It’s fair to ask at this point if the Bruins are getting dinged so comprehensively for last season that they’ve become a bit underrated to a degree when forecasting what they will do in this coming hockey season.
Obviously, there are not many, if any, puck prognosticators that think this B’s team has even a sliver of a chance at realistically competing for a Stanley Cup this season. The Atlantic Division is going to be too high quality, the Bruins' roster is still very thin in terms of goal-scoring and depth amongst the forward group and any Black and Gold success this coming season is banking heavily on a strong rebound campaign for goalie Jeremy Swayman.
Beyond that, it’s really difficult to envision the Bruins rocketing back to the top immediately after watching them slide to the bottom of the NHL in just about every measurable category last season, culminating in a fire sale of meaningful veteran players at the NHL trade deadline. But there is a legitimate feeling that this is the start of a new era for the Black and Gold based on new coach Marco Sturm entering the fray, and for the simple fact that there are no longer any active 2011 Stanley Cup champs on the Boston roster for the first time in 14 years.
But beyond that, there is simply too much talent on the Bruins' roster for them to be terrible again like they were last season.
The presence of a motivated Swayman between the pipes, looking to prove that last season was an outlier caused by the training camp holdout, and the return to health of both Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm at the top of the B’s blue line will be key to any retooling going on.
Oh yeah, and the Bruins still have one of the NHL’s greatest game-breakers with 29-year-old David Pastrnak in his prime and coming off a season where he carried Boston’s offense with 43 goals and 106 points last season.
They won’t sink bank into lottery territory again unless Swayman stays mired at last season’s performance level and/or McAvoy and Lindholm suffer through another season of various injuries.
It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that the Bruins will contend for a wild-card playoff spot even as team offense remains a massive question mark headed into this season. A top line of Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie and an improved power play will be helpful, but they will need more to be anything approaching adequate offense at the NHL level.
And the Bruins think they will get it.
That was certainly the message that CEO Charlie Jacobs was passing along while making an appearance on the WEEI and NESN airwaves as part of their annual Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon over the last couple of days.
“I think there's a lot of new faces. There's a lot of new energy. And frankly, we needed to change the energy from last year,” said Boston Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs, who appeared on WEEI and NESN in part to donate $25,000 from the Black and Gold during the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon. “We owed our fan base a lot more than what we showed last year, and it was time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work on a remake, frankly. And I think that you'll see that in October.”
“I think all of us will be pleasantly surprised by what we see on the ice. People like to say, ‘Oh, it's a rebuild, Bruins are in a rebuild.’ Well, I would argue that we have one of the best wings in hockey, like you already mentioned. I think we have two of the better, if not the best, top 10 defensemen in the National Hockey League in Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm. And then we also have a potential franchise goalie in [Jeremy Swayman].”
.@NHLBruins CEO & Alternate Governor Charlie Jacobs on the team:
— NESN (@NESN) August 18, 2025
"[Coach Sturm] has some exciting ideas about pushing our offense... I think we're gonna have a team that's very hard to play against." 👀🐻
🔗 https://t.co/hEeeFzhgwn | @TheJimmyFund | @DanaFarber | @ArbellaIns pic.twitter.com/emPbRFRWtK
One thing that was clear about this offseason was how much Bruins management prioritized a return of “the Juice” to Boston’s overall attack. The Bruins signed Tanner Jeannot and Mikey Eyssimont as high energy players known for their physicality and abrasiveness, and as protection for emerging young guys like Matt Poitras, Fraser Minten and eventually James Hagens.
The Bruins also brought in Viktor Arvidsson after trading for Casey Mittelstadt at last spring’s trade deadline to generate more offense, and clearly know that they’ll need to find even more offensive answers, whether it’s emerging young players or others like Geekie that might be poised to produce a breakout season.
“Listen, we need help. No question. We went out and shopped [for free agents] a bit, but we have younger kids coming in that are going to need some help,” said Jacobs during the radio telethon. “They're going to need some bigger bodies to help protect them on the ice. Because Lord knows no matter whether you're 18, 19, or 20 or even 21, no matter how big or strong you are, you're playing a man's game, and it's a little different then maybe you would see in a national development program or World Juniors or even in college.
“The National Hockey League's a different animal, especially when you're talking about 80 games. So we went out and addressed what we thought would be a shortcoming of something that we really needed this offseason on July 1 in free agency shopping. And we want these kids to develop and go from there. But I think we're going to have a very good team come October, and we owe Boston that.”
It remains to be seen if it’s all going to come together like Jacobs hopes and expects, and a lot of the modest expectations are predicated on the continued health of a pair of frontline D-men in their late 20s that were banged up a concerning amount last season. But the comments also give everybody an unvarnished look at what Bruins management and ownership is thinking about a rebuilding team that everybody is truly looking past to start this season.