Boston Bruins
“We got bounced in the first round. So yeah, we need more talent. We need more speed.”
Don Sweeney and the Bruins have their work cut out for them this summer. (Jonathan Wiggs Globe /Staff)
May 6, 2026 | 7:05 PM
7 minutes to read
Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs, team president Cam Neely, and general manager Don Sweeney addressed the media on Wednesday at the team’s end-of-season press conference at TD Garden.
“I feel like we’re on the right track towards becoming a real Stanley Cup contender in the future years,” Jacobs acknowledged in his opening address.
While the 2025-26 Bruins might have exceeded expectations in Marco Sturm’s first year at the helm, Boston’s top brass also acknowledged that there’s still plenty of work to be done if this team plans to take another step forward in 2026-27.
Here are seven takeaways from Wednesday’s address:
More speed and skill required
If the goal for the Bruins last summer was to reset Boston’s culture and add more “piss and vinegar” to their lineup, the Bruins largely achieved said goal with offseason pickups like Tanner Jeannot and veterans like Viktor Arvidsson and Sean Kuraly.
But even if a Boston depth chart littered with bruising skaters like Jeannot, Nikita Zadorov, and Mark Kastelic doled out plenty of damage on the ice, Neely acknowledged that Boston will need to shift gears this offseason in order to add more high-end skill to this group.
Even with David Pastrnak leading the charge and potential for youngsters like James Hagens and Fraser Minten to build their offensive skillsets, Boston is in desperate need of more speed and scoring punch, with a six-game playoff series against a deeper Buffalo roster showcasing some of the talent gap between both clubs.
“Obviously, we got bounced in the first round. So yeah, we need more talent,” Neely said. “We need more speed. That’s something that we have to try to acquire one way, shape, or form. But you look at the elite teams in the league, we’re not there.
“And like I said two years ago, when you strip it down like we did, you’re not going to be there in one season. So it’s going to take some time. But what we accomplished this year, give the guys credit. But early on, it’s building blocks. So we’ve still got work to do to improve this club, still.”
A new captain?
While Sturm acknowledged on Sunday that he had no qualms with Boston playing an entire season without a captain in place, Neely noted that discussions will continue this offseason about stitching a “C” onto a player’s sweater.
“I think, obviously, we would love to name a captain, but we’ve had some great captains here, so one of the things that we want to do is make sure we’re picking the right guy, and Marco is going to be a big part of that,” Neely said. “So having a new coach come in and implementing a new system, getting to know the players, I think it only made sense to see how the season played out.
“We’ve already started discussions about that, for sure, and we’re going to have plenty more in this offseason.”
Boston operated with several leaders in their locker room this past season, led by alternate captains David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy.
“Leadership is a collective process, and I think we proved this year that those guys took ownership of it,” Sweeney said. “We grew, they grew, and now you’re going to eventually get to the point where you feel comfortable that we are going to have another captain here.”
The waiting game with draft capital
The Bruins were dealt a bad hand during Tuesday’s NHL Draft Lottery. Entering the drawing with over a 58 percent chance of acquiring Toronto’s first-round pick (No. 6 or No. 7 overall if it conveyed to Boston), the Bruins instead saw that draft pick get pushed to a potential unprotected 2028 selection.
To make matters worse, Toronto didn’t just keep their 2026 first-round pick — they outright won the lottery. For all of the concerns in Toronto about the Leafs heading toward a painful rebuild, getting a blue-chip talent like Gavin McKenna could be just what the Bruins’ Original Six foe might need to orchestrate a retool on the fly, especially if Auston Matthews sticks around.
Boston could presumably cash in some of those future assets — be it prospects like Dean Letourneau and Will Zellers, its own first-round picks for the next few years, that future Toronto first-rounder, and a Florida 2028 first — for immediate returns.
But Sweeney acknowledged that Boston will need to toe the line between helping out this current core while not limiting Boston’s long-term future as it builds around youngsters like Minten and Hagens.
“If that means we use the assets of what you represented, all [of] the 2028 draft, or is it one push to [2027]? That’s still to be determined to some degree,” Sweeney said of the options on the table. “The ping pong balls dictated that it wasn’t going to be this year, so we have to have everything in play in terms of how we continue to improve our club, and we have that mindset.
“We didn’t sit back last year and say, ‘This is a five-year process.’ We just said we need to attack these areas.”
Even if Boston may not have an appetite for completely draining its prospect pool after refilling it over the last two years, Sweeney will need to find a balance this summer in terms of both fostering Boston’s prospect pipeline and adding impact talent to the 2026-27 roster.
Those dueling roster ideologies came to the forefront after David Pastrnak acknowledged on Friday that he’s not getting younger entering his age-30 season.
Sweeney had qualms with Pastrnak’s comments — and the urgency that his commentary might spark for a Bruins team trying to build a sustainable contender.
David Pastrnak: “Of course it’s disappointing. I’m turning 30 in a couple weeks. Had one sniff at the Cup so far. It gets harder every single year. … You don’t want to waste any opportunity.” pic.twitter.com/vIm46LwEYA
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) May 2, 2026
“I applaud David in the sense of asking for immediate help,” Sweeneu said. “I’d say 10 years ago, when he was working his way into our lineup, maybe [Patrice] Bergeron, [Zdeno] Chara said, ‘How good is this young man?’ “We might say the same thing about Fraser Minten and [Marat Khusnutdinov] and James Hagens, so [it’s] going to require some patience.
“We all alluded to that last year, that we needed to get back to [being] a deeper, skill-based [team] and adding speed to our club. I love the competitive nature of what that comment represents in terms of him wanting [help]. … That’s a reactionary comment from a really high-level, competitive star player in the National Hockey League, and he’s not wrong in the sense that we would like to accelerate when we can.”
Home-ice struggles
For all of the potential that Boston showed this season, their impressive record on home ice during the regular season (29-11-1) didn’t translate to the playoffs, as Boston dropped all three of its postseason games against Buffalo at TD Garden.
“We left it on the table in terms of not taking advantage of the situation at home for certain,” Sweeney said. “And our players are perplexed or disappointed that they weren’t able to do that, and especially the way we played during the course of the season.”
Since 2023, the Bruins are just 3-10 in playoff games at TD Garden — and are now mired in a six-game losing streak in those games. Boston’s last playoff win was a Game 7 overtime winner against the Maple Leafs on May 4, 2024.
“Disappointing the way we played at home in the playoffs, can’t skate around that,” Neely said. “Our home regular-season record was outstanding. For whatever reason, we couldn’t make it happen in the playoffs, so that’s on us.
“We’ve got to understand that a little bit better, but the experience that some of the players got that hadn’t had playoff hockey is invaluable, so we’re grateful for that, but we do realize that there’s a lot more work to do.”
Upside down the middle
Even though the Bruins have some work to do this offseason when it comes to adding talent to this existing core, Neely noted that Boston could have two potential impact centers already in the pipeline with Minten and Hagens.
“I think they both have that skill set,” Neely said when asked if the duo has the upside of top-line centers. “They’re both a little different players. One’s more like Bergy [Patrice Bergeron] as far as a 200-foot player and maybe [doesn’t] see the ice as well as Hagens does.
“Hagens’ head is up all the time, he’s constantly looking to distribute. … Whether they either become number one centers is up to them and how that goes for them and what the path is for them. You know, we want to give these guys every opportunity to take a job that’s staring at them.”
Loose pucks
- Don Sweeney said that he’s had conversations with both of Boston’s pending unrestricted free agents, Viktor Arvidsson and Andrew Peeke, about a potential return. Boston currently has a little over $16 million in cap space entering the offseason.
- “I had conversations with, in particular, with Andrew’s agent most of the year,” Sweeney said. “In terms of update-wise, I told Arvi the same thing: I’ll get to work on on what their positions are now that the season has ended and we’ll explore whether or not we can bring either or both back.”
- Sweeney confirmed that none of the players on the Bruins’ roster need offseason surgeries — beyond a bit more dental work for Charlie McAvoy. Nikita Zadorov — who tore his MCL in Game 3 vs. Buffalo — won’t need to go under the knife in order to correct the knee injury.
- Boston will have six players participating in the upcoming 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Switzerland later this month: James Hagens (USA), Mason Lohrei (USA), Sean Kuraly (USA), Fraser Minten (Canada), Joonas Korpisalo (Finland), and Henri Jokiharju (Finland).
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
Get the latest Boston sports news
Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.
