Many hockey media outlets and Boston Bruins fans have already written off the Bruins being a playoff contending team this upcoming season. Boston faithful have even gone as far as calling the 2025-26 season a ‘tank for (Gavin) McKenna’, in anticipation for the number one prospect in next year’s draft.
It’s easy to be pessimistic about the immediate future of the team when the biggest moves made this offseason (aside from drafting James Hagens) were acquiring Viktor Arvidsson from the Edmonton Oilers and overpaying for forward Tanner Jeannot. Even though the moves to upgrade the team this summer weren’t overly exciting, there are a few improvements internally that could potentially lead the Bruins to being a surprise playoff team at the end of the season.
Swayman Has A Bounce Back Season
Jeremy Swayman had a season to forget in 2024-25, his first year taking the reins as starting goaltender. He went 22-29-7 with a .892 SV% and a 3.11 GAA, all while giving up more goals than any other netminder in the league (176). Swayman’s season was disappointing, but it did not help that the team in front of him offered little support, and the Bruins’ top two defensemen were injured for significant chunks of the year.
Every athlete is at risk of having a down year, and Swayman is already working to put his 2024-25 season in the rear view. When the Bruins’ season ended, Swayman joined Team USA (along with Andrew Peeke and Mason Lohrei) for the IIHF World Championships. In a great performance, Swayman went 7-0 with a .921 SV% and a 1.69 GAA in the tournament, including a shutout win in the final game, to help the US win its first gold medal in 92 years.
“I feel like a completely new human being and a completely new goalie,” Swayman told The Hockey News after the victory. A newly confident and ‘reborn’ Swayman could be dangerous for the rest of the league, and it’s just what the Bruins need heading into this season.
Top Line Chemistry
David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie carried the Bruins’ offensive production all of last season. Pastrnak has scored 30 goals since January 1, the most in the NHL during this time span, with Geekie scoring 25 goals, tied for fifth most since the new year. If anything, this shows the Bruins were very talented at the top of their lineup, but had a true lack of variety in scoring last season.
Elias Lindholm was a letdown for most of the 2024-25 season after he signed a seven-year deal in the summer. He came in with high expectations, but was unable to deliver. However, that changed in the final month of the season, when he began to center the Geekie-Pastrnak pair. Lindholm scored nine points in the closing seven games of the season. He had scored 38 points in 75 games before the line change. Lindholm’s play elevated Geekie and Pastrnak as well.
There is only a small sample size of the Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line, but it seems that this will be the Bruins' top line heading into the season, unless new head coach Marco Sturm feels there is a better combination or wants to shake things up. With their growing chemistry, their offensive production could increase and help inspire offense in other areas of the lineup.
Healthy Defense
Last November, in a game against the St. Louis Blues, Hampus Lindholm went down after taking a shot off his knee. He suffered a fractured kneecap on the play, leading him to undergo surgery. In late February, Don Sweeney announced that for the rest of the season, after suffering some setbacks, a major blow to the Bruins' back end, which had just lost Charlie McAvoy to a shoulder injury during the Four Nations Face-Off tournament.
The Bruins' top two defensemen brought some good news this offseason, though. In July, McAvoy revealed to the Boston Herald that he is back to full health, and in August, Lindholm told the Boston Globe he is healed and ready for the start of training camp. This is a major deal for the Bruins, who were playing with a depleted defense for most of the season; both d-men average over 20 minutes on ice per game when they are healthy. Both players have been in the Norris Trophy discussion in recent years, finishing fourth in voting, McAvoy in 2022 and Lindholm in 2023. If Boston has any chance at making the playoffs this year, both Lindholm and McAvoy will have to stay healthy and have high-impact, Norris-caliber seasons.