Any Boston Bruins fans who also cheer for the New England Patriots might want to shield their eyes when looking at Marco Sturm's latest comments. The new head coach is a student of the coaching game, and he has been looking to Nick Sirianni, the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, for motivation, according to Conor Ryan of Boston.com.
"If you look at even some other sports, it's everything," Sturm said of Boston's chemistry. "I follow a lot of other sports and championship teams. Even coaches — Philadelphia Eagles, that was my, I don’t know, ‘project', but I was reading and looking up a lot of those teams.
The hope for Bruins fans is that Sturm will draw inspiration from Sirianni and quickly win his first championship as the Eagles' head coach did in 2024. Sirianni has been wildly successful since becoming head coach of Philadelphia, making the playoffs in each of his four seasons, losing the Super Bowl in his second season, and finally winning it in his fourth last year.
Sturm also received an assist from Cam Neely, who gained access to a video of Sirianni.
"Only players and the [Eagles] organization saw it. Never got out to the public. I don't know where Cam got it from, but I saw it, and that got me to start to dig in more and more and more, and that's why I was impressed," Sturm said. "But also now I'm not surprised anymore at how good the Eagles are and why they won a championship."
Marco Sturm draws on NFL inspiration for 2025-26 Bruins season
Using Sirianni as inspiration is an interesting example. Some view his decision-making as poor at times and he often gets called out for being a bit quirky. However, despite his flaws, it's quite easy to see that he is a leader of men and he gets his players to overachieve for him.
Purely from a leadership perspective, Sturm is following in Sirianni's footsteps and getting this roster to overachieve. It took the Eagles grabbing a superstar running back in Saquon Barkley to finally get over the hump and win the Super Bowl, but it was the team becoming a legitimate contender that allowed them to go out and take that shot.
Let's hope that the Bruins follow the same blueprint. They are likely a few stars away from actually winning the Stanley Cup this season, but no ones doubting they'll make a surprising playoff appearance. If this group proves to the rest of the league that the team is still a contender, maybe it opens the door for a massive free agent signing down the road that puts them over the top.