Boston Bruins
“I think the adversity helped us early on.”
Cam Neely said what many were thinking about the strengths and limitations of this Bruins roster ahead of puck drop on the 2025-26 season.
Boston could presumably only go up from last year’s misery.
And with a bounce-back campaign from Jeremy Swayman — coupled with the return of both Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm from injury — Boston’s porous defense was seemingly shored up this fall.
The greater concern rested down the other end of the ice. Yes, the Bruins still boasted an elite offensive force in David Pastrnak, as well as a 30-goal breakout skater in Morgan Geekie.
But on a Bruins depth chart inundated with unproven prospects, trade-chip castoff, and players known more for their brawn their scoring touch, it looked as though unlocking Boston’s scoring capabilities was destined to be arduous endeavor all year long.
“I mean, if it’s 2-1 games that we have to play to win, and then we’re going to have to do that,” Neely said in Boston’s start-of-season press conference. “I think you mentioned Swayman. I mean, obviously him and camp all camp this year, I think certainly is going to bode well for the team.
“We do recognize we may have a little trouble scoring some goals, but I think defensively, we can certainly play much better. Obviously, McAvoy and Hampus healthy are going to be a big part of our back end, but I think we’re going to be very tough out this year. We’re expecting to play very hard every game.”
Neely was right. In some regards.
Swayman has regained his form as one of the top netminders in the league with a .913 save percentage and a 19.4 goals saved above expected rate.
A healthy McAvoy and Lindholm have elevated Boston’s D corps, especially alongside another foundational piece in Nikita Zadorov.
And yes, the Bruins are winning games — with Thursday’s victory over the Jets marking the team’s fourth in a row.
But they’re not grinding out points via 2-1 nail-bitters.
In a season where Marco Sturm and his ragtag, scrappy roster has largely exceeded expectations through 32 games, one of the top surprises has been an offense that is far from the one-dimensional, punchless unit it was feared to be.
As the Bruins currently sit second in the Atlantic Division with 38 points (19-13-0), Boston’s ability to stay afloat in a log-jammed conference slate has been buoyed by a varied O-zone attack that now ranks ninth in the league with 3.28 goals scored per game.
It’s a sizable jump from a Bruins team that ranked 27th in the league in that same category last year (2.71 goals per game).
For Sturm and his team, the root of Boston’s success amid this turnaround is still fixed on a stingy defensive structure, stout goaltending, and a hard-nosed, unyielding identity that has received plenty of buy-in across the dressing room.
But as the Bruins continue to keep stacking wins, one of the top expected flaws on this roster has been anything but as far as Boston’s ability to make opponents pay in their own end.
”We were really stingy in the neutral zone,” McAvoy — playing in his first game since suffering a jaw fracture on Nov. 15 — said Thursday. “We don’t really allow a good rush team to get many rush opportunities. We broke the puck out really effectively. And then we’re opportunistic.
“Special teams is great. And then when we’re able to cause turnovers in the neutral zone, we scored a couple off them. So that’s kind of our M.O., kind of the recipe for when we’re having success.”
To little surprise, the Bruins’ big guns have led the way during this scoring surge.
Fresh off of missing five games with a nagging injury, Pastrnak has showcased little rust out on the ice — posting a whopping seven points (two goals, five assists) in his two games since getting cleared for action.
“He’s a pretty good hockey player,” Sturm said of Pastrnak after Thursday’s 6-3 win. “He’s a special player. And only those kinds of players can do it.”
Pastrnak’s continued brilliance — coupled with Geekie’s continued ascension as an elite sniper with 22 tallies on the year — deservedly steals plenty of headlines when it comes to Boston’s strides in the O-zone.
But the revival of Boston’s power play has also paid dividends under the watch of new assistant coach Steve Spott.
After cashing in on just 15.2 percent of their power-play bids last season (29th overall), the Bruins are converting on 27.0 percent of their opportunities on the man advantage this year — good for fourth in the league.
Boston went 2-for-2 on Thursday against Winnipeg, with Pastrnak snapping a shot past Eric Comrie for his 12th goal of the season.
With Pastrnak operating more as a rover than a stationary shooting presence at the left circle, Boston’s power play has been far more unpredictable against shorthanded units — especially with another Geekie also flanking netminders from his strong side.
Add in Boston’s second PP unit cashing in on Thursday — with Mason Lohrei feeding Casey Mittelstadt with a slick feed through the crease in the first period — and Boston seemingly has a consistent source of scoring punch on days where 5-on-5 offense dries up.
Granted, the Bruins haven’t had to fret much when it comes to secondary scoring at 5-on-5 play, with 10 different skaters on Boston’s roster already scoring at least five goals on the season.
It wouldn’t have been a stretch this summer to envision a Bruins offense bouncing back behind a revamped power play and players like Pastrnak and Geekie handling most of the scoring burden.
But few expected a Bruins roster where a second line of Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt, and Viktor Arvidsson are all on pace to score around 20 tallies this season. And the development of longtime AHLer Alex Steeves into a legitimate middle-six cog in Boston’s lineup has also been a welcome sight.
Mark Kastelic now sits just two points away from tying his career-high with 14 points on the year, while Tanner Jeannot has already equaled his scoring total (13 points) from all of last year with the Kings.
Add in the promising play of youngsters like Fraser Minten (six goals, 11 points) and veterans like Elias Lindholm (20 points in 22 games), and Sean Kuraly (three points in last two games), and Boston’s entire forward corps seems to be pulling on the rope so far this season.
It’s to be expected for Boston’s scoring capabilities to go through some more ups and downs as the season carries on.
But Pastrnak believes the peaks and valleys already traversed by this current team has them steeled for what awaits as this team continues to defy expectations.
“We’ve had so [much] adversity already this season. … I think the adversity helped us early on,” Pastrnak said. “Trying to trust the system — no matter who is in or [out] the lineup. … Obviously, it’s been working.”
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