The Boston Bruins will officially begin training camp for the 2024-25 season Wednesday at Warrior Ice Arena. Once again, third-year head coach Jim Montgomery will have some additions to his roster along with some key subtractions.
As the offseason concludes, GM Don Sweeney brought in a top-line center in Elias Lindholm, a physical defenseman in Nikita Zadarov along with beef and toughness for the bottom six. With the camp opening, Sweeney sent a message about how the training camp would like to be run by Montgomery.
Bruins Don Sweeney sends message about training camp to his players
Last season as the Stanley Cup Playoffs went along, it was clear that the difference between the Bruins and Florida Panthers was the speed the Panthers had compared to the Black and Gold along with a lot of beef and a physical lineup. Sweeney addressed the latter in free agency, now Montogmery appears to address the speed over the next couple of weeks.
"Early on, he (Montgomery) is going to want training camp to be a certain pace,'' said Sweeney. "If bigger guys can't keep up, they're not going to play.''
Looking back to last spring, if the Toronto Maple Leafs had a little more speed than what they had against the Bruins, maybe they get the monkey off their backs and they eliminate their Atlantic Division rivals rather than losing on a David Pastrnak Game 7 overtime game-winning goal. Instead, they failed to mount a 3-1 series deficit.
For the Bruins going into 2024-25, adding speed with beef in their lineup is going to be huge. If there is one takeaway from the final four teams left standing in the Conference Finals, it is the speed that all four teams had. If the Bruins are going to compete with the bigger and faster teams in the NHL, they will need to match them and it appears that Sweeney and Montgomery are going to send that message early and often in training camp.