{"id":146168,"date":"2025-09-10T09:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/146168\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:06:11","slug":"what-don-sweeney-said-of-bruins-playoff-odds-timeline-for-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/146168\/","title":{"rendered":"What Don Sweeney said of Bruins’ playoff odds, timeline for captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBruins\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“We’re going to be a much more competitive team and held to the standard that Marco was talking about the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
\n\tDon Sweeney believes the Bruins should be competitive this season. John Tlumacki\/Globe Staff (sports)\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Conor Ryan<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 9, 2025 | 3:53 PM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

5 minutes to read<\/p>\n

PLYMOUTH, Mass. \u2014 Bruins general manager Don Sweeney spoke to the media on Tuesday ahead of the Bruins\u2019 annual golf tournament at Pinehills Golf Club in Plymouth.<\/p>\n

With training camp set to begin on Sept. 17, Sweeney touched on several topics during his media scrum, including the expectations for the 2025-26 season and the state Boston\u2019s leadership corps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are three takeaways from his interview:<\/p>\n

Setting high expectations<\/p>\n

For the first time in a long time, the Bruins are entering a new season with the postseason far from a certainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the 2024-25 campaign went off the rails, the Bruins were seemingly poised to take another step forward after exceeding expectations the previous year by advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n

Of course, that optimism dissipated in short order.<\/p>\n

In the span of just a few months, the Bruins fired head coach Jim Montgomery, Jeremy Swayman regressed in net, injuries to Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy decimated Boston\u2019s blue line, and a trade-deadline firesale saw stalwarts like Brad Marchand, Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo, and others don new sweaters in March.<\/p>\n

The Bruins still have some key cogs in place on their roster \u2014 headlined by David Pastrnak, McAvoy, Lindholm, and Swayman. <\/p>\n

Still, it remains to be seen if the Bruins have the talent in place on this current depth chart to orchestrate a quick turnaround and punch their ticket back to the playoffs after a one-year hiatus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But speaking on Tuesday, Sweeney stressed that the Bruins should be a much harder out this season, so long as the team can avoid the same missteps that sank them the previous year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we stay healthy, I think we\u2019re going to be really competitive,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cUltimately, we\u2019re going to blend. As Marco [Sturm said] the other day, a standard has to be [set] in terms of how competitive we\u2019re going to be in the structure that he wants to play with. Younger players, we\u2019re going to look for them to surprise us with taking lineup spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what we\u2019ve done is insulate our group of guys with a competitive group from the bottom up, and allow some of the younger skill, hopefully now and moving forward, [to] emerge. But we\u2019re going to be a much more competitive team and held to the standard that Marco was talking about the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Sturm has noted on several occasions this summer<\/a>, the blueprint for the Bruins to follow this season revolves around re-establishing Boston\u2019s defensive identity and making incremental gains on the power play.<\/p>\n

With both McAvoy and Lindholm back in the equation, the Bruins\u2019 porous defensive structure (3.30 goals against per game last year; 26th in the NHL) from last year is due for a rebound, especially with Sturm set to augment Boston\u2019s system in both the neutral and defensive zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A normal offseason for Swayman is also set to benefit the young goalie after having a sizable set back in 2024-25<\/a>, while a Bruins power play that ranked 29th in the NHL (15.2 percent) last season is also due for a stronger showing \u2014 given both the arrival of a power-play guru in Steve Spott<\/a> and the personnel already in place with a top sniper in Pastrnak.<\/p>\n

But the Bruins still have plenty of question marks surrounding the rest of their forward corps, especially when it comes to how Boston\u2019s middle-six forward corps shakes out on a roster that could receive an influx of unproven, younger talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the Bruins await to see which players can emerge with several starting roles up for grabs, Sweeney believes that the Bruins still have several foundational strengths that will be poised to rebound in 2025-26.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to play to a certain standard here and a structure that Marco is going to put in place,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cOn an individual level, we\u2019ve got guys that played in situations that might not have gone as well as they wanted to, and now they\u2019re going to have their partners back, and they\u2019re going to have a full component of their team back.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeremy is in a much better place, as he spoke about the other day. So I think it\u2019s both on the individual and the collective level that we can look for those markers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preaching opportunity\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the Bruins\u2019 free-agent signings like Tanner Jeannot and Mikey Eyssimont paint the picture of a team that wanted to add more sandpaper to their roster, Sweeney said that the Bruins are banking on several younger players to seize roles this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sturm shared a similar sentiment earlier this offseason<\/a> when asked about the leeway afforded to more unproven players during camp. <\/p>\n

Prospects like Fraser Minten, Matt Poitras, and Fabian Lysell will look to secure key roles in the coming weeks, while the Bruins are also high on free-agent pickup Matej Blumel, a 25-year-old winger who scored an AHL-leading 39 goals last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really important for each and every player to understand here \u2014 there are very few spots that are just going to be taken\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the incumbent players who feel comfortable with what they\u2019ve done in the National Hockey League. That\u2019s obvious, but the rest of the guys really need to understand \u2014 like there\u2019s going to be a competition for ice time and for roster spots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that was by design. All summer long, we made a massive change in direction last year at the deadline and now we need to course correct. We need to take steps forward and be get back to the level, as Marco talked about the level of standard that we all expect here.\u201d<\/p>\n

No timeline for a new captain<\/p>\n

The writing is on the wall that David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy are the two leaders in the clubhouse to take on the role as the next captain of the Bruins.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But Sweeney confirmed on Tuesday that the team will open the season with no set captain \u2014 instead opting for the process of appointing a new leader to come more organically as the season progresses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s on the table right now. We\u2019ve been forward with everybody, and honest with everybody, that we\u2019re going to start without it,\u201d Sweeney said of the captaincy. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a leadership group that\u2019s been meeting amongst themselves and and I think eventually somebody will emerge as the guy that should be the next captain. It comes with a lot of responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019d like to see a little more organic, natural, progression of it. \u2026 I think now we just move forward with the leadership group that\u2019s going to be established and let Marco have his own communication with them, and let them have communication with themselves in terms of what direction they want to take this team and who emerges as the ultimate leader and the next captain of the Boston Bruins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.<\/p>\n

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