By: Tom Calautti | Follow me on Twitter @TCalauttis
The 2024-25 season came to an end for the Boston Bruins Tuesday night following an overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils. The team finished the season with a dismal 33-39-10 record, which was good enough for the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference and the fifth-worst overall. With the dust settled and hindsight being 20/20, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this Bruins team was destined to fail.
Poor Roster Management
The 2023-24 iteration of the Boston Bruins was an incredible story. Despite losing two franchise icons (Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci) and additional contributors, the team battled its way to a first-round victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs and gave the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers a hard-fought series in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The team’s impressive playoff run was marked by one fatal flaw: an inability to score in bulk. The Black and Gold played 13 playoff games against the Leafs and Panthers. They failed to score more than two goals in nine of those contests.
The organization’s number one need heading into the 2024 offseason was clear. Combined with Jeremy Swayman’s ascension and the rugged D-corps, Boston seemed to have a recipe for success.
How did Sweeney go about adding offense? He allowed Jake DeBrusk (19 goals), Danton Heinen (17 goals), and James van Riemsdyk (11 goals) to walk out the door in exchange for Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm.
Boston’s general manager identified a weakness (goal-scoring) and made it even weaker in favor of bolstering one of his team’s strengths (defense). To simplify the equation, Sweeney traded 47 goals from the three former Bruins in exchange for 21 goals (17 from Lindholm and four from Zadorov) from the newer ones.
This team was always built to win through defense and goaltending, but further gutting an offense that struggled during the playoffs last season put the team even further behind the eight ball — and that was before the season even started.
Swayman Contract
There was no bigger story during the 2024 offseason than the team’s ongoing contract negotiations with goaltender Jeremy Swayman. The Alaska native elevated his game to a completely different level during the postseason (6-6, 2.15 GAA, .933 save percentage) and looked poised to take over the number one goaltender spot.
When the team traded Vezina winner Linus Ullmark in late June, fans and media alike expected a Swayman extension to be a foregone conclusion. That changed on the opening day of training camp, when Sweeney addressed the media and announced that no deal with Swayman was in place and that he would not be reporting to training camp.
We all know what happened next: Cam Neely made his infamous ‘$64 million’ comment, Joonas Korpisalo was announced as Boston’s opening night starter, and Swayman didn’t officially join the team until his extension was signed on October 6th.
Put the contract and the numbers aside; the way this negotiation went down was a sign of things to come. The Boston Bruins have always been insular, keeping a tight lid on any information that could potentially seep out. The fact that this became a public spitting contest between players and management (something Boston fans aren’t familiar with) was a telling harbinger that this season is different.
Regardless of who you believe is at fault and which party shoulders more of the blame, this was an incredibly short-sighted approach to business, and it highlighted the fact that this team had more issues than we knew.
Elias Lindholm Injury
If management’s master plan to improve from 2023-24 had any chance at success, the Boston Bruins needed a 20-goal, 55-60-point season from big fish free agent Elias Lindholm. The Swedish center had some red flags in his offensive history, but there was enough evidence to suggest that his offensive ceiling could be maximized by playing alongside David Pastrnak.
The first day of training camp was optimistic for the Bruins media, as we got our first look at the team’s potential new top line of Pavel Zacha, Lindholm, and Pastrnak. Then, ominously, Lindholm wasn’t on the ice for day two of camp.
Head coach Jim Montgomery, at the time, dismissed the absence as precautionary, but Lindholm would go on to miss the majority of camp and several preseason games.
At yesterday’s clear-out day press conference, Lindholm admitted to an early absence from camp due to injury. According to Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald, Lindholm told reporters he suffered an injury in August before camp.
Lindholm elaborated on the injury, saying, “Yeah, for myself, tough season, and just didn’t get off the great start with the injury and stuff, and kind of was chasing it for a long time.”
Lindholm’s absence set back the chemistry on the first line, the cohesion of the top power play unit, and the overall vibe of the team. Even if Sweeney didn’t take the most logical approach to building this roster, he needed a great season from his new 1C to silence the critics.
Lindholm showed he could be a valuable contributor once healthy (4-5-9, +11 over last seven games), but by that point, it was too little too late.
Lame Duck Coach
Swayman wasn’t the only member of the Bruins who entered the season without a contract extension in place. Head coach Jimmy Montgomery came into camp with only one year remaining on his current contract. Sweeney remarked (on day one of camp) that both sides had had discussions about an extension but that a deal had yet to materialize.
This may have been the most significant signal that this season was off the rails. Montgomery had coached the team to its best regular season in team history and an impressive second round against the heavily favored Florida Panthers. The fact that the organization wasn’t 1. Sure, he was their coach of the future, and 2. Being comfortable with letting this leak into the regular season shows a lack of competence and context that is frankly alarming.
Before we proceed, I readily admit that it has become evident over the last few months that Montgomery did not want to be in Boston. Given the timing of head coach Drew Bannister’s extension with St. Louis (the Blues didn’t extend him until May 7th, just three days after Boston beat Toronto in game seven) and how quickly they snatched up Montgomery, it’s clear that the bench boss had another job in his back pocket.
However, the fact that the Bruins entered the season with a coach who may have wanted out is cause for concern. It’s fair to wonder how an organization that considered itself a contender going into this season could have such a question mark behind their bench.
I don’t agree with the way Montgomery went about the first few months of the 2024 season, and in hindsight, it’s apparent he had one foot in St. Louis. That being said, it’s up to management to identify and address that issue before it escalates into the regular season. The organization’s inability to have its house in order before the start of the year made it almost impossible for this team to succeed
Takeaways
I decided to leave in-season injuries out of this piece because they happened a few months into the campaign (Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy, most specifically). One can argue that they were the biggest reason the team missed the playoffs, but they aren’t the root problem that rotted the season from the inside out.
When you combine the faulty roster construction, uncharacteristically public and hostile contract negotiations, pre-training camp injuries to new players, and a ‘one foot out the door’ head coach, the Bruins were doomed before they even stepped foot on the ice.
This franchise prides itself on being a well-oiled machine, one whose culture and commitment to winning have trumped all else. Seeing this much dysfunction and the erosion of such a strong culture prior to the start of the season should’ve been a sign to us all that the 2024-25 Bruins were doomed from the start.
Couldn’t agree more!