This season has been filled with trades, wins and losses. The season has also showed strong players, as well as players that need improvement. Here are three key players that have to improve before the 2025-26 season.
Elias Lindholm
Elias was picked up by the Bruins and signed a long term contract alongside Nikita Zadorov, after playing for three other NHL teams; the Carolina Hurricanes, Calgary Flames then the Vancouver Canucks. He had a total of 17 goals this season. While this is good, in the past, he has had great numbers, such as 42 total points for Calgary in 21-22. His goal scoring was impressive, and unfortunately, this season, his results were unexpected.
Lindholm was picked up by the Bruins and was believed to be the next Patrice Bergeron, due to his playmaking abilities and his forechecking ability.
"(I've) played in the league for a long time and try to look at (Patrice) Bergeron as much as possible," he said. "I don't want to compare myself (to him) or anything like that, but I think I can bring a little bit of what he did and try and come there and bring my game..."
Pavel Zacha
When Zacha got traded to the Bruins in the offseason of 2022, he stated, “I think being traded to Boston was great for me. … Just knowing also that I was wanted on a team like this. They’re a winning team and I was wanted to be there from the beginning; it was a big help for me mentally, kind of going into a new place and getting the support that I needed.”
Unfortunately, the last two seasons before the 2024-25 season, he had a total of over 20 goals in his first two seasons with the Bruins, while this season, he had only a total of 14 goals. While the cause of this low point of his career is unknown, we are hoping to see Zacha produce more goals this next season.
Jeremy Swayman
Jeremy Swayman has been spoken about a lot this last season, alongside his large contract deal. Swayman was thought to potentially be one of the top five goalies in the league during the 2023-24 hockey season. His save percentage this year was .892%, while that isn't bad, his save percentage last year was .916%. His save percentage dropped dramatically. If it wasn't because he didn't attend training camp, what happened?
After this season, Swayman stated that he knew he needed to do better this next season, "I take accountability. I wanted to play better. I know that I can play better, and that’s something that I can’t wait to work on." The good things about this are that Jeremy stated he needed the extra work, and he realized and admitted he had to work to be better next season.
It's important that these three players improve in the off season to have a great 2025-26 season. It is important that both Lindholm and Zacha work on goal scoring to get where their points once were. So far each of these players seem to be excited to improve themselves for this next season, hopefully we see improvements!