The common word flying around the Boston Bruins' dressing room on Tuesday night after their fourth-straight loss was "structure." It's hard to pinpoint exactly what is going on with the Bruins right now, but most fans can concur that something looks off compared to what the team was doing earlier in the season.
David Pastrnak referenced mental fatigue and mental mistakes as the core issues behind tonight’s loss. He said that the team needs to get back to their structure and details in order to be successful #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/iqtsdViPqu
— Tom Calautti (@TCalauttis) December 24, 2025
Nikita Zadorov talked about how the team has “gotten away from their structure” over this recent homestand. Said they need to trust their structure and get back to what made them successful early on #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/rVXvf7xt6m
— Tom Calautti (@TCalauttis) December 24, 2025
When the Bruins play Marco Sturm's structure, the biggest benefactors are the defense and goaltenders. It makes it easier to play their positions when the whole team is buying in, but the team has been atrocious in the defensive zone over the past few games, allowing 17 goals in those three contests.
In turn, the poor defensive play is causing the goaltenders to look as bad as they did last season, which is unfair for a duo that won some crucial games at the start of the season. Jeremy Swayman has been struggling this month with some poor games, and Joonas Korpisalo might be inching closer to losing a spot on the roster.
Bruins' structure is starting to fall by the wayside after good start to season
One thing that stood out about David Pastrnak's comments was the part about mental fatigue. It's not easy to learn a whole new system like Sturm is preaching, and doing that with so many games in a condensed schedule could have some players checking out. The struggles come at a good time given the holiday break, but the team only has three days off before a crucial roadtrip.
It's also mildly concerning that all this structure talk comes at a time when Sturm has been losing some points behind the bench. It started last weekend with his questionable goaltending decisions, and then popped up again against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night with some interesting calls on video review.
I'm not trying to say that Sturm isn't the guy for the job, but a lot happened for him quickly this season. He took his first head-coaching gig, thinking it was a rebuild where he had plenty of time to learn the day-to-day life of an NHL head coach. After two months, he was right in the thick of a playoff race.
The whole team might need to take a step back and reevaluate. The players also didn't have high expectations entering this season. Right now, it seems like too much is happening, and they're having a hard time keeping up with the changing expectations surrounding the team. Let's hope three days is enough of a reset, and they come out strong on the road trip with a rediscovered vision of what it takes for them to succeed.