There are some certainties for the Boston Bruins going into next season, and some pretty well-documented unknowns heading into an important offseason. That’s to be expected when so many known, veteran commodities were shipped away at the trade deadline after a disappointing season, and when so many new players had a limited time to establish themselves with a new team.
The first question to be answered will be an extensive head coaching search that’s expected to be resolved in the next few days.
Perhaps the biggest X-factor going into next season from a player perspective, though, is 26-year-old Casey Mittelstadt after arriving with the Bruins in the Colorado deadline deal that shipped Charlie Coyle out to the Mile High City.
It might be fair to call Mittelstadt a bit of an unknown commodity in general at the NHL level after being a former No. 8 overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft that’s now on his third team, and third team in the last two years after getting traded from Buffalo to Colorado a couple of years ago.
The talent is undeniable as the center flashes superior skating speed, a soft set of hands, a great skill level that really shows up on the power play and gets his share of points. Looking back on his early hockey years in Minnesota, Mittelstadt looked like a "can't miss" offensive superstar, and there are still glimpses here or there.
CASEY MITTELSTADT pic.twitter.com/VVcA9TnSSD
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) March 13, 2025
But it also feels like Mittelstadt, at this point, has not lived up to the potential that saw him taken as a lottery pick in the first round, and also has some major challenges away from the puck as evidenced by the minus-17 mark in 18 games after arriving in Boston.
For what’s going almost two decades now, there’s been some perceptions around the hockey world associated with players drafted and developed into a Buffalo Sabres organization routinely at the bottom of the standings. Some like Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel manage to overcome it all and realize their full potential with a change of NHL addresses, and others like Mittelstadt, Rasmus Ristolainen and Zemgus Girgensons never quite elevate fully to their expectation level as players.
Clearly Mittelstadt needs to do better than the four goals and six points of production he posted in Boston, and the four 5-on-5 points during that span, and he’s fully aware of that after not really establishing himself strongly with his new team. Some of it goes hand-in-hand with simply shooting the puck more, a focus that’s been a constant for the skilled center throughout his career where’s been more playmaker than shooter.
“I guess it's just kind of how you play and you grow up. I think you can get away with [passing up shots] a lot of times. And obviously, you get to this league, and there's a little less room,” said Mittelstadt, who had just 23 shots on net in 18 games for the Black and Gold. “You know, maybe the shooting opportunity is better than the pass with the defenders. It's definitely a balance. I think it'd be a stretch to say that I won't be a pass first [in the future], but I think there's times that I can shoot it way more. And, you know, I think I have a good enough shot as well to do that.”
It feels like Boston is going to wind up being the place where Mittelstadt either finds a way to get to the next level or continues on a pathway toward being a serviceable third-line forward with the potential to play up at times. The career-highs of 18 goals and 59 points aren’t earth-shaking, but the assist numbers were pretty good for a two-year stretch at the end of his run in Buffalo and could portend good things if Mittelstadt plays consistently with finishing wingers that want to shoot the puck.
What will be interesting is where he fits in with the Bruins next season as a player that feels like he’s going to need to exclusively play center and will be commanding a $5.75 million cap hit for the next couple of seasons.
Certainly, he’s a much different player than the big, strong, two-way pivot play that the Bruins got out of Coyle over the last five years, and it remains to be seen if Mittelstadt could factor as the second line or third line center next season. The plan would seem to be pushing Mittelstadt into a top-6 center role for next season, and then have Fraser Minten step in to compete for a third-line center spot as the Bruins view him as an eventual 200-foot, two-way center replacement for Coyle. It's a big reason why Minten was taking all the big defensive zone faceoffs during the AHL playoffs and being deployed much in the way Coyle was during his Bruins career.
It's something that Bruins management shed some light on at the end of season press conference with so much still up in the air for the Black and Gold.
“Whatever is at our disposal to utilize through trade, as I referenced, what we tried to do at the deadline to find some younger players deep in the prospect pool, add a player that would help us in Casey [Mittelstadt], from an offensive standpoint,” said Don Sweeney during the end-of-season press conference. “[Mittelstadt] is a different player than Charlie [Coyle], [and we] backfilled with a player [in Minten] that may be able to do some of the things and grow into some of the things that Charlie Coyle was so very good at. We're going to use every mechanism possible [to improve the NHL roster].”
The bottom line is that Mittelstadt is going to factor into Boston’s plans for next season based on his NHL profile and his salary cap hit, but he’s not really rugged enough or big enough to be effective on the wing. And the Bruins need a much better version of the player that finished things up in Boston while admittedly playing catch-up in building chemistry with his teammates and keeping his head above water at the end of a lost season for the entire group.
There has to be hope that Mittelstadt can elevate his game to a higher level in the prime of his NHL career, or there may be other NHL teams to come on a resume that’s already starting to accumulate multiple NHL stops. It will be a big season, to say the least, for Mittelstadt and his fate will be interlinked with a Bruins team hoping to claw their way back into the playoff picture next season.
