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Boston Bruins Hoping For A Reset

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It doesn’t take a committed hockey fan to know that the 2024-25 season was a disappointment for the Boston Bruins. After finishing as one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference during the 2023-24 campaign with 109 points, Boston fell well short of the postseason last year with a 33-point difference in the standings.

The reset button was first hit at last year’s trade deadline, when the Bruins traded Trent Frederic, Max Jones, Justin Brazeau, Charlie Coyle, Brad Marchand, and Brandon Carlo for a collection of prospects and draft capital. By trading away several role players and their captain, Boston opened itself up to a change in leadership and culture.

To some, there hasn’t been enough change to the Bruins’ identity with Cam Neely and Don Sweeney remaining in their leadership positions after a disastrous campaign. Still, we already know that David Pastrňák and Charlie McAvoy will lead the changes, and hopefully a renaissance, on the ice.

Marco Sturm, the new head coach, understands the changes needed for the Bruins to return to contention, as he mentioned in his introductory press conference. Sturm plans to draw inspiration from Boston’s culture during his playing days in the organization in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

When asked about the transition from the old guard, Sturm was quoted as saying, “We’ve got to reestablish the whole thing because these guys are not here anymore. So, now it’s going to be up to us and the new group to lead this group to a new era.”

Similarly, Sweeney spoke about Boston’s ability to be harder to play against this season, saying, “I think we’ve always been a team, since I’ve been here, that prides ourself in that. That’s the defensive structure I talked about. At times last year, even when we had our group, we were an easy out. I can’t stand for that. So, we are going to reestablish that.”

Unfortunately, Sturm won’t have the most talented locker room at his disposal. Boston largely added around the fringes this offseason, adding Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly, Viktor Arvidsson, Michael Eyssimont, and Jordan Harris. The summer additions have made the Bruins a more complete team, though they are not necessarily better.

There’s no doubting that Boston has plenty of work to do in their quest back toward contention. It likely won’t come this year in arguably the toughest division in the league. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how Sturm’s new system and cultural influence is received in the locker room throughout the regular season.

Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy Good To Go For 2025-26

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Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy hasn’t played in game action since sustaining a shoulder injury during February’s 4-Nations Face-Off. He specifically injured the AC joint in his right shoulder. The injury then became infected, forcing McAvoy to undergo an irrigation and debridement procedure to remove debris from his shoulder. It would prove a season-ending ailment for McAvoy, but despite procedures and an extended stay away from the ice, the Bruins’ top defenseman has shared he’ll be ready for puck drop next season. He told Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald:

[My summer training plan] was [focused on] ‘how are we going to get better? How are we going to get healthy? How are we going to get to where I know I can be going into this year?’ And then since then, it’s just been all excitement, hitting a lot of marks and accomplishing a lot off the ice and now I’m starting to ramp up more on the ice, so I feel great. And mentally, I’m super-excited about this year.

McAvoy ended the season with seven goals and 23 points in 50 NHL games, and no scoring in two 4-Nations games. The Bruins would go on to miss the postseason for the first time since the 2016 season, before McAvoy had joined the team. He expressed frustration with missing the postseason for the first time in his career, but found the silver-lining of some extra time to condition his injury.

Health specifics aside, it’s hard to imagine McAvoy wouldn’t have tried to push his way into the lineup had the Bruins made the playoffs. He has been the team’s confident #1-defenseman since his second year in the NHL in 2018-19. By then, Bruins legend Zdeno Chara had crossed the hill of age-40, and was working his way out of a nightly top-pair role. McAvoy was there to make up for the lost minutes. He’s averaged north of 22 minutes each night in every single season of his eight-year NHL career, and took over the title of most minutes on the team in 2018-19.

With a clear-cut role on the top pair, McAvoy has found his way to lofty totals on the scoresheet’s scoreboard and penalty box. He scored a career-high 10 goals and 56 points in 78 games of the 2021-22 season, while averaging 24:38 in nightly ice time. It was a true career performance that McAvoy kept up with 52 points in 67 games of 2022-23, then one-upped with 12 goals, 47 points, and 24:51 in average ice time in the 2023-24 season.

His scoring pace dwindled this season – though McAvoy’s final score of the season marked his 300th NHL point. It took him 504 games to get their, making McAvoy the third-fastest Bruins defender to reach the mark, behind record-holder Bobby Orr and Boston legend Ray Bourque.

It will be the momentum of joining two iconic Boston defensemen that pushes McAvoy forward heading into next season. He emphasized his good health, and shared with Conroy that he and winger David Pastrnak will serve as the club’s assistant captains in the new season. 2025-26 will mark the fourth-year in the eight-year contract extension McAvoy signed in 2021. He’s so far recorded 122 points in 191 games on the contract – or an 82-game average of 52 points each season. Improving on that mark will be top priority as McAvoy enters his prime years, and age-27 season.

Bruins Prospect Cole Spicer Won’t Play At Arizona State University

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Boston Bruins forward prospect Cole Spicer won’t move forward with his commitment to Arizona State University, per Brad Elliot Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald. Spicer previously played two years at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, but returned to the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints for the 2024-25 season. He was set to join Arizona State as a junior-year transfer this fall. Instead, it will be a fall of uncertainty for the 2022 fourth-round pick.

Of note, Spicer’s split from ASU could be a result of being sidelined. He was said to be dealing with significant injury issues, per sources available to Ty Anderson of Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub. Spicer dealt with concussions through his time in junior and collegiate hockey, and has been severely limited through multiple parts of the last two seasons. He missed 20 games with Minnesota-Duluth in 2023-24 due to a concussion and being declared academically-ineligible for the second semester. His injury woes continued through this season, as he missed 25 games with Dubuque for various reasons. He even sustained an injury in his very first game with the Fighting Saints.

The plot around Spicer’s relationship with hockey has grown thick. He cited recovery from concussions as a major limiter of his academic performance in a 2024 interview with Joe Haggerty of the Boston Sports Journal. Spicer also cited the mental health challenges that came with routine absences, low-scoring, and battles through concussion recovery. Struggles with concentration and mental health are two common, but often underdiscussed, symptoms of concussions that can drag on beyond official clearance to return.

Spicer was once a top prospect in America’s 2004 age group. He was recruited to the U.S. National Team Development Program’s 2004 cohort in 2020, after a 15u AAA season that saw him post 51 goals, 118 assists, and 169 points in 63 games with Honeybaked. Spicer struggled to earn a starring role at the NTDP behind Logan Cooley, Frank Nazar, and Rutger McGroarty. He was relegated to a bottom-six role in both seasons, and scored just 21 points in 46 USHL games with the Program. Still, his high-motor and gritty forechecking was enough to convince Boston to draft Spicer with the 117th-overall pick in 2022.

Spicer followed his draft selection with a move to the Bulldogs lineup. He again found himself trapped behind a stacked top-six, and scored just six points in 32 games from a fourth-line role in his freshman year. He added nine points in 17 games as a sophomore, before stepping away from the team. It was a quartet of underwhelming seasons for the feisty centerman – but one that he made up for with a return to the USHL this season. He scored 35 points in 37 games on the full year, good for Dubuque’s team-lead in points-per-game.

As things stand, there appears to be no clear path forward for Spicer. At age 21, he’ll no longer have eligibility to return to the USHL or CHL. He could transfer to a third – or, fourth, after an initial commitment to North Dakota – collegiate program, though another NCAA move would be a surprise on the heels of this news. With that, it seems minor-league, or European, pros will be his best options, should he decide to continue his career next season. The Grand Forks-native will be one to watch for Bruins fans trying to get a full picture of the team’s pipeline.

A Case To Keep Hagens In College

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  • While the Bruins could probably use James Hagens in their lineup for the upcoming season, Boston.com’s Conor Ryan suggests that the best thing for their new top prospect would be to stay in college for another year. Hagens was a point-per-game player in 37 games for Boston College last season, an impressive performance as an underager, leading some to think he could be ready to make the jump.  But rather than throw him into the mix in what could be another retooling season, Hagens might be better off being the undisputed top player for the Eagles (following the departures of Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault) for next season, then getting a few games in with Boston once his college campaign comes to an end.

Bruins Still Exploring Trade Market For Pavel Zacha

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The Bruins are still mulling the possibility of trading forward Pavel Zacha, according to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. He lists the Canucks and Mammoth as teams that’ve been softly linked to his availability.

Boston GM Don Sweeney considered moving Zacha during their sell-off at last season’s trade deadline but ended up holding onto him, choosing to flip Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyle, and Brad Marchand for assets instead. If they do decide to go that route, the type of return they’re looking for will speak volumes about the team’s expectations for 2025-26. They’re already light on offensive firepower, with Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak remaining as their lone 30-goal scorers from last season and veteran Viktor Arvidsson, coming off a down season with the Oilers, amounting to their only offseason addition that could impact their top six forward group.

The teams mentioned, Vancouver and Utah, likely wouldn’t be looking to pick up Zacha and flip roster players back – particularly the former as they continue to search for additional middle-six center depth. If those discussions have gained any legitimacy in the Bruins’ front office, it’s fair to wonder if they’ve resigned themselves to another season of retooling and are prepared to again finish near the bottom of the Atlantic Division.

They’re not unlimited in what they can do with Zacha, although they have slightly more flexibility after his 10-team no-trade list decreased to an eight-team one on July 1. The 28-year-old, who’s flipped between center and wing throughout his NHL career, has two years left on his contract at a $4.75MM cap hit. However, he’s only owed $3.75MM in actual cash for both 2025-26 and 2026-27 after the Bruins paid out his final signing bonus, worth $1MM, at the beginning of the month.

Zacha’s offensive production took a step back in 2024-25, as did many of his teammates’ aside from the aforementioned Geekie and Pastrnak. After back-to-back seasons of 20 goals and 50 points, he was limited to 14 goals and 47 points while playing in all 82 games. There were some things to like – he averaged a career-high 19:04 per game, won 53.2% of his draws, and continued to have positive possession impacts. Still, he was likely looking for more production, considering he spent the vast majority of the campaign stapled at center between Boston’s two leading goal-scorers.

Nonetheless, the 2015 No. 6 overall pick has averaged 54 points per 82 games over his three years in Boston without an overwhelming amount of year-to-year variation. His trade value likely won’t get any higher than it is now, with two full years left under contract at a reasonable price tag for whoever picks him up.

Blake Wheeler Reaffirms Retirement

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July 19, 2025: Wheeler again ruled out a comeback bid when speaking with Cam Poitras and Jim Toth on 680 CJOB’s Jets at Noon program earlier this week. “I just haven’t felt like a rush to like make a formal announcement or anything,” Wheeler said. “But yeah, after my injury and kinda the way things ended last year, I just didn’t have anything left in the tank for it. So yeah, I was at peace with it almost immediately after last year and yeah, I’m just enjoying being a dad and kinda slowing things down a little bit, and being around my family.”

Dec. 19, 2024: Winger Blake Wheeler has all but officially decided on retirement, as Paul Friesen of The Winnipeg Sun relays. Neither Wheeler nor the NHL Players’ Association has released a statement. Still, the former Jets captain told Dan Leffelaar of the Beyond High Performance podcast earlier this week that “there’s only so much gas in the tank” emotionally for an 82-game regular season.

In July, Wheeler, 38, hit unrestricted free agency after completing a one-year, $1.1MM contract with the Rangers. He joined the Blueshirts for the final season of his NHL career after having the captaincy stripped from him in Winnipeg in 2022 and seeing the final season of his five-year, $41.25MM contract with an $8.25MM cap hit bought out a year later. There wasn’t much buzz around his services on the UFA market aside from a report in August from Shawn Hutcheon of The Fourth Period that the Bruins were considering extending him a professional tryout. One way or another that never came to fruition, and Wheeler didn’t appear with any club during training camp.

A serious leg injury sustained in February ended his final regular season prematurely. However, he did return to the active roster near the end of New York’s second-round playoff win over the Hurricanes. He was a frequent healthy scratch upon returning to the lineup, though, with a lone postseason appearance against the Panthers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final likely standing as his final NHL appearance. In 54 regular-season appearances with the Rangers, he posted nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points with a +2 rating while averaging a career-low 12:43 per game.

Wheeler was a highly touted prospect. In the 2004 draft, the Coyotes selected him fifth overall, immediately after eventual longtime teammate Andrew Ladd was taken off the board by the Hurricanes. However, he opted not to sign in Phoenix. He took the long route through college at the University of Minnesota before becoming a free agent in 2008 and signing with the Bruins. 

The right-winger’s debut season was solid, posting 21 goals and 45 points with a +36 rating in 81 games as Boston won 53 games and finished atop the Eastern Conference. He was one of many future under-25 impact players on that Bruins squad, featuring Patrice Bergeron, Milan Lucic, Phil Kessel and David Krejčí in the infancies of their careers. However, after his goal-scoring dropped off slightly in his second and third years in the league, Boston traded him to the Thrashers before the 2011 deadline for Rich Peverley.

Wheeler racked up 17 points in 23 games down the stretch for Atlanta, giving Thrashers fans a bittersweet taste of things to come for his production before the team packed up and moved to Winnipeg in the offseason. Now entirely in the prime of his career at age 25, Wheeler kicked off a dominant nine-year stretch in Winnipeg that saw him record 569 points in 616 games, ranking eighth in the NHL scoring between the 2011-12 and 2018-19 campaigns. His 384 assists during that time were fourth, trailing only Nicklas Bäckström, Sidney Crosby and Claude Giroux. He received All-Star consideration eight years in a row and finished as high as eighth in Hart Trophy voting in 2017-18 when he led the league with 68 assists in 81 outings.

After a 20-goal, 91-point showing in 2018-19, 2019-20 spelled out the beginning of Wheeler’s decline. He still managed a respectable 65 points in 71 games that year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. However, that was accompanied by an artificially high 12.2% shooting rate and a significant drop-off in his assist totals. He kept up reasonable offensive production in his final three seasons in Winnipeg, logging 161 points in 187 games. But the Minnesota native became a defensive liability as he aged and became a significant drag on the Jets’ possession quality control at even strength. Combined with just three playoff series wins during his time in Winnipeg, including a run to the 2018 Western Conference Final in which he had 21 points in 17 games, the Jets parted ways with their captain and bought him out.

While the end of Wheeler’s career may have been marred by declining all-around play and injuries, the former All-Star was a high-end top-line talent throughout the 2010s. The 6’5 “, 225-lb right-winger puts a bow on his career with 321 goals and 622 assists for 943 points in 1,172 regular-season games. He logged a +67 rating, posted 764 PIMs, and racked up nearly 3,000 career shots on goal, averaging 18:11 per game. He pairs that strong regular-season production with 10 goals and 45 points in 66 career postseason games. Pro Hockey Rumors congratulates Wheeler on a phenomenal career.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Jaroslav Halak Announces Retirement

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Veteran goalie Jaroslav Halak is ending his playing career, telling Tomas Prokop of the Slovak website Dennik Sport that he’s officially retired.

Halak, 40, hasn’t played anywhere in the last two seasons aside from a brief tryout with the Hurricanes that didn’t result in game action early in 2023-24. A ninth-round pick in the 2003 draft, his 17-year NHL career included time with the Canadiens, Blues, Capitals, Islanders, Bruins, Canucks, and Rangers, last playing in New York’s final game of the 2022-23 regular season.

Montreal was the team that drafted him 271st overall from the QMJHL’s Lewiston MAINEiacs, and that’s where Halak got his start in the NHL three years later. He emerged as another young complement in the Canadiens’ pool alongside young star Carey Price, even taking over the starter’s role in the 2009-10 season and backstopping the team to a surprise run to the Conference Finals before being traded to St. Louis for Lars Eller the following summer.

Halak never spent more than four years with a club in his prime and was prone to year-to-year inconsistency, but he was an arguable top-10 goalie in the league at his absolute peak with multiple seasons of save percentages above .920. He was always more of a 1A option than a true starter, only playing more than 50 games four times, but he ends his career as a one-time All-Star, two-time Jennings Trophy winner, and he finished top-10 in Vezina Trophy voting twice.

After serving as the 1A option for the Blues from 2010-14 and on Long Island from 2014-18 with a brief post-deadline stop in Washington in between, Halak spent the twilight years of his career as one of the league’s better backup options for Boston (2018-21), Vancouver (2021-22), and the Rangers (2022-23). He’s been an unrestricted free agent since then, with no items of note on his NHL future since being released from his aforementioned PTO with Carolina in November 2023.

In 581 regular-season appearances, the Bratislava native posted a 2.50 GAA and .913 SV% with a 295-189-63 record and 53 shutouts. One of the best undersized netminders (5’11”, 189 lbs) of his generation, he posted an even better .919 SV% and 2.48 GAA in 39 playoff games in six trips to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

All of us at PHR wish Halak the best in retirement.

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images.

Cole Chandler Commits To Northeastern

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  • Bruins prospect Cole Chandler has committed to Northeastern, reports the Northeastern Hockey Blog (Twitter link). The forward was a fifth-round pick last month after putting up 32 points in 64 games with QMJHL Shawinigan during the regular season while adding a dozen more in 16 playoff outings.  He’ll return to the Cataractes for the upcoming season and then move to the NCAA starting in 2026-27.

Bruins Sign John Farinacci To Two-Way Deal

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The Bruins have signed restricted free agent forward John Farinacci to a two-way contract, according to a team press release.

Farinacci, 24, would have spent four seasons at Harvard if not for COVID after being drafted in the third round by the Coyotes in 2019. He did not sign an entry-level contract with Arizona and instead reached an agreement with the Bruins immediately upon becoming a free agent in August 2023 following his senior season. He’s spent most of the past two seasons playing in the AHL for the Bruins’ affiliate in Providence.

Farinacci made his NHL debut in Boston’s final game of the 2024-25 regular season, scoring a goal on his lone shot in 10:58 of ice time against the Devils. The 5’11” center also went an impressive 6-for-8 on draws in that game and recorded three hits.

In 58 regular-season games with the Providence Bruins last season, the New Jersey native scored 10 goals, 28 assists, and 38 points while taking just three minor penalties and recording a plus-nine rating. While he only had one goal in eight Calder Cup Playoff games, he did manage to finish seventh on the team in regular-season scoring and matched his 2023-24 point total in 13 fewer appearances.

If Farinacci appears on the NHL roster in the 2025-26 season, he’ll earn the prorated league minimum of $775K; the team didn’t disclose his minor-league salary. The cousin of Blackhawks forward Ryan Donato will likely be a Group VI unrestricted free agent next summer unless he manages to play in 79 NHL games in the upcoming season.

The Bruins have now filled 45 of their 50 standard contract slots for 2025-26.

Bruins Looking Ahead To 2026 Free Agency

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While the Bruins have kept a low profile during this year’s free-agent frenzy, don’t expect the same laid-back approach next year. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman stated on the latest 32 Thoughts Podcast that he believes the Bruins are strategically saving cap space to make a big splash in free agency next offseason.

The Bruins have made a few moves so far this summer, including a trade for veteran Viktor Arvidsson and signing winger Tanner Jeannot to a five-year deal worth $3.4MM per season. But as the team moves on from the Zdeno Chara/Patrice Bergeron/Brad Marchand era, they’ll aim to be strategic about adding pieces to a roster anchored by building blocks like David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy.

“If some of these guys who are supposed to be free agents next year (reach free agency), whether they get one or not, I think Boston wants to have the opportunity to take a shot at one of those guys,” Friedman said. “So, if you’ll notice, they didn’t really do much to hamstring themselves in the future. They got Arvidsson on a one-year deal. Traded for him, gave up a late-round pick, one-year deal. Aside from Jeannot, they didn’t take any massive swings.”

While many were puzzled by the contract given to Jeannot, Friedman pointed out how competitive the market was for the physical forward. Though a five-year deal north of $3MM per year is steep for a player coming off a 13-point season, the 27-year-old has produced four 200-plus hit seasons and could take on the enforcer role currently filled by key players like defenseman Nikita Zadorov. Jeannot also fits the mold of the type of players GM Don Sweeney noted he’d like to bring in to make the Bruins harder to play against.

“Yes, it’s a five-year deal. But the number isn’t going to hurt you. Another thing I heard is that at least 10 teams were after him. I heard the competition for Jeannot was fierce. The Rangers were in it. I heard Ottawa was in it. He fit with Toronto and what Toronto likes. And there’s just not a lot of guys like him around anymore,” he said.

The biggest addition the Bruins made this offseason, Friedman noted, was selecting James Hagens with the seventh overall pick. While many believed at this time last year that Hagens was destined to be the first overall pick in this year’s draft, he slipped to seventh after producing less than expected in the NCAA. Still, Hagens game may be more NHL-ready than any of his peers in this draft class.

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