BRIGHTON – Those hoping the Boston Bruins were going to wow their fans with a massive splash on July 1 free agency were probably left more than a little underwhelmed on Tuesday afternoon.
Any good things I said about Don Sweeney the last couple days you can totally forget about pic.twitter.com/lHLI5bh3NN
— Dan Powers (@Dan_Powers_) July 1, 2025
But what the B’s did do during the NHL free agent frenzy was address some of the competitiveness issues baked into last season’s lacking Bruins group while also avoiding the kind of long-term, big-money signings that could sidetrack a team that’s actually in a pretty good place salary cap-wise moving forward. Perhaps the Bruins are also saving some pennies for a big free agent target more to their liking a year from now, where the return on investment could be a lot better.
Instead, Don Sweeney made some deliberate acquisitions that will make the Bruins a more difficult team to play against and should avoid the kind of face plant collapses that last season’s hockey club displayed again and again in a hockey season where they sank to the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
Will the Bruins be back to being Stanley Cup contenders or lead the NHL in offensive production next season?
That seems highly, highly unlikely, but the flurry of July 1 signings does supply the Bruins with a hard-working, heavy and reliable crew expected to scratch and claw for points in a way that last season’s Black and Gold simply did not. The B’s certainly will not be fun to play against after adding Michael Eyssimont and Tanner Jeannot to a hockey team that already had Nikita Zadorov and Mark Kastelic, and that is kind of the point behind Sweeney’s strategy in building the B’s back up again.
“We were going to put together a competitive team to bring some juice back in here. And that applies to our current guys that should be reinvigorated coming back from some injuries and coming off a down year. The juice is coming, and we expect to be a much more competitive team. And the improvements now come from within. The competition is there and that’s what we want,” said Don Sweeney. “We’ve always been a team since I’ve been here that prides ourselves on [being hard to play against]. That’s defensive structure and at times last year even when we had our whole group we were an easy out.
“I just can’t stand for that. So we are going to re-establish that. When you have iconic players and people that are driven leading our group for a long time, the next group needs to really, really embrace that. There were injuries and that was a factor in that, but now we have infused that. We have guys that are self-starters. We have guys that are going to show up every day at practice. We have guys that are going to show up when the whistle blows and drag people in with them. And if they aren’t dragged in, then they won’t play.”
That really puts it out there in no uncertain terms for an organization that wants to immediately put last season in the rear view.
Adding players like Jeannot (five years, $3.4 million AAV) and Michael Eyssimont (two years, $1.45 million AAV) are going to make Boston more difficult to play against, and Jeannot will be an important figure when it comes to protecting James Hagens once he enters the NHL fray.
The Bruins also traded for Viktor Arvidsson while sending a 2027 fifth-round draft pick to the Edmonton Oilers, a player that they expect to serve in a net front role on the Bruins power play as he did in Los Angeles while Marco Sturm was an assistant coach for that club. Arvidsson is 32 years old and coming off just 15 goals and 27 points for the Oilers on a stacked team, but there’s also a track record with a player that’s scored 194 goals and 389 points in 613 career NHL games for Nashville, Los Angeles and Edmonton during his career.
Arvidsson had 10 PP goals with the Kings (and 26 goals overall) just a couple of years ago in LA, and it’s reasonable to think he can hit marks close to that with the Black and Gold on a second line playing higher in the lineup than he did with Edmonton.
“I think I’m gonna take a bigger role and have more opportunity…knowing Marco from before, me and him have a really good relationship. I think that’s gonna be a fun year too,” said Arvidsson of bouncing back. “I’m gonna come there, I’m gonna play a responsible game, and I think Marco knows exactly what he’s getting from me.
“I’m gonna help offensively and bring scoring. I know I can do that. I know I had a little bit of a tough time last year with that and the opportunity. I’m gonna bring that, I know that. I’m really confident that I’m gonna make the team better.”
And they signed Sean Kuraly to a two-year contract to come in and be a solid, veteran leader for this Bruins group as somebody that can support Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak in their first season fully taking hold of the leadership mantle for the Black and Gold.
That’s not to say that this is all sunshine and roses, however.
The Bruins are again loading up on third- and fourth-line types that have limited offensive upside unless Jeannot can find the scoring touch that saw him score 27 goals during his first full NHL season with the Nashville Predators. And that’s for a Bruins team that ranked 27th in the NHL scoring at a clip of 2.71 goals per game last season and was dreadful on a PP that scored just 15 percent of the time they had the man advantage.
Yet, it still feels like this Bruins team is going to have to scratch for merely adequate offense and put a lot of pressure on their power play, and top scorer David Pastrnak, while also hoping that guys like Morgan Geekie can repeat career best seasons from last year. All of that doesn’t leave a lot of margin for error if things don’t break the way that Boston hopes they are going to next season.
The good news is that the Bruins have cap flexibility to bring in additional offense if that becomes a dire need at the NHL trade deadline, and there is also an unknown element of what youngsters like Matt Poitras, Fraser Minten or even James Hagens, after the college hockey season, can bring as young, skilled players to boost Boston’s offense.
“If the power play comes back online and they’re feeling good about themselves, then I think there will be enough [offense],” said Sweeney. “Look at LA and look at Minnesota, they didn’t lead the league in scoring but they still generated enough and found a way to score enough to get into the playoffs.
“But I think that’s an area that if you look at the group and we have to tease it up during the course of the season, then we have the space to [make some additions]. We have the draft capital to do that. If we’re in a [playoff] position, then I think you all know I’ve had a pretty aggressive mindset.”
The biggest question mark among the individual contracts signed is the five-year term for the 28-year-old Jeannot. A big-bodied player that will be 33 years old in the final year of the deal, it’s a gamble that he will still be an effective player at that point as most NHL guys are significantly slowing down, but Sweeney made it clear that he thinks Jeannot’s legit standing as an NHL heavyweight is something the Bruins needed to augment their team toughness.
Essentially, the Bruins chose Jeannot over Trent Frederic for that kind of role ostensibly because Jeannot has fully embraced playing that role, while Frederic seems to still fancy himself a different kind of player.
Trent Frederic or Tanner Jeannot?
— Jimmy Murphy (@MurphysLaw74) July 1, 2025
Just gonna leave this here.#NHLBruins @sickpodnhl @TheRGMedia @BruinsVibes pic.twitter.com/zvETL1ymLf
“Deep down we believe he’ll bring a lot more energy to our group that we need,” said Sweeney. “The physicality is there. We run through a tough division and everybody gets a little taller [with Jeannot around]. With an eye toward introducing those young players [that we just drafted] and infusing skill, I think what Tanner brings will complement them in that regard as we move forward in improving our organizational talent depth.”
It's good to know there’s a long-term plan in place and that Jeannot has a place in that thereby earning the five-year contract term, but that’s looking a couple of years down the road when the planned B’s retooling is in full bloom. As for right now, it looks like next season is going to be a grind with a gritty, feisty and responsible group of players on board, and there will be some ups and downs associated with the talent brought in on July 1.
That’s to be expected and very likely the right moves for the long-term vibrancy of the Bruins franchise, but it’s not going to win too many popularity contests with fans still spitting out the bad taste of last season from their collective mouths.
