It is zero exaggeration to state that this upcoming training camp for the Bruins is going to be the most challenging one in recent memory for both the players, and the coaches making the decisions about those players.
Bruins rookie training camp opens up at Warrior Ice Arena on Friday, Sept. 11, with two games set for the Prospect Showcase in Buffalo, and then NHL training camp gets going on Wednesday, Sept 16, with less than two weeks until the regular season starts in earnest at the end of the month.
The Bruins will have just four preseason games to evaluate players competing for NHL roster spots, and the players will have far, far less than the customary 6-8 preseason games to establish themselves as they did in past preseasons.
The new CBA between the players and owners has cut way down on training camp time and added two games to a now-84-game regular season schedule, and that means some serious adjustments for NHL coaching staffs around the league.
It also becomes a fiercely competitive camp for the Bruins where there are 10 NHL-caliber defensemen {Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov, Will Borgen, Connor Clifton, Mason Lohrei, Henri Jokharju, Jonathan Aspirot, Jordan Harris and Frederic Brunet) vying for six lineup spots, and for what amounts to eight D-man spots on the NHL roster. An allowance could be made for one extra blueliner in the early going while Charlie McAvoy serves out his six-game suspension for his slash on Zach Benson at the end of the playoffs, but there are undoubtedly going to be some unhappy campers when the NHL roster is set.
The same can be said up front where rookie James Hagens is expected to enter the lineup, and there is going to be battles for bottom-6 forward spots where guys like Alex Steeves, Mikey Eyssimont, Lukas Reichel, Ivan Ivan and the currently unsigned Matt Poitras are going to be battling for the last couple of forward spots.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a good, healthy competition to have. Somebody will be pissed…somebody will be mad, whoever is not going to make it on the roster for Game 1 against New York,” said Marco Sturm on the Bruins Beat podcast referencing opening night for the Black and Gold. “It would be a lot harder if I was the new coach right now and didn’t know anybody. It would be really hard, so I have a little bit of a better idea [what I am looking at].
“And the other thing is the players wanted less [preseason] games and a shorter training camp, that means they also have to know it’s less opportunity for guys to shine in training camp. So it’s going to be hard for players that need a game or two to get going and you don’t have that anymore. So right from the start they have to be ready to go and show me [what they can do] right away so I can make decisions right away. It’s going to be hard. Throughout the season there will be changes…it’s not going to be perfect. But the good news is that the league is going to be in the same boat. It’s not going to be easy, but I am anxious [to see] how it’s going to turn out.”
“Somebody will be pissed. Somebody will be mad.”
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) August 31, 2026
Marco Sturm on the Bruins entering camp with 10 NHL-ready defenseman: pic.twitter.com/s8vBG6oeVO
The good news for the Bruins is that unhappy campers at the end of training camp mean the depth is extremely strong for the B’s organization among their position players this season. The B’s will need that added depth with an abbreviated camp and an extended regular season schedule, and they certainly can’t count on the kind of consistent good health Bruins players enjoyed last season in a bounce-back season that ended with the Stanley Cup playoffs.
ONE TIMERS
*A great start for Russian Bruins prospect Matvei Kotkov as he scored on his very first shot attempt in a KHL game for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv earlier this week.
FIRST KHL GAME
— KHL (@khl_eng) September 5, 2026
FIRST SHOT
FIRST GOAL
18-year-old Matvei Kotkov scores first goal of 2026-27 KHL season! pic.twitter.com/DNSHznc9oQ
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound fourth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft just turned 18 years old a couple of weeks ago and definitely turned heads at Bruins development camp this summer with his skating, skills, and advanced hockey sense for such a young player. This summer’s draft continues to look like another good one for the Black and Gold, where they added legitimate prospects to their talent cupboard.
*One player that enters this season with a lot of unknowns surrounding him is 31-year-old Elias Lindholm, entering his third year in Boston.
Lindholm basically posted the same so-so offensive stats last season as the year prior while playing 13 fewer games than he did in his first year in Boston and soldiered through the same back issues that dogged him in his first season in Boston. There is no denying that Lindholm is really effective in the faceoff circle and plays an overall responsible two-way game at center, but the offense hasn’t really been enough to keep him in a top 6 center spot on a team gearing up for the playoffs.
And for a 200-foot, two-way player, he’s been a minus in both seasons as a member of the Bruins as well.
Clearly, he is a long way behind Pavel Zacha in terms of being a frontline center for Boston with Zacha coming off a career-high 30 plus goals for the first time in his NHL career. But hope springs eternal with the Bruins coaching staff about what they are going to get out of the Swedish pivot this season.
“I really hope so. I can’t look inside his body. He said he felt good and had a good summer with no complaints…he started skating again. Hopefully it’s going to stay like this,” said Sturm to Bruins Beat when asked if he has high hopes for Lindholm this season. “I still hope he can get back to that drive he had [in Calgary] to be one of the best players on the team. He’s still a reliable centerman who I trust. Yes, a lot of people would like him to score more goals and have more points. He would like to have that too.”
Marco Sturm on Elias Lindholm: “He’s still a reliable center who I trust…He’s still a big part of our team.” pic.twitter.com/yM79wET4S0
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) August 28, 2026
“But he does a lot of good things. He plays a 200-foot game, a two-way game and he’s solid in his own end. Obviously, we want to get more out of him, but don’t forget he does a lot of things that people don’t even see. He’s still a big part of our team and if we can get a little more out of him that would be great.”
It remains to be seen if they can get more out of Lindholm, but it was very telling when Bruins management publicly admitted last spring that they do not currently have a No. 1 center on their roster. That was once what they had hoped for Lindholm to be when they signed him to a rich, long-term free-agent deal just a couple of seasons ago, but it has not played out that way.
That’s it for this week. See everybody at the rink!