In a week that has seen a flurry of mind-bending trades with captains being moved and first-round picks being tossed around like Fourth of July firecrackers, the Bruins have largely stood pat while hoping to get in on the action in a way that makes sense for the long-term view.
The Black and Gold have watched as the Florida Panthers seriously reloaded with the trade for Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk in a seismic deal that lifts them back into Cup favorites in the East, and as the Maple Leafs reeled in Darren Raddysh to fortify their back end while readying to draft No. 1 overall pick Gavin McKenna this weekend.
The Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens should be even better coming off this spring’s playoff pushes, and it’s expected that the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to be movers and shakers this offseason as well. The Bruins can’t afford to stand pat if they want to build on the promise of last season’s 100-point wild-card playoff effort, but they also need to execute the delicate balancing act of continuing to build with the future in mind even more than the present.
“Referencing Florida, obviously they had injuries last year. They were a good team prior [to the injuries], and they're a good team now. Montreal just took a step, Detroit's looking to take a step, Buffalo took a step, they just traded some players. The moving parts are there,” said Don Sweeney. “Ultimately, you're going to have to show up and win your games. I think we're competitive within our division. We were last year. And you're going to need to be, because you are playing those games more frequently than the others.
“I don't think it's to the point where you're like, ‘Oh, our division is overwhelming us’ by any stretch. I think we're perfectly fine to compete within our division, but we have to address some areas in order to acknowledge that other [divisional] teams have finished ahead of us right now.”
Don Sweeney on if the Bruins can remain competitive in the Atlantic Division: pic.twitter.com/eanPq2a5to
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) June 24, 2026
Sweeney stressed that adding additional speed and skill to the group while adding more of a forecheck attack to next season’s group will be high up on the agenda, as will identifying more young players that can contribute at the NHL level, as 21-year-old Fraser Minten and 23-year-old Marat Khusnutdinov did in helping to spearhead last season’s return to competitiveness.
It’s never going to be easy to find those places to improve, but the Bruins do have $16 million in salary cap space, along with five first-round picks over the next three seasons, to swing deals.
“I guess you’ve just got to make sure you're trying to canvas as wide as possible, realizing that right D is an area we've been focused on, [and] I think the top nine is going to continue to be an area we focus on…trying to add to the depth of our group as I referenced before,” said Sweeney. “I think speed and skill is something [we need more of]. I think that the overall competitiveness of our group is really good, I think they proved that in spades this year but if we can be a little deeper. And Marco’s [Sturm] talked a little bit about the identity of our group, [and] getting better in the forecheck side of things and creating a little more anxiety.
“I think everything has to be on the table at this time of the year. Ultimately, our goal is to improve now and moving forward and having depth in positions. Maybe it's a younger player that's able to grow into a role and situation as we did with both Fraser and Marat [Khusnutdinov]. So we may need to identify the next one [of those players] and you know sometimes that's a half a step back for two steps forward and that just might be what the deal represents. We'll be open-minded about that. But we have to we have to live in all those spaces, we just do. I'm not promising [anything] but I do believe we're trying to do a little bit of both.”
The other part of the balancing act right now is measuring potential deals on the table with the reality of potentially bringing UFAs Viktor Arvidsson or Andrew Peeke back into the Boston and also looking to extend Pavel Zacha as he’s entering the last year of his contract with the B’s. Retaining all three players would make it a little more difficult to do anything substantial on the trade market in terms of cap space and/or roster, so one has to wonder how realistic any of them coming back will actually be as the team nears the July 1 open of free agency.
“[Negotiations] have been mutually very respectful. I think there's interest for both sides, [and we] just haven't found an agreeable term and AAV…so that's a simple fact. Ultimately, in a perfect world, they'd be already done because we have expressed interest in both,” said Sweeney. “But there's obviously a disagreement because you haven't signed the players. That's my job, to find a way to balance that out. If not, you have to execute a trade that fills a hole because they were both important players for us.”
All of what Sweeney said is true, but standing pat really doesn’t seem like an option for a team that couldn’t even push to a Game 7 in the first round of the playoffs against the Sabres, and that goes doubly so for a hockey team that’s going to need to create space for younger players like James Hagens, Matt Poitras, Frederic Brunet and Michael DiPietro to push through next season.
All of the moving parts make it difficult to pinpoint the perfect player to address Boston’s needs, and perhaps their patience will pay off with landing spots being eliminated for players as each of these blockbuster trades does down. But patience is starting run a little thin for a B’s team that’s been slow out of the blocks as rivals all around them are getting business done ahead of the NHL Draft this weekend.