Bruins
It remains to be seen how the Bruins will be able to consistently generate offense in 2025-26.
It’s been a sprint to the summer for the Bruins.
Just days after adding James Hagens and several other intriguing prospects to their pipeline during the 2025 NHL Draft, Boston spent the past week both running Development Camp and adding to their roster in free agency.
The Bruins’ free-agency haul left a lot to be desired when it comes to injecting some much-needed offense into the roster, while the early returns during Dev Camp were more promising.
With the NHL offseason set to slow down over the next month or two, here are a few leftover thoughts from a busy week for Boston.
1. It’s unclear where the offense is going to come from next season
The good news? The Bruins still have one of the most gifted offensive players in the world in David Pastrnak.
The bad news? It might be another year where the 29-year-old winger is on an island when it comes to stuffing the stat sheet.
In total, the Bruins made 10 roster moves on Tuesday, signing nine free agents and also trading for winger Viktor Arvidsson.
Arvidsson was the lone player among that haul who scored more than 10 goals last season. Not exactly a great sign for a Boston roster that ranked 29th in the league in goals per game in 2024-25.
Arvidsson stood as a logical trade target for Boston, given his scoring pedigree. Even with his down season with Edmonton last year (15 goals, 27 points in 67 games), he does have five 20-goal campaigns on his resume, can score off the rush, and peppers the net. He’s a worthwhile flier for a team starved for offense.
But elsewhere, Boston’s other free-agent forward expected to log regular NHL minutes in Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly, and Michael Eyssimont combined for just 22 goals this past year.
Speaking on Tuesday, Don Sweeney expressed confidence that the Bruins — who placed a premium on physicality and competitiveness this week — have the means to consistently score.
But it’s going to require a whole lot to break Boston’s way for this team to become at least a solid offensive club.
Pastrnak’s continued offensive brilliance must continue, to say the least.
But Morgan Geekie (who posted a career-best 20.16 shooting percentage in 2024-25) also needs to ensure that his 33-goal campaign last year was not a fluke.
Elias Lindholm needs to carry over his strong end to the season while skating alongside both Pastrnak and Geekie, with Boston outscoring opponents, 16-4, in the 93:57 of their five-on-five ice time together.
And Casey Mittelstadt needs to develop into a legitimate middle-six playmaker for Boston — most likely alongside Pavel Zacha and Arvidsson.
Fair to say, that’s a lot that needs to break Boston’s way in order for this team to at least land a few punches at even-strength play.
It’s a risky bet, to say the least.
“This group is going to have to work hard to score goals and put it together,” Sweeney said. “They’re all capable. Arvy’s capable of scoring 20 goals. Geeks now is capable of scoring of scoring 30. That doesn’t mean I’m anointing them on the high sides of their careers.
“But I do believe when you put the whole group together and what they’re capable of doing, we’ll score enough — if we play the right way. And we’ll defend a hell of a lot better, and I expect our goaltending to be significantly better.”
2. Passing on other scoring wingers was an odd call
For all intents and purposes, this free-agency class was a bust … across the entire NHL.
With the salary cap spiking and multiple teams suddenly flush with cash, most franchises had the means to retain their top players before they went to market — leaving a relatively barren pool of talent up for grabs.
Options like Brock Boeser weren’t even available for Boston, despite the evident need for the Bruins to add another 20-goal talent into their middle-six grouping.
But the Bruins’ inability to at least add another winger with some offensive pop is puzzling, especially with the team instead doubling down on multiple bottom-six forwards.
In a vacuum, adding a player or two like Kuraly or Eyssimont would be a wise move for this Boston club — given Kuraly’s veteran presence and Eyssimont’s willingness to be a fly in the ointment on every shift.
Even a punishing player like Jeannot could hold some semblance of value in a fourth-line role for Boston, considering that AFP Analytics projected Jeannot to earn a two-year contract this offseason worth just $1.42 million.
Instead, Boston opted to sign all three of those players for a combined $6.7 million cap hit — including a whopping five-year deal for Jeannot that accounts for a $3.4 million annual cap hit.
Boston may not have been in a position to add a Boeser or Nikolaj Ehlers this summer.
But there were plenty of middle-six wingers out on the market who the Bruins could have added for seemingly fair value — be it Connor Brown ($3 million AAV), Jonathan Drouin ($4 million AAV), Evgenii Dadonov ($1 million AAV), Andrew Mangiapane ($3.6 million AAV), Anthony Mantha ($2.5 million AAV), Mason Appleton ($2.5 million AAV), or Gustav Nyquist ($3.25 million AAV).
Some of those names might elicit groans from Bruins fans, as it’s no guarantee that some of those forward pickups would be true needle-movers on this team.
But in terms of offensive ceiling, that crop offers far more upside when compared to the trio of Jeannot, Kuraly, and Eyssimont.
3. Will a youth movement be underway?
If this is going to be another bridge year for Boston as the team lets prospects like James Hagens marinate at BC, one silver lining drawn out of the 2025-26 campaign could be the opportunity afforded to youngsters like Fraser Minten, Matt Poitras, Fabian Lysell, Dans Locmelis, and other Providence regulars to try to carve out regular roles this winter.
Even with some of those growing pains along the way, it would be a welcome sight for the Bruins and their fans if they know the team will enter 2026-27 with, say, Minten locked into a 3C role, and a Lysell or Locmelis ready for regular minutes in a middle-six spot.
Now might stand as the ideal time to give those youngsters some run. But based on the way the roster is currently constituted, will there even be an opportunity?
For this exercise, let’s operate with the assumption that Boston’s top-six grouping next year will feature: Pastrnak, Lindholm, Geekie, Zacha, Mittelstadt, and Arvidsson.
That leaves six forward spots in the bottom-six grouping — of which Jeannot, Kuraly, Eyssimont, Mark Kastelic, Johnny Beecher, and Marat Khusnutdinov all have regular NHL reps.
That’s not even counting free-agent pickups like Matej Blumel and Alex Steeves, who could be primed for a look in the NHL after dominating in the American Hockey League these last few years.
One can assume that the Bruins will preach competitiveness during training camp when it comes to the odds of players like Poitras, Lysell, Minten, and others leapfrogging some of those forwards on the depth chart.
But that’s quite the logjam already in place up front for Boston.
4. No qualms with Blumel, Jokiharju signings
One of the more intriguing moves of the day for Sweeney and the Bruins? Banking on some scoring upside with the signing of Czech forward Matej Blumel.
The 25-year-old winger had been one of the top goal scorers in the AHL over the last few seasons — scoring 39 goals and 33 assists for 72 points over 67 games with the Texas Stars, Dallas’ AHL affiliate, this past season.
The 6-foot, 205-pound forward hasn’t produced yet in the NHL (two goals in 13 games with Dallas), but he did land 19 shots on goal over that stretch despite averaging under 10 minutes of ice time per game — while he also generated 12.6 high-danger scoring chances over 60 minutes.
Much like the younger players in Boston’s system, Blumel might have a tough time carving out a regular spot right out of camp. But for a Bruins team in need of offense, taking a still-young winger who nearly scored 40 goals in the AHL feels like a gamble worth taking.
Given how quickly the free-agent class of right-shot D dried up, I don’t think you can knock Boston on bringing back Henri Jokiharju on a three-year deal that pays him $3 million per season.
With Aaron Ekblad and Dante Fabbro both re-upping with their current clubs, there were few solid options for Boston this offseason — with Jokiharju capable of logging regular minutes moving forward for the Bruins.
The 26-year-old D is steady, if not unspectacular, but his puck-moving abilities paired well last season with Nikita Zadorov.
During the 17 games and 273:39 of 5-on-5 ice time that Zadorov and Jokiharju skated together last season, the Bruins actually outscored opponents, 12-5, while that D pair only had 32.6 percent of their on-ice starts in the offensive zone.
If the Bruins want to overload their top pairing with both Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy skating together, a second pairing of Zadorov and Jokiharju could hold their own.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
