BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Nikita Zadorov set the tone \u2013 and tune \u2013 for the Boston Bruins during the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-7, 255-pound defenseman was the team-proclaimed DJ, curating the pregame locker room vibes with his wide-ranging music taste before laying hard hits on the ice to remind opponents the B\u2019s were not to be messed with this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zadorov had the third-most hits on the Bruins with 196. The 31-year-old veteran tied his career-high in points with 22 (two goals, 20 assists) through 81 regular-season games. Zadorov also had 22 points in 2024-25 with the Bruins and 2021-22 with the Calgary Flames. He posted one assist in the first-round playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres. Zadorov carried his warrior persona into the postseason, revealing he was playing with a torn MCL he suffered in Game 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0blueliner anchored the third pair for the majority of the year, and averaged the fifth-most ice time for his team at 19:35. Zadorov also took on a greater leadership role, donning the \u2018A\u2019 on a couple of occasions. In particular, he mentored countryman Marat Khusnutdinov.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of\u00a0Zadorov\u2019s tallies this season secured a critical game for the Bruins against the Detroit Red Wings amidst a tight playoff race in the Eastern Conference. He broke into the zone and fired a wrister through traffic on the rush for the 3-2 lead at 9:42 of the third period on March 21 at Little Caesars Arena. It turned out to be the game-winning goal, as Boston beat the divisional foe 4-2; Khusnutdinov notched the empty-netter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whenever the Bruins needed a spark, Zadorov provided the energy, further growing into his Bruins identity in his second season with the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Nikita Zadorov set the tone \u2013 and tune \u2013 for the Boston Bruins during the 2025-26…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-742420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}