After being eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night at the TD Garden, a big offseason awaits the Boston Bruins and general manager Don Sweeney. Coming off a season where nobody thought that they were going to make the postseason, the Black and Gold surprised many in Year 1 of a retool and Marco Sturm's tenure as head coach.
When they broke training camp, who had the Bruins securing 100 points in the standings? Not many, if anyone. Not even the biggest of diehards did. That's what they did and secured the first wild-card spot in the East.
The loss to the Sabres exposed what many knew about the Bruins: they are far from a Cup contender, looking ahead. There needs to be additions to the roster, but just how Sweeney goes about it remains to be seen. Sturm, however, didn't mince words at Sunday's press conference on breakup day at Warrior Ice Arena.
Bruins coach Marco Sturm sends subtle message to Don Sweeney about 2026-27 roster
Meeting with the media, Sturm made it clear that one of the biggest reasons for his team's success this year was because of goalies Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo. More so, Swayman, although Korpisalo played well at times this season, when he got his shot. Sturm didn't beat around the bush on where he would like to see an improvement this summer.
"One of the biggest reasons why we made it this far is our goalies,'' said Sturm. "We can't expect that every year. So that means we — as a group — we need to find ways to limit some (scoring) opportunities."
Finding a way to limit scoring, in other words, is that we need more defensemen. I'm sure it's something Sturm would say to Sweeney. Sweeney knew that earlier this year, when he tried trading for Calgary Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson in January. It appeared that a deal was going to get done, but Sweeney reportedly walked away when no extension could have been reached.
The problem is, this is not expected to be a great free agent class in terms of blueliners, and it may have to be a position addressed through a trade. Regardless, Sturm needs reinforcements on the backend next year, and Sweeney likely got the message.
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