2. Can the young players take another step forward?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not exactly a youth movement, but a handful of young Bruins players could make the difference between a second straight appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and a season on the outside looking in.<\/p>\n
That starts with Fraser Minten<\/a> and Marat Khusnutdinov<\/a>, two players who impacted the team far more than almost anyone anticipated in 2025-26. Minten, 22, had 35 points (17 goals, 18 assists) in 82 games and became one of Sturm\u2019s most trusted centers, demonstrating his ability to be a true 200-foot player. Khusnutdinov, 24, had 33 points (15 goals, 18 assists) in 77 games. Each played as high as the top line and proved that he could belong there.<\/p>\n The Bruins this season will add 19-year-old James Hagens<\/a>, who made a cameo at the end of the regular season and in the playoffs. Hagens, the No. 7 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, will likely start on the wing but could move back to center. Defenseman Frederic Brunet<\/a>, 22, also could make the jump to the\u00a0NHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2. Can the young players take another step forward? It\u2019s not exactly a youth movement, but a handful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-839322","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\/839322","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=839322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}