{"id":498294,"date":"2026-10-16T17:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T17:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/498294\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T17:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T17:40:21","slug":"bruins-practice-sturm-wants-offense-from-defensemen-no-line-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/498294\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins Practice: Sturm Wants Offense from Defensemen; No Line Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Bruins<\/a> are keeping things the same ahead of their back-to-back this weekend in Southern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bruins hit the practice ice at the Anaheim Ducks\u2019 training facility in Irvine, California, on Thursday afternoon. They have won each of their last three games and sit at the top of the Atlantic Division with a 5-2-0 record through seven games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They had an extra day off ahead of their back-to-back, which head coach Marco Sturm<\/a> said \u201cfelt like a week.\u201d Sturm also did not shake up the lines<\/a> from Tuesday\u2019s win in San Jose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hampus Lindholm<\/a> and Charlie McAvoy<\/a> skated together again, keeping the Bruins\u2019 top defensemen lined up together as McAvoy gets set for his second game of the season. In 16:13 with each other on Tuesday, the pair outscored the Sharks 2-1, allowed three high-danger chances, and finished with a 0.64-0.61 edge in expected goals for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we both know what we do when we\u2019re successful,\u201d Hampus Lindholm said to reporters in Anaheim. \u201cIt starts with each other. If he plays his best game and I play my best game, I think we\u2019re going to do some good stuff together out there. So I think that\u2019s kind of our mindset going out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really have to think when we play together out there. We kind of just roll, play each other\u2019s games, and it just kind of works out.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAvoy spoke Monday on how playing with Lindholm gives him more freedom to join the rush and play offense, and he scored in his return on Tuesday. He led Bruins defensemen with 61 points last season, a career-high, which included another career-high of 50 assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McAvoy is not the first blue liner to get in on the goal scoring this season. The Bruins have had help from the blue line in each of the last three games, and through seven games this season are 4-0-0 when a defenseman scores.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it. If you look at our D corps, I think we have guys that like to get up there and are good skaters,\u201d Hampus Lindholm said. \u201cAny time we can help the forwards get up there, and do it smart, I think we found that right mixture of when to jump up and not always lead a rush, but maybe be the fourth guy up the rush. We have the players for it. We just have to keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturm has used practice drills to try and \u201cactivate the D automatically,\u201d and that continued on Thursday in Irvine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just a piece that was a little bit missing in the past, and we try to stay on our D,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cWe have eight D, so you know, they should be all rested all the time. So we just want them to make sure it\u2019s automatic, especially the first few steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mason Lohrei<\/a> leads Bruins defensemen with two goals, while Lindholm and McAvoy have each added one. Throughout the early stages of the season, Lohrei has been open about finding confidence within his game<\/a>. He used Charlie McAvoy\u2019s suspension to his advantage and, so far, has carved out a spot inside the top six.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYes and no,\u201d Sturm said when asked if he\u2019s noticed a change in Lohrei\u2019s confidence level. \u201cThere\u2019s still times I think he gets a little frustrated on certain plays he doesn\u2019t make or whatever it is. But overall, definitely yes. He\u2019s one of those guys, too. He had to figure out where he\u2019s at on our team, the lineup, with the coach, you name it. So he should definitely feel more comfortable, and he had some really good moments, and we just try to keep helping him to be even more consistent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lohrei remained on a pairing with Frederic Brunet<\/a> Thursday. Connor Clifton<\/a> and Jonathan Aspirot<\/a> remained the odd men out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sturm did not commit to which goalie will get the nod in Anaheim, but said there is a plan \u201cin mind\u201d for the next two games. As part of that plan, he did confirm that Michael DiPietro<\/a> will play in one of the two games.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Swayman<\/a> has started in the last four.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bruins Practice Lines<\/p>\n

Source: Belle Fraser, BostonBruins.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hampus Lindholm \u2013 Charlie McAvoy<\/p>\n

Nikita Zadorov \u2013 Will Borgen<\/p>\n

Frederic Brunet \u2013 Mason Lohrei<\/p>\n

Jonathan Aspirot \u2013 Connor Clifton<\/p>\n

Jeremy Swayman<\/p>\n

Michael DiPietro<\/p>\n

FOLLOW @JACKSTUDLEY13 ON \ud835\udd4f<\/a>\u00a0 | FOLLOW @BOSHockeyNow ON \ud835\udd4f<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Bruins are keeping things the same ahead of their back-to-back this weekend in Southern California.\u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[193439,163,824,165,164,2063,17395,6480,16028,192367,37611,98306,193440,37615,38294,16993,193424,16994,404,174814],"class_list":["post-498294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-2026-27-regular-season","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-boston-bruins","tag-charlie-mcavoy","tag-connor-clifton","tag-david-pastrnak","tag-frederic-brunet","tag-hampus-lindholm","tag-jeremy-swayman","tag-jonathan-aspirot","tag-marat-khusnutdinov","tag-marco-sturm","tag-mason-lohrei","tag-michael-dipietro","tag-morgan-geekie","tag-nhl","tag-pavel-zacha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}