By: Tom Calautti | Follow me on Twitter/X @TCalauttis
The offseason is here, and that means it’s roster evaluation time for the Boston Bruins. With the draft and free agency under a month away, it’s time for management to make its final determinations on this team’s strengths and weaknesses and on how best to improve it for the 2026-27 campaign.
The Black and Gold need significant upgrades at certain positions and will need to fill at least one of those holes if they want to take the next step in their re-tool. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the team’s three biggest areas of need ahead of the NHL’s summer festivities.
Top Four Right-Shot Defensemen
The Boston Bruins were not a good defensive team last season. Despite reaching the 100-point plateau and qualifying for the playoffs, the B’s often struggled to keep teams out of their zone and away from their net.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the B’s were a bottom-ten team in several important defensive categories. They finished 30th in expected goals against (296.83), 27th in scoring chances against (2477), and tied for 30th in high-danger chances against (11.25). The fact that they finished in the top 15 in goals allowed is a testament to Jeremy Swayman and his season.
In addition to struggling defensively, Boston could’ve used more offense from its back end. Charlie McAvoy had an impressive individual season, but he was the only blueliner to clear 30 points. On top of that, the Bruins ranked 18th in the league in points by defensemen (181).
With these stats in mind, it’s clear that Boston’s biggest and most glaring need heading into this offseason is a top-four right-shot defenseman. More specifically, they need someone they can play alongside either Hampis Lindholm or Nikita Zadorov on their second defensive pairing.
Ideally, management should be looking for a two-way defender who excels in the defensive zone and can create offense. At the bare minimum, they need a stout, solid play suppressor who can act as a critical shutdown defenseman when needed.
However you look at it, the Bruins were too porous on defense this season. They’ll need to upgrade their defensive corps if they want to return to the postseason next year.
First Line Center
I considered putting this down as Boston’s biggest need heading into this offseason, but the defense’s stats were far too glaring to ignore. That being said, there’s an argument that the Boston Bruins aren’t going anywhere until they have a true top-of-the-line center.
If you look at the Stanley Cup Champions over the past four seasons, each squad had a legitimate bona fide star centering their top line. The Florida Panthers have Aleksander Barkov, the Colorado Avalanche have Nathan Mackinnon, and the Vegas Golden Knights have Jack Eichel. Even the cup winners who didn’t have truly ‘elite’ centers still had high-level talent playing at a very productive level (Ryan O’Reilly, Brayden Point).
It’s obviously a glaring need, but I feel like Boston is simply more desperate for a defenseman than a center. With James Hagens and Fraser Minten now in the fold, there are two youngsters on the roster who have the potential to fill that number one spot. In addition to them, Pavel Zacha has chemistry with David Pastrnak and the two-way play style to at least hold the team over until one of those players develops.
Whether it’s Hagens, Minten, or Zacha this season, I feel like the Bruins can paper over this issue and address it later. It’s definitely not ideal, but it’s nowhere near as dire as the one on defense.
Depth Scoring
The Bruins were actually a pretty solid offensive team this season, tied for tenth in the league in goals for with 268. Unfortunately for them, that offense dried up quickly in the playoffs, and they were only able to muster 12 goals in six games.
In the regular season, Boston had eight skaters reach the 15-goal plateau, with four of them eclipsing 20 goals. The big question is whether those results are repeatable across multiple seasons.
Viktor Arvidsson is set to be one of the league’s most coveted free agents, given his 25-goal season and the remarkably thin free agent class. Pavel Zacha scored 30 goals for the first time in his career, but did so on a shooting percentage of 7.4 percentage points higher than his previous career-high. The same goes for Casey Mittelstadt, who tied his career-high of 15 goals on a career-high shooting percentage (18.8 percent).
Assuming Don Sweeney runs it back next season and doesn’t make any drastic changes, this roster, as currently constituted, is incredibly vulnerable to a regression to the mean or elongated shooting slump. If one of those three players has a down year or leaves via free agency without a viable replacement, it could leave Boston susceptible to a down year on offense.
That’s why the team needs to consider adding to their scoring depth this offseason. The organization has high hopes for James Hagens, and it’s reasonable to assume Minten and Marat Khisnutdinov will make jumps, but even if those things do come to pass, it never hurts to have more scoring.
It’s nowhere near as pressing as acquiring a top-four defenseman or a top-line center, but it’s still an issue Boston must address. If I’m Sweeney, I’m looking to add some cheap scoring this offseason to support my top players further. If Boston is serious about elevating their game and moving into a quasi-contender status, it’ll need a more balanced and consistent scoring attack for the years to come.
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