For the first time in a long time, the Boston Bruins management team met with the media to wrap up their end-of-the-year press conference with what went wrong this season and what lies ahead for the franchise.
In the almost 60-minute question and answer session, it was rather awkward at times and the tone was certainly different with CEO Charlie Jacobs, President Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney. While this was a lot to take away from the conference, we'll break down things more in depth in the coming days, but here are three takeaways from the session.
Morgan Geekie is a priority this off-season
The Bruins have some upcoming restricted and unrestricted free agents they need to make decisions on and one of the easier ones is forward Morgan Geekie. This season, he scored 33 goals and formed a nice late-season connection with Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak on the Black and Gold's first line.
Geekie's two seasons in Boston have been career years, and now he's going to get rewarded for it. Sweeney said that Geekie will be on next season's team and that a deal will be worked out. He declined to say whether it would be a short-term or a long-term deal that will get done. We shall see.
Charlie Jacobs give Don Sweeney and Cam Neely full support
As if you thought and were hoping this would go another way, but Jacobs doubled down on his support for both Sweeney and Neely. It was discussed that Sweeney is entering the final year of his current contract, and Neely said that extending him would be discussed down the line.
Now, Sweeney and Neely are getting an opportunity to fix the problems with the 2024-25 Boston Bruins, but another season next year, like this past one, could make things more awkward and interesting in terms of job security for everyone involved.
Don Sweeney expects a healthy Hampus Lindholm for next season
When Hampus Lindholm exited a game in November against the St. Louis Blues after blocking a shot on the penalty kill, little did anyone know that it was the last time that he would be seen in game action for the rest of the season. After one surgery following the injury, he needed another surgery a few months later, which forced the Bruins to shut him down for the rest of the season.
Sweeney expects that Lindholm will be ready for training camp in September and that if he knew that his injury was going to turn from a two-month to a three-month and beyond injury that he would have brought in another blueliner. It probably wouldn't have made a difference, and here's hoping that he'll be ready for the 2025-26 season and stays healthy.