There is zero doubt that it was a wholly disappointing NHL season for Elias Lindholm after he was the big free-agent signing for the Boston Bruins.
Sure, Nikita Zadorov was a significant signing as well and got off to a sluggish start thanks to a slew of penalties and perhaps trying to do too much at times. But Lindholm is signed for nearly twice as much money ($54 million versus $30 million) as Zadorov and for a longer term in Boston after the B’s envisioned him being their No. 1 center.
That didn’t happen right off the bat, obviously, as the 30-year-old Lindholm struggled with a back injury suffered in August ahead of his first training camp in Boston. And he never truly caught a groove with his game in Boston until the final month of the season when he teamed with David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie and finished with four goals and nine points in eight games during the month of April.
In the end, Lindholm was the player Boston envisioned him to be all along.
That certainly was an encouraging end to his season, and it raised optimism significantly that Lindholm could team with Pastrnak and Geekie to be an effective top line after the trio gelled in the season’s final weeks. Lindholm’s defensive abilities and 200-foot game seemed to free up Pastrnak and Geekie to be more aggressive offensively, and that was a good recipe for a successful hockey line where each player needs to bring different things to the table.
Still, Lindholm was notoriously tough on himself during an off year where he finished with just 17 goals and 47 points while playing in all 82 games, and that was clearly going to be a source of motivation moving forward.
“For myself, tough season. [It] just didn't get off the great start with the injury and stuff, and kind of was chasing it for a long time. It was just snowballing from there. Yeah, it was not great,” admitted Lindholm. “I was chasing it for a long time there, couldn't do too much on the ice or off the ice, and felt like it was behind. I tried to get back in shape to play on a high level but felt like I was behind for a long time. Definitely at the end started feeling better and started playing better, so yeah [that was a positive].”
The good news in all of this: Lindholm is showing what he’s all about during the IIHF World Championships for Team Sweden while going off offensively. Lindholm and Pastrnak actually lead all players in scoring during the international tournament as the Swedish center has six goals and 10 points in five games, and Pastrnak has been similarly productive for Team Czechia with four goals and 10 points in just five games.
Lindholm had a hat trick for Team Sweden and then scored a power play goal in Saturday’s shutout victory over France and did some of his damage while playing the familiar bumper spot on Sweden’s power play. All of that combined with the subpar performance pretty much for the entire season should bring forth a different Lindholm next season, when the Bruins will definitely need it.
“I signed this big deal and want to be a part of this. We kind of failed. Obviously, I look at it to take a lot of responsibility for that,” said Lindholm, back during breakup day in April. “We're probably going to see a lot of things change this summer. Hopefully we can start building again, [and get back to] what they built for a long time. Hopefully we can, one day that I'm here, bring a Cup to the fans here.”
That’s good to hear from Lindholm because right now it’s really looking like a picture where he’s the clear-cut best pivot on the NHL roster. Casey Mittelstadt is there after posting four goals and six points along with a really rough minus-17 mark in 18 games after being traded to Boston from the Avalanche, and would be a second-line center candidate if Pavel Zacha remains on the wing.
Beyond that and fourth line center Mark Kastelic, though, there are a lot of young, inexperienced players like Matt Poitras, Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov that are looking like the top contenders for the middle-6 center spots. The 21-year-old Poitras is coming off a very strong stint in the AHL, where he was one of Providence’s best players in the playoffs, and the 20-year-old Minten is a guy that it feels like the Bruins are grooming as a long-term third-line center replacement.
It's pretty clear the Bruins are banking on Lindholm being much better in his second go-round in Boston.
“Elias got out of the gate slowly with an injury, as did several of our players, didn't develop the chemistry early on that we had hoped with David [Pastrnak] [that ended up developing] late in the season, and went back to play with him and played very well there. So that's the hope that a player that can take a lion's share of harder match-ups, but still can produce,” said Don Sweeney. “Is he below the levels we would like him to be offensively? He lost confidence in his shooting, you know, [in] the bumper and our power play was not very effective during the course of the season, so all players go through that adjustment coming to a new city.
“There's a bunch of things, those aren't excuses. He didn't offer one single excuse. He didn't use the injury as an excuse. He still had, you know, a reasonable offensive year. It's not what we had hoped, what we expect, and we expect it to be higher [production-wise]. He actually had more points than he had the previous year. But again, that's not what we'd hoped for.”
Lindholm and Pastrnak aren’t alone in standing out in the world championships over in Sweden, of course, as Mason Lohrei is also playing well for Team USA on the back end and has a few points and a strong plus-4 at this point in the tournament. Jeremy Swayman has a couple of wins as well for USA while sharing the net with Joey Daccord, and Andrew Peeke is playing strong on the back end as well for a Team USA that’s cruising into the elimination rounds.
In addition, Bruins prospect Dans Locmelis leads Team Latvia with three goals in the tournament after exiting the AHL playoffs in the middle of Providence’s second-round series to participate in international play.
So it’s pretty much all positive from a Bruins perspective at the world championships aside from the obvious point that the only reason Boston’s players are there to stand out is because they didn’t qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
