Boston Bruins
“I feel like we have so many leaders in that room that are so capable, and it’s allowed voices to be heard that necessarily wouldn’t be heard.”
For all of the legitimate concerns regarding a retooled roster and whether or not the Bruins’ depth chart had the horses in place to be a competitive club this year, Boston has largely punched above their weight class this fall.
Be it Marco Sturm’s clear vision for the identity of this club, a power-play resurgence, Morgan Geekie’s arrival as an elite scorer, Jeremy Swayman’s play in net, or several depth players stepping up, Boston is seemingly in a far better spot than they were just a year ago.
The strides Boston has made in short order amid this transition season is all the more impressive given the lack of a captain in place within Boston’s room.
Rather than appoint a captain before the start of the 2025-26 campaign, the Bruins have opted to roll with three alternate captains in David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Hampus Lindholm.
Other players like Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm have also donned the “A” on their sweaters when called upon due to injury.
Discourse over the lack of an unquestioned leader in Boston’s room remains an ongoing topic for fans and media alike as this season has carried on.
But, speaking on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Wednesday morning, Swayman said that both he and his teammates aren’t fretting over the team’s vacancy at captain.
“It doesn’t feel like we are” Swayman said of Boston’s standing as a team without a captain. “It’s really special, actually, to have guys that have stepped up, even without letters. And that’s something, again, that I really haven’t paid attention to.
“Because I feel like we have so many leaders in that room that are so capable, and it’s allowed voices to be heard that necessarily wouldn’t be heard. And our culture has really stepped up in that aspect of, anyone that’s wearing the jersey has a say. That’s something that we take really seriously and is really ringing true this year.”
Swayman’s comments echo the same message shared before the start of this latest Bruins season about Boston’s by-committee approach in regards to the Original Six franchise’s leadership hierarchy.
“You can’t do it alone,” McAvoy said in early September. “Maybe from the outside it looked like that was sort of — it was [Chara] and Bergy, but they leaned on everybody. I think the best groups tend to be the ones that get it everywhere.
“You take a lot of that weight off your shoulders, and you can put it on everybody else, and then the group’s better for it. So I think absolutely it will be by committee — certainly to start. And I wouldn’t be surprised throughout [the year] if we continue to bring people into the fold.”
The two expected frontrunners for Boston’s captaincy are their longest-tenured players in Pastrnak and McAvoy.
But, the Bruins have had several players assume more vocal roles this season, be it free-agent pickups like Viktor Arvidsson and Tanner Jeannot, or returning players who are either raising their profile or entrenching themselves as established authorities like Morgan Geekie and Zadorov.
The Bruins have long had the luxury of having proven leaders in place for decades, especially with the presence of players like Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron.
But, as Pastrnak noted ahead of training camp, even those Bruins teams of yesteryear were not propped up solely by the influence of one player.
“It’s never been about one guy here,” Pastrnak said. “And I know it might have seemed like it many years before that with guys like Bergy and Zee, it was always a group decision. … It’s going to be group of leaders here, and our main focus is to bring the team together and be competitive every single night.”
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