scrappiness can only go so far when the stakes are raised in the springtime.
For all of the pre-series proclamations of the Bruins being the tougher and more experienced club when compared to the Sabres, Buffalo was far from rattled in its first playoff series since 2011.
Buffalo didn’t beat Boston at its own game over the course of six games. They instead played their own game — one that the Bruins had few answers for over the last two weeks.
A lineup littered with glass-eaters and pugnacious skaters holds plenty of appeal as the physicality ramps up in the postseason.
But it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a Buffalo lineup that was deeper, faster, and more skilled is the group that punched its ticket to the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
As sharp as Swayman was in net for the Bruins, Boston needed him to be all but perfect if it had any shot of taking down the Sabres.
In Boston’s final four games of this series, the Bruins scored just one goal in regulation in each of those matchups.
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If the Bruins want to take the next step, more skill and skating ability are paramount across all segments of Boston’s depth chart.
Whereas Buffalo’s D corps features four dynamic puck-movers in Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson, Owen Power, and Bowen Byram, who can transport the puck out of danger, reload, and serve as the next layer of offensive pressure, the Bruins’ defensive fortitude was often lacking.
Offensively, Boston’s D corps ranked 18th in the NHL in goals scored (36), while the Bruins were tied for 30th in the NHL in expected goals against per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play (2.93) and 28th in high-danger scoring chances allowed per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play (12.5).
Had it not been for Swayman routinely bailing out Boston’s leaky defense (28.8 goals saved above expected), the Bruins might have been a featured entrant in the McKenna sweepstakes after all.
The talent gap between the Bruins and Sabres is also evident up front.
Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch justifiably draw plenty of attention on Buffalo’s top line. But the Sabres’ middle-six grouping also has a pair of fleet-footed pivots in Josh Norris and Ryan McLeod, along with a 20-year-old Brad Marchand in the making in Zach Benson, a forechecking menace in Josh Doan, and other skilled forwards like Jack Quinn and Noah Ostlund.
The Bruins have … David Pastrnak. Not nearly enough.
“I’m turning 30 in a couple of weeks,” Pastrnak acknowledged. “I’ve had one sniff at the [Stanley Cup] so far. It gets harder every single year. … You don’t want to waste any opportunity.”
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As encouraging as Boston’s offensive capabilities were during the regular season, key cogs up front like Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt, Elias Lindholm, and others couldn’t consistently pull on the rope once the playoffs commenced.
More skill, speed, and scoring touch are desperately needed.
Help could be on the way via a Bruins’ prospect pool that has been replenished in short order. A full season of James Hagens in 2026-27 offers plenty of hope, while Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov earned valuable experience this season.
Boston very well could have either the sixth or seventh overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft from Toronto if the lottery balls fall their way on Tuesday, while prospects like Dean Letourneau, Will Zellers, and Cooper Simpson look like future NHLers.
But the Bruins also can’t exactly wait five-plus years down the line of this next wave of talent to mature into franchise fixtures — not with Boston’s current core already in the midst of their collective prime.
It creates a fascinating conundrum for Don Sweeney and Boston’s top brass this summer.
Does Boston opt to keep the status quo and wait for all these youngsters to arrive in due time?
Are some of those picks or prospects parlayed into more immediate help — especially if legitimate star talent like Brady Tkachuk, Elias Pettersson, Robert Thomas, or Jason Robertson are dangled on the open market?
Does something more seismic need to change for a Bruins franchise that has now lost six straight playoff games on home ice?
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And is this current core actually worth pushing in all those chips for — especially fresh off a Game 6 loss where both Pastrnak and McAvoy (a minus-6 in the series) were beaten in a foot race en route to Buffalo’s back-breaking third goal?
The 2025-26 Bruins were a good team, better than many expected.
How they become a great team is the next undertaking — one that offers plenty of risk and reward for this Original Six franchise.
“I think you could say that we squeezed every drop out of this group,” McAvoy said. “Surprised a lot of people. We made it here. It’s not what we wanted. We thought once we got here, we could make some noise. But we just didn’t play like it.”
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