Don Sweeney maps out Bruins’ ‘change of direction’ with roster, path forward
The writing was on the wall that changes were coming for an underachieving Bruins’ roster entering the March 7 trade deadline.
But rather than solely chip off bottom-six UFAs like Trent Frederic and Justin Brazeau, Boston’s management opted to get a head start on what stands to be a busy summer — overhauling a significant portion of their roster while also accruing assets for the future.
In just four days, the Bruins dealt five lineup regulars in captain Brad Marchand, Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo, Frederic, and Brazeau.
It was a series of transactions that jolted both Boston’s personnel and leadership hierarchy — while also injecting plenty of newcomers into the lineup in Casey Mittelstadt, Marat Khusnutdinov, and Henri Jokiharju.
Uprooting franchise pillars like Marchand and established contributors like Coyle and Carlo seemingly stood as the waving of the proverbial white flag on the 2024-25 season.
Since then, Boston has gone 2-2-0 — with two encouraging victories over the Lightning and Panthers undercut with disheartening losses to Ottawa and Tampa Bay.
Boston still has a long way to go if it wants to steel its roster for contention in 2025-26 and beyond.
But the Bruins’ deadline approach — be it identifying assets with room to grow or modifying their on-ice approach with an emphasis on speed over snarl — has paid some dividends for a team in the midst of some growing pains.
“We certainly lost quality people and quality players that have been well-established in this league and have gone off and will have immediate success and impact on their teams. We just took a change of direction in terms of where we were,” Sweeney told Boston.com on Saturday of Boston’s plan at the trade deadline. “Identifying what our scouts did a fabulous job of — identifying some players that are younger, that in a new environment and a new opportunity, they’re likely to get a bump out of that.
“I think seeing Khusnutdinov going from short ice [in Minnesota] — now all of a sudden, playing 14-15 [minutes]. Casey wasn’t really playing much power play. Now he’s a primary part of that for us. Even Jokiharju, for that matter, wasn’t 19 [minutes] at the start of the year. So I think they’re excited about it and it shows in the fact that they’ve gone out and played well.”
While ancillary players like Mittelstadt and Khusnutdinov have looked the part as building blocks for the future, Boston’s hopes of ensuring that this is an efficient retool rests in the team’s offseason efforts to support what is still a solid core of talent between David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman.
As both McAvoy and Boston’s other top blueliner Hampus Lindholm remain sidelined due to injury, the weight of the Bruins’ leadership responsibilities currently sits on the shoulders of Pastrnak — an undertaking that has impressed Sweeney over the past week.
“I think David’s done a tremendous job since we did make some of these moves to understand without anybody telling him, like, ‘Okay, I’ve had so many great players that I’ve learned from, so many great people that I’ve leaned on.’ And now it’s his time,” Sweeney said.
“Which is not easy, because he’s still our star player. He’s expected to go out and produce and perform, and all of a sudden you’re leading as well. There’s a lot more ownership on that, but he’s had great people to tap into with [Patrice Bergeron] and [Zdeno Chara] and [David Krejci]. It’s hard, because there’s a void there. Brad was a phenomenal player here for us, and grew to be a leader himself in that same regard, and David is leading the same direction.”
Boston’s odds of righting the ship in 2025-26 also rest on said star players operating at a high level the coming years. While Pastrnak is on pace for a third-straight 100-point campaign, Boston will need other key cogs like Swayman (.897 save percentage) and Elias Lindholm (36 points) to flush underwhelming returns from this current season.
“I think Sway’s the only one that can honestly tell you how it’s gone and how those situations changed for him,” Sweeney said of Swayman’s up-and-down campaign. “We all felt it would be different and would be a challenge. Obviously, our team hasn’t played as well.
“He’s had pockets of games where he’s played really well, and other times where I think he’d admit that he hasn’t lived up to what he’d hoped and the type of year we wanted to have. But he’s really the only one that can answer in terms of how he feels being in this position now for the very first time in his career.”
The Bruins are still staring at a steep uphill climb this summer when it comes to re-asserting themselves as a contender. That sentiment was validated by a painful result on Saturday against the Bolts — earmarked by a second period where Boston was outshot, 21-0, on home ice.
The absences of McAvoy and Lindholm loom large, but Boston is more than just another winger away from vaulting itself back atop the standings in the Atlantic Division in a year’s time.
But as the Bruins begin to prep for a busy summer, their recent flurry of deals did give them several resources to further retool their roster — be it nearly $29 million in cap space, potentially a top-10 pick in this upcoming draft, as well as a haul of additional draft capital (two 2025 second-round picks, Toronto’s 2026 first-round pick).
The Bruins made the uncomfortable call to shed several lineup regulars and deal away their captain last week. But plenty of tough decisions sit on the horizon for a Bruins management team looking to make this painful season a one-off.
“We have our work to do,” Sweeney said. “There’s no question we have some areas we need to address moving forward. We’ve got some guys that are getting a hell of an opportunity, as I referenced earlier. I think it would be better if we were healthy to have a complete understanding of how the puzzle is going to fit. … But we have to do a better job of supporting and bringing players around that are going to play the identity of what this fanbase expects and get back on track.
“We’re not out of it. It’s just a hill to climb that’s obviously more difficult than we expected, but it’s still in front of them. So let’s see if they can get it done