But, given the strength up and down the Atlantic Division, it won\u2019t be easy, especially with some outstanding questions.<\/p>\n
On defense, the Bruins have plenty of bodies, but it remains unclear how they\u2019ll fit together. They added two right-shot defensemen in Will Borgen<\/a> and Connor Clifton<\/a> and subtracted Andrew Peeke<\/a>. In goal, there is more certainty after the bounce-back season by Swayman in 2025-26, when he became a finalist for the Vezina Trophy after the worst season of his career, finishing 31-18-4 in 55 games (54 starts) with a 2.71 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage after going 22-29-7 in 58 games (all starts) with a 3.11 GAA and .892 save percentage the season prior. He will be joined by two-time reigning American Hockey League goalie of the year Michael DiPietro<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the biggest change is Peterka.<\/p>\n The wing, whose face lit up when he was asked about being on a line with Pastrnak, brings \u201cspeed and skill. He\u2019s got an elite shot,\u201d as Sweeney said. He should instantly become a weapon on a power play whose production jumped from 29th in the NHL (15.2 percent) in 2024-25 to ninth (23.4 percent) in 2025-26.<\/p>\n \u201cHis bio of high production has been really good, plays both wings, could probably play with a couple different types of centers, help drive a line but also complement the better guys in situations that we\u2019re certainly trying to improve,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201c\u2026 We are trying to get deeper and add speed.\u201d<\/p>\n They need to.<\/p>\n Even as Boston has attempted to move from its last generation to the next, it has seen how difficult it can be to navigate the stalwarts and the up-and-comers in the division.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why they wanted to acquire more young talent with potential, to go with what they had added to a system that was once barren, with a first round of players like Fraser Minten<\/a>, 22, and Marat Khusnutdinov<\/a>, 24, and a second round of Hagens, Dean Letourneau<\/a>, 20, and Will Zellers<\/a>, 20 — all of whom have the chance to form a new core.<\/p>\n \u201cThe age band is attractive,\u201d Sweeney said of Peterka. \u201cI think he fits into a group of our players and bridges with the next wave of guys that we hope will continue to develop as we hopefully add them moving along over the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But, given the strength up and down the Atlantic Division, it won\u2019t be easy, especially with some outstanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-841645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}