Boston Bruins
The Bruins have to play 25 games over the final eight weeks of the 2025-26 season.
After nearly three weeks off the ice, the Boston Bruins will resume play on Thursday when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets at TD Garden.
While both Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman are still relishing Team USA’s gold-medal win over Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics, the Bruins don’t have much time to rest on their laurels coming out of their extended break.
The Bruins currently sit in the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference with a 32-20-5 record and 69 points. The Blue Jackets are four points behind Boston in the standings just below the playoff cut-off line.
Thursday’s key bout against Columbus will mark the start of a sprint to the finish line for Boston, with 25 games on the regular-season slate over the final eight weeks.
The Bruins and first-year head coach Marco Sturm have exceeded expectations so far this season in what was once envisioned to be another rebuilding year for the Original Six franchise.
Still, there’s no guarantee that this roster will be playing playoff hockey in April — not with every NHL club afforded a clean slate of some sort after that multi-week Olympic break.
As the Bruins return to the ice Thursday, here are four things worth following as Boston begins its stretch run.
Will Boston hit the ice running?
Several Bruins skaters likely welcomed the opportunity to rest their bodies amid a hectic schedule from October to February. Still, this extended break might have arrived at an inopportune time for Boston.
Even with Boston ultimately falling in a shootout against both the Lightning and Panthers going into the Olympic break, the Bruins were playing some of their best hockey just before the league went on pause.
Once viewed as a fringe playoff team on the outside looking in at the logjammed Eastern Conference standings, the Bruins manufactured some breathing room due to their stellar play since the calendar flipped to 2026.
Starting with a victory over the Oilers on New Year’s Eve, Boston is 12-2-3 over its last 17 games.
But can they keep that momentum going after being off the ice for nearly a month?
Starting with that matchup against Columbus, the Bruins can’t sleepwalk out of the gate during that final stretch of games — not with so many teams nipping on their heels in the standings.
Of course, every other NHL team is in the same boat when it comes to starting anew at this stage of the league calendar — with teams spiraling before the break given a chance to steel themselves, and teams in the midst of a heater now potentially cooled off.
Still, there are some positives to draw from Boston’s lengthy time off.
Players dealing with bumps and bruises should be in a much better spot due to the break, with a player like Pavel Zacha — concussed on Jan. 29 against the Flyers — in line to play on Thursday without any restrictions.
The Bruins also appeared to dodge a bullet when it comes to the health of their top players on the Olympic stage. While the Penguins (Sidney Crosby) and Kings (Kevin Fiala) saw key cogs go down with injuries in Milan, the Bruins’ top players like McAvoy, Swayman, David Pastrnak, Hampus Lindholm, and Elias Lindholm all seem to be in good standing for this stretch run.
Younger players like Fraser Minten (29 points) and Marat Khusnutdinov (26 points) — both in their first full season in the NHL ranks — should also benefit from a breather as they try to avoid hitting the proverbial wall during an 82-game gauntlet.
Can they fix their most evident flaws?
The 2025-26 Bruins have cultivated a sustainable formula toward piling up points in the standings this season.
Their offense has punched above its weight all season long. While David Pastrnak (71 points) and Morgan Geekie (32 goals) have led the charge, Boston has 11 different players who have recorded at least 20 points on the year.
Boston’s power play has been potent all season — ranking third in the NHL with a 26.3 percent success rate. Despite all of the punishment doled out against him, Charlie McAvoy is playing some of the best hockey of his career.
And after a lost season between the pipes in 2024-25, Jeremy Swayman has been the great equalizer in net — ranking fourth in the NHL among qualified goalies in goals saved above expected at 16.2 (per MoneyPuck).
Still, there are two glaring flaws that Sturm and his staff need to shore up — a porous penalty kill and a knack for ending up in the sin bin.
As dynamic as Boston’s man advantage has been, their shorthanded unit has labored. The Bruins have negated just 76.4 percent of opposing power plays this season, ranking 28th in the league.
Since the start of 2026, Boston’s PK is only killing off 64.8 percent of opposing power plays. Only the Vancouver Canucks (56.1 percent) have been worse over that same stretch.
One way to shore up that unit might be rooted in not having Boston’s top penalty killers running on fumes due to multiple stints in the sin bin. Penalty woes have been an issue all season with Sturm’s team, with Boston ranking second in the league in penalty minutes per game at 13.5.
Limiting those stick infractions and other lapses in discipline should at least limit some of the devastating domino effect that comes with teams landing punches against Boston on the power play.
What will they do at the trade deadline?
At one point in mid-December, a scuttling Bruins team appeared destined to sell off assets ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline on March 6.
That could still be on the table for Don Sweeney and the Bruins — especially after the team replenished its prospect pool and restocked its cupboard of draft picks after last season’s roster teardown.
But it’s a lot more complicated this time around, especially with Boston now in the playoff picture.
With just four games separating Boston from the trade deadline, the Bruins don’t exactly have a lot of runway left to determine which path to take.
Boston could still opt to part with a few players who may not be part of the team’s long-term plans, especially pending free agents like Viktor Arvidsson and Andrew Peeke.
But dealing a top-six player like Arvidsson — who ranks third on the team in 5-on-5 points — would also significantly hinder this current team’s hopes for a playoff push.
Given Boston’s precarious playoff positioning and the team’s focus on long-term contention with its burgeoning pipeline of young talent, don’t expect the Bruins to be in the market for rentals if they do look to buy.
But much like Boston’s reported interest in Ramsus Andersson earlier this season, could Sweeney and his staff peruse the market to try and poach players who can both help this team in 2026 and beyond?
Much like how Boston invested in both the present and future when they traded for Hampus Lindholm in 2022, the Bruins could enter the bidding war for potential franchise fixtures dangled out on the market like Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Elias Pettersson — or depressed assets due for a change of scenery like Shane Wright and Braden Schneider.
There’s no guarantee that Boston has the appetite to meet some of those high asking prices. But with four first-round picks over the next two years and several prospects flourishing, the Bruins at least have the means to make some compelling offers.
Could a youth movement be on the way?
Even if the Bruins don’t add any players before March 6, Boston could still see a key player join their club in the coming weeks in James Hagens.
The seventh pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, Hagens has plenty of pressure on his shoulders as a potential franchise fixture for Boston in due time.
But the Boston College sophomore has been as advertised so far this season at Chestnut Hill — leading all Hockey East players in both goals (20) and points (38) over 28 games this season.
Projected as a top-six center who initially drew comparisons to U.S. Olympic hero Jack Hughes coming into his college career, Hagens has found plenty of success this season playing on the wing in 2025-26 — recording 25 points over his last 15 games.
Given Hagens’ strong play down the stretch and lofty draft pedigree, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if the 19-year-old forward joins Boston at some point this spring once the Eagles’ season comes to a close.
It might take a year or two for a gifted playmaker like Hagens to find his footing at the NHL level.
But much like Charlie McAvoy’s impressive debut with Boston during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs against Ottawa, Bruins fans could get a tantalizing preview of what a player like Hagens could offer the team in the future during his first cup of coffee with the club.
While Hagens might be primed to make the jump to the pro game, Bruins fans should also keep tabs on several other blue-chip prospects in Boston’s system — especially breakout stars in the collegiate ranks like BC sophomore Dean Letourneau (18 goals, 33 points) and freshman winger Will Zellers (16 goals, 31 points for North Dakota).
They might be another year away from Boston, but the continued growth of players like Letourenau and Zellers should spark optimism over the next wave of young talent set to arrive on Causeway Street.
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