The Boston Bruins just wrapped up their worst season since the 2006-07 campaign. The future doesn’t look great for the Bruins, similar to 18 years ago. Both seasons, the team finished with 76 points, last in the division, and with the fifth-lowest goal total in the league.
However, in the summer of 2007, the B’s made changes and ended up qualifying for the playoffs in 2008. Perhaps Don Sweeney can look back at the 2007 off-season for some tips on how to improve the current situation.
New Coach
In June 2007, head coach Dave Lewis was fired after his one season with the Bruins. GM Peter Chiarelli wasted no time in finding a new head coach, as just a week later, the B’s hired former Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils head coach, Claude Julien, to become the new bench boss. Julien led the 07-08 squad to a 41-29-12 record and brought them back to the playoffs, where the Bruins lost to the Canadiens in seven games.
Julien went on to win the Jack Adams award in 2009, and led to Bruins to a Stanley Cup title in 2011. He has the third-longest head coaching tenure in Bruins history (10 years), holds the most regular season (419) and playoffs (57) wins of any Bruins head coach, and has the most points (932) in franchise history.
New Goalie
In the 2006-07 season, Tim Thomas worked 66 of the 82 games with no real help behind him. Hannu Toivonen had a promising few months in the first half of the 2005-06 season, posting a 9-5-4 record, with a 2.63 GAA, and a .914 SV% before going down with a high-ankle sprain in January, ending his season. There were high hopes for him heading into 2006-07, but he was never the same after suffering the high-ankle sprain. He played 18 games that season and went 3-9-1, with a 4.23 GAA, and a .875 SV%.
Thomas needed a new partner in the net. So on July 1, 2007, the Bruins dealt forward Petr Kalus and a 2009 fourth-round draft pick to the Minnesota Wild, for veteran goaltender Manny Fernandez. Fernandez was set to compete for the starting job with Thomas, but after going 2-2 with a .832 SV% and a 3.93 GAA at the beginning of the 2007-08 season, he injured his left knee in practice in late October, ending his season.
Fernandez was back for the beginning of the 2008-09 season and put up a 16-8-3 record, with a .910 SV% and a 2.59 GAA with one shutout. Thomas and Fernandez captured the William M. Jennings Trophy at the end of the season. When the 2008-09 season came to a close, Fernandez’s contract expired and he retired from the NHL.
Got Tough
The 2006-07 Bruins team sorely lacked identity and were not a tough team to play against. Chiarelli realized this and on July 1, he signed Shawn Thornton from the Anaheim Ducks, the reigning Stanley Cup champions and league leaders in fighting majors, to a three-year deal. Chiarelli also re-signed Jeremy Reich to a two-year deal and made a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets earlier in the summer that sent the Bruins fifth-round draft pick to Columbus for defenseman Adam McQuaid. McQuaid was a few years out from debuting with Boston, but rookie Milan Lucic made the immediate impact the the B’s were hoping for.
With Lucic, Thornton, Reich, and Zdeno Chara stepping up and answering the bell, the Bruins nearly doubled their fighting major total from 29 fights in 2006-07 to 52 in 2007-08. The Bruins made this new grittiness their identity and turned it into a winning culture. They became a new version of the ‘Big, Bad Bruins’.
What The Bruins Need Now
Just like in 2007, the Bruins finished 24-‘25 with the question of who would be their next head coach. After a few months-long search, the B’s finally hired former player, Marco Sturm, to be the 30th head coach in franchise history. Sturm will be a first-time NHL head coach, but he previously led the German national team as head coach to a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and then became an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Kings, before becoming head coach of the Kings’ AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, in 2022.
Also similar to the summer of ’07, the B’s may be looking for a new back-up goalie. At the finish of the season, Joonas Korpisalo expressed his displeasure with his amount of playing time behind Jeremy Swayman and that he would welcome a trade. At times this past season, Korpisalo looked like the better backstop between the two and the team also looked more comfortable in front of him. In 27 GP, Korpisalo had an 11-10-3 record, with a 2.90 GAA, and a .893 SV% with three shutouts.
The problem is, Swayman has his large contract tied to him, so he will get most of the playing time unless Korpisalo is having a Vezina-level performance. It might just be better for the Bruins to unload Korpi this offseason for some assets so they don’t go into the season with goalie drama. Swayman showed promise of rebounding to his former self at the IIHF World Championship and the Bruins have two young goalies, Michael DiPietro and Brandon Bussi, that need to be resigned but would also be worth looking at to take over Korpisalo’s job.
One thing the Bruins need to do this summer that they didn’t really address in 2007, is to upgrade their offense. The free agency pool for forwards is a bit slim this year, with Mitch Marner headlining the group. The Bruins have a ton of spots to fill and are currently not in the best position to lure top-tier free agents, so their cap space would be best spent spread out to players not demanding top-dollar this offseason. Before anything, they will need to lock down Morgan Geekie, and then possibly sign some free agents willing to come to Boston, or maybe seek offense through trade.
Buffalo Sabres forward JJ Peterka a rising star who scored 68 points this past season, would be a trade to look into, as he reportedly is not happy in Buffalo. The Sabres tend to be an easy trade partner and Peterka would feel right at home under new head coach, Marco Sturm, a fellow German.