Now that the dust has settled on the 2024-25 season for the Boston Bruins, it’s time to look at see where things went wrong. You could point to many reasons as to why the season was a huge failure for the Black and Gold.
Things never seemed right from the beginning of the season, from their season-opening loss to the Florida Panthers until the trade deadline and through Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils at the TD Garden. There were many nights when you had to look long and hard to figure out who was in the lineup and on the ice. That’s not something Bruins fans are used to.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin on Saturday, and while 16 teams will be preparing for what they hope will be a deep postseason run, Boston will be looking at how to improve for the 2025-26 season. Here are three reasons why the Boston Bruins failed in 2024-25.
Free agents were a bust
It was not a good summer in terms of free agency for general manager Don Sweeney. All we heard was the amount of cap space he was going to have to add to the roster, and it turned out to be a huge swing and a miss. At the time, it was thought in July where there were some nice additions made, but they turned out to be a disappointment.
Elias Lindholm turned out not to be the player that the Bruins hoped he would be, and Nikita Zadorov spent more time in the penalty box than he did on the ice. In his defense, he played better down the stretch of the season, but it was too late. The bottom-six forwards added were exactly that, bottom-six forwards.
Roster construction
See above. Not only was Lindholm and Zadorov a bust, but the roster was also flawed in many ways, and as the season went along, it was exposed. The lack of depth on defense throughout the organization was exposed when Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy were lost for the year.
There was no secondary scoring like they had with Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen last season. Yes, Morgan Geekie had his first 30-goal season, but is that sustainable long-term? David Pastrnak carried them offensively with Geekie. After that, the depth was few and far between.
Special teams
For an organization that prides itself on its special teams, what a massive failure they were this year. The power play was near the bottom of the league for a good part of the year, and it felt like teams were not always afraid of taking a penalty against the Bruins. There were so many nights where the power play was disjointed and puck entries, shot selection, ot lack there of, decision making was all an issue.
The penalty killing was a little better, but that’s not saying much. Penalties were an issue all season long for the entire roster, and the Bruins were not a good enough team to overcome all the penalties they had in games when teams took advantage of them.