Are the Boston Bruins back as beasts of the East?
A disappointing 2024-25 season for the Boston Bruins ultimately led to a mini-firesale leading up to last year’s NHL Trade Deadline. Dealing captain Brad Marchand to the Florida Panthers, Charlie Coyle to the Colorado Avalanche, Justin Brazeau to the Minnesota Wild and Brandon Carlo to the Toronto Maple Leafs, GM Don Sweeney compiled draft picks and prospects with his sights set on the future.
Years of being competitive – they had not missed the playoffs since 2016 before last season – came at a cost for the Bruins, especially in the way of harvesting NHL-ready talent from within the organization. Draft picks are nice and certainly valuable, but given the Bruins’ bare cupboard and desperate need for young, NHL-ready contributors, the players they acquired 10 months ago have been the most impactful assets – specifically centers Marat Khusnutdinov and Fraser Minten.
After the dual retirements to Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci in 2023, the void down the middle of the Bruins’ lineup had become an achilles heel for two consecutive seasons; the arrival of the aforementioned young pivots has helped brighten the future.
Khusnutdinov, 23, was acquired from the Wild in the trade that sent Brazeau to the Midwest. The Bruins had their eyes on Khusnutdinov, a second-round pick in 2020, for a little bit and felt he could be available given his similarities to Wild center Marco Rossi, according to a team source.
Though Khusnutdinov has just two goals and five points through 14 games this season, he has really impressed the Bruins’ brass, I’m told. He has been a saving grace, of sorts, currently skating as the team’s top-line center due to the injuries of Elias Lindholm and Casey Mittlestadt. Centering Morgan Geekie (who continues to impress on the heels of a contract extension) and David Pastrnak, Khusnutdinov was a major factor in the Bruins’ seven game-winning streak, which ended Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators.
Minten, 21, was acquired from the Leafs (along with a first-round selection) for Carlo on trade deadline day last season. Despite playing predominantly in the team’s bottom six, Minten still has three goals and three assists this season while playing in all 19 of the Bruins’ games. Minten has also found a niche on the Bruins’ penalty kill (80.3%), skating on the top unit alongside 2025 free-agent signing Michael Eyssimont.
The aforementioned new arrivals are two of several that have had to be integrated into the Bruins’ lineup to start the season. Beyond Khusnutdinov and Minten, Eyssimont, Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly (back for his second tour of duty in Boston) and Alex Steeves are all players who have less than a year under their belt with the Bruins. Integrating almost half a lineup worth of forwards isn’t easy, but it has created internal competition and flexibility to the (brand new) coaching staff; many of the new players are versatile enough to play on the wing and down the middle.
The Bruins’ pro scouting deserves a lot of credit in the past several seasons, helping put together a team that lost Bergeron and Krejci and still made the playoffs the following season in 2023-24. Now, after unloading four roster forwards last winter as a result of a disappointing start to the season, they helped identify players via trade and free agency to help field a competitive team this season in a quick turnaround. This was no easy task, as years of being a contender (as I mentioned before) left the Bruins with not a ton of assets and cap space to work with, making the pro scouting staff’s team that much more challenging.
Who has had the challenge of making it all work? Former Bruin and new head coach Marco Sturm.
Speaking with a source, while there were definitely growing pains and a learning curve for the Bruins at first under the new bench boss – they had just four wins through their first 10 games to begin the season – Sturm has done a great job instilling a new culture and getting the team back to competing every night. One of last season’s biggest problems was the lack of compete, according to a source, and the team’s new mentality has helped contribute to their high standing in the Atlantic Division as of Thursday.
Given the Bruins being tied for the division lead and riding so much success off their new forward acquisitions, could we see Sweeney look to add to his roster between now and March?
According to a team source, it is very premature to start thinking as to what the Bruins’ plans will be ahead of the NHL Trade Deadline. Described to me as being in a phase of “evaluation” by a team source, it sounds like the Bruins are still very much taking things game by game before committing to a solid direction this season. It wasn’t even 12 months ago that the team put the “for sale” sign up on almost their entire roster; they aren’t prepared to shift gears entirely just yet, despite a very promising start to the season.
While it is certainly premature to speculate on who (if at all) the Bruins would target as additions ahead of the trade deadline, reading the tea leaves, it sounds that they have been keeping an eye out for potential additions if they elect to go that route. The Calgary Flames seem to be a team every opposing club is looking to pick the bones on, and I imagine they have some forwards that could, speculatively speaking, be of use to the Bruins.
The Bruins have ammunition to make a trade if they want to, as the deals Sweeney swung last season certainly left him with a decent amount of high-end assets. The Bruins have two first-round picks in each of the next two drafts and have 2023 third-round pick William Zellers (acquired from Colorado) playing in North Dakota, all decently substantial assets that can be used as currency if the Bruins elect to use them as such. They project to have a little more than $3.4 million in salary cap space by the trade deadline, per puckpedia.com. And if the Bruins continue their winning ways and maintain their position atop the Atlantic Division standings, who’s to say Sweeney shouldn’t look to make additions? Especially given how impactful his most recent ones have been.
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