Bruins
“Instead of feeling sorry for myself, try to put that time into improving myself and get better and come back stronger.”
A lot has changed since the last time Hampus Lindholm took to the ice with the Boston Bruins.
When the veteran blueliner labored off the ice at St. Louis’ Enterprise Center on Nov. 12, 2024, Jim Montgomery was still on the Bruins’ bench — not the Blues’. Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyle and several other stalwarts were still donning black-and-gold sweaters.
And as underwhelming as the Bruins’ 8-7-2 record was the the time of his injury, few expected Boston’s struggles to eventually snowball into a 33-39-10 record— tied for the fourth-worst points percentage in the entire league.
The Bruins’ misfortunes were compounded by the absence of Lindholm, who missed the final 65 games of the season after suffering a fractured patella in that game against the Blues.
“It’s hard. You want to be out there and fighting with the guys, win or lose,” Lindholm said Tuesday at the team’s golf tournament at the Pinehills Golf Club. “And obviously I feel like I could have made some difference with the team [last] year, and I was sidelined unfortunately.
“I’ve been trying to take that time — instead of feeling sorry for myself, try to put that time into improving myself and get better and come back stronger and [be] a better version of myself there this season.”
The Bruins will welcome that type of bounce-back season from the 31-year-old Lindholm, who will likely play a key role if Boston does end up righting the ship in the span of a single season.
“I always try to turn it into something positive,” Lindholm, who began skating again in June, said of his injury. “You can’t really do anything about those things. And I’ve been trying to look at my injury this summer — I had to try to get stronger, bigger and to have an even better season this season that I’ve had in the past. So I’m very, very excited, very full of energy to come back and excited to see the guys and being here.”
Lindholm hasn’t had an easy road to recovery, as he was initially set to return as a wave of much-needed reinforcements in February 2025 after being on the mend for months.
But, just weeks before Don Sweeney and the Bruins opted to tear down the roster at the trade deadline, Boston made the call to shut down Lindholm for the rest of the year — with the defenseman going under the knife again to get some hardware out of that shattered kneecap.
Even with that setback, Lindholm stressed that he isn’t going to enter training camp next week with any sort of restrictions in place.
“I’ve been injured before,” Lindholm said. “Like I said, I know how to get back from injury. So I feel good, my body, I put in a lot of work this summer. … I’ve been really fortunate to have a lot of good people around me, but it’s a lot of work.
“But that gives me confidence coming into the season that I put in all the work in the summer. And so just use more excitement to go out and kind of show what kind of player I’m going to be this year.”
Lindholm’s ability to log heavy minutes, anchor a top-four role on Boston’s blue line, and knack for generating offense from the back end will be welcomed on a retooling Bruins squad in need of some stability.
Lindholm was one of the few bright spots on Boston’s roster at the start of last season, scoring three goals and posting seven points over his 17 games while averaging 20:51 of ice time per contest.
Despite having just 45 percent of his faceoffs at 5-on-5 play set in the offensive zone, Lindholm still was a net-positive on the ice for a flawed Boston squad — with the Bruins outscoring opponents, 11-7, in his 238:19 of 5-on-5 ice time last season (per Natural Stat Trick).
It remains to be seen how Boston will consistently generate offense at 5-on-5 play beyond the top line of David Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm, and Morgan Geekie.
But, othe Bruins could boost their offense by sparking a dormant power play that ranked 29th in the NHL with just a 15.2 percent success rate last year.
It was poor timing for the Bruins that they opted to hand the keys to a slumping man advantage to Lindholm during the same game that he suffered his season-ending injury. But the mobile, left-shot skater could be the remedy needed to quarterback the power play moving forward.
Since the start of the 2022-23 season, David Pastrnak has logged 524:28 of power-play reps alongside Charlie McAvoy as the team’s top defenseman on the man advantage. Over that extended stretch, the Bruins have outscored teams, 58-12 — equating to a 6.64 goals scored per 60 minutes rate.
Over that same stretch of the past three seasons, Pastrnak has only recorded 184:01 of power play ice time with Lindholm. Over that span, the Bruins have outscored teams, 36-1, which stands as an 11.74 goals scored per 60 minutes rate — a sizable jump from the numbers posted by McAvoy + Pastrnak.
It remains to be seen how Marco Sturm augments Boston’s power-play personnel, but there’s a lot to like about how Lindholm could impact that unit if he’s playing alongside the team’s top snipers like Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie.
But the presence of Lindholm alone should provide a lift to a Bruins team that believes it has plenty to prove this winter.
“I think we have a really good squad,” Lindholm said. “I think, like looking at the guys around [us], like we have the pieces. You get both me and C-Mac coming back from injuries, and if I look at our team, I’m very optimistic. I have a lot of confidence in this group, and it’s gonna be be a fun year.
“I think people are gonna underestimate us, and we could try to use that to our favor, being the underdog, and kind of get back to that Bruins hockey that we all know we can play.”
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