This offseason, General Manager Don Sweeney and the Boston Bruins are looking to rebound from their 2024 NHL Stanley Cup playoff second-round exit to the Florida Panthers. Boston has many holes that they are looking to fill this free agency. They also just announced the Linus Ullmark trade to the Ottawa Senators where Boston received the 25th overall pick. This is their only pick in the first three rounds of this year’s draft. Boston also brought back Jay Leach to be the team’s assistant coach. Boston will have a lot of impactful returns or new additions next season, while also having to upgrade their weaknesses during and after the 2024 NHL Draft. With Boston already making significant changes to their roster and staff, let’s dive into some of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses approaching the 2024 NHL Draft.
The Boston Bruins Organizational Strengths Starts With Well-Rounded Coaching
The Boston Bruins have built a dominant and experienced staff behind their bench over the past three seasons. One of Sweeney’s first big moves this offseason was bringing back former Providence Bruins Head Coach Jay Leach. Leach will slide in well as the team’s assistant coach alongside Head Coach Jim Montgomery, who the team hired during the 2022 offseason after the departure of Bruce Cassidy. Montgomery won a National Championship in 2017 with the University of Denver. Since being hired by the Bruins, Montgomery has had an overall record of 112-32-20. Montgomery brings more of an up-tempo style to the lineup which overall fits how Boston plays the game.
Not only does Montgomery bring experience and a positive style to the organization, but so does assistant coaches Joe Sacco and Chris Kelly. Kelly started with little to no coaching experience in 2021 but has championship experience as a player winning a cup with Boston in 2011. He focuses a lot on the detail aspects of hockey, which allows the roster to play to their full potential. Sacco provides the Bruins with even more experience, considering he’s been on the staff since 2014. This staff overall fits the Bruins culture. They bring a ton of experience to the organization and are one of the team’s biggest strengths going into the offseason.
Salary Cap Room
The Bruins are entering an offseason where they have over $21 million in salary cap to spend. Maintaining enough salary to improve the team’s overall roster has been a recurring issue in the past couple of seasons. This offseason Don Sweeney will finally have some salary cap available to go out and land some big names to help with the team’s depth and missing pieces. Boston’s main goal is to bring back a championship team. Currently, Boston is in a comfortable position with more than $21 million in cap space. This will make it easier for the organization to target bigger pieces in free agency, which will improve the missing holes in the team’s lineup.
Special Teams
Special teams have been a key cause of the Bruins success in recent years. Joe Sacco has been the main contributor to the team’s outstanding play while a man down. Because of his ability to shut down opposing teams’ powerplays, Jim Montgomery and the entire organization have a lot of confidence in Sacco and his penalty-kill strategy. Boston had an 82.5% penalty-kill percentage this season, which was top-5 in the league. Even though the B’s powerplay wasn’t at its best most of last season, they had a strong finish towards the end. The team boosted their powerplay percentage from 18.2% to 27.3%.
Along With Strengths Comes Some Weaknesses for the Boston Bruins and First Up: The Prospect Pool
The Bruins have lacked high-valued draft picks over the years, causing them to have one of the worst prospect groups in the entire NHL. Boston has even gained a lot of attention over the years for lacking a deep prospect pool. Matthew Poitras and Mason Lohrei are the only Bruins prospects in the last four draft classes to have made their debuts in the NHL. The last star that was drafted by Boston was Jeremy Swayman in the 2017 NHL Draft. Overall, the Bruins haven’t had a deep prospect group for the last couple of years, as they’ve been focused on bringing in veterans to try and allow them to win right now.
Team Speed
Speed was a major concern for the Boston Bruins forward core this season. The NHL is full of players with tremendous speed and skill, which the Bruins have lacked recently in their lineup. Speed is one of the most important attributes of a team in the playoffs. It was one of the main reasons the Bruins were incapable of competing past the first round.
Inconsistent Scoring
Inconsistent goal-scoring has been another concern for the Bruins in past seasons, especially during this year’s playoff run. The team was able to spread out goal-scoring throughout their roster during the regular season. This was a major improvement from recent years. When the playoffs came around the goal-scoring became more inconsistent. Boston has shown over the years that they are a defensive-minded hockey club. However, the lack of inconsistent goal-scoring has affected the team’s overall playoff performance.
Main photo credit: Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports
