Bruins
“The expectation is always the same here. You play for [an] Original Six [team] — they are very high, and they will always be here.”
The Bruins’ efforts of righting the ship and putting a disastrous 2024-25 season in the rearview mirror began in earnest Tuesday morning.
While Boston’s full-squad training camp will not begin until September 17 at Warrior Ice Arena, a sizable crop of the Bruins’ roster took to the ice in Brighton for an informal captains practice. More than 20 players took part in two hour-long sessions that featured several competitive drills.
Captains practices have been commonplace in Boston for years, with the onus usually falling on past captains like Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, and Brad Marchand to organize the skates as a way to shake off the rust before camp commences.
The only issue this fall? Boston has no skater on the roster with the “C” etched onto his sweater.
But, even with Marchand immediately skating for one of Boston’s leading rivals in the Panthers, Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy is not fretting over any talk of a leadership void on a revamped Boston roster.
“I think it’s going to be by committee throughout, really. You can’t do it alone,” McAvoy said of Boston’s leadership core. “Maybe from the outside it looked like that was sort of — it was [Chara] and Bergy, but they leaned on everybody. I think the best groups tend to be the ones that get it everywhere.
“You take a lot of that weight off your shoulders, and you can put it on everybody else, and then the group’s better for it. So I think absolutely it will be by committee — certainly to start. And I wouldn’t be surprised throughout [the year] if we continue to bring people into the fold.”
Boston has not announced any plans when it comes to appointing a captain before the 2025-26 season begins, with both McAvoy and David Pastrnak tabbed as the early favorites to earn the “C.”
Beyond Pastrnak (756 career games with Boston) and McAvoy’s (504 games) seniority and established production on the ice, both players also stand as a valuable link to the Bruins’ clubs of yesteryear.
But, while plenty has been made of how players like Chara and Bergeron cultivated a winning culture in Boston, Pastrnak said that even those successful Bruins clubs of the past relied on multiple voices in the locker room.
“It’s never been about one guy here,” Pastrnak said. “And I know it might have seemed like it many years before that with guys like Bergy and Zee, it was always a group decision. … It’s going to be group of leaders here, and our main focus is to bring the team together and be competitive every single night.”
The Bruins have three players on their roster from the 2018-19 squad that made it all the way to Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final: Pastrnak, McAvoy, and veteran Sean Kuraly, who re-upped with Boston this offseason after spending the previous four years with the Blue Jackets.
Even with some continuity in place, McAvoy noted that the Bruins can’t keep to the same status quo when it comes to the culture and leadership approach that”s been entrenched in the club.
“I think maybe instead of just the ‘rinse and repeat’ of what it’s been for a long time … we have to try and build it back up,” McAvoy said of Boston’s leadership group. “It’s different. It’s a completely different group. It’s different individuals. So it’s going to look different.
“But mostly it’s just a great opportunity, really, more than anything, to have that sort of thrust on us to be responsible for it. I think it’s something that we look at and we’re excited about it. We’re not seeing it as more of a daunting task. It’s something that we’re just honored to be trusted with that.”
As the Bruins look to forge a new chapter and build a sustainable contender moving forward, McAvoy acknowledged that Boston might have to augment its approach when it comes to conducting business in the dressing room — especially as the team welcomes an influx of younger talent in the coming years.
“I think we kind of did stop and take an acknowledgement that it is a new day and age,” McAvoy said. “We’re trying to usher in a new group of guys that are from a different generation. … The reality is it’s a little bit different times. Maybe some of the things that went in how we were molded by the group in front of us — is not necessarily how we can maybe reach the younger guys the best, so we’re taking that into account.”
The Bruins have a long ways to go when it comes to re-establishing themselves as a proven contender — especially in the wake of last year’s downturn and subsequent roster teardown.
Pastrnak believes the standard hasn’t changed with the Bruins amid a year of uncertainty.
“The expectation is always the same here,” he said. “You play for [an] Original Six [team] — they are very high, and they will always be here. So whoever is going to dress in October, it’s going to be a competitive team.
“And that’s the one message we’re going to have and we won’t accept what happened last year. So like I said, the team that’s going to dress up in October, we’re going to be very competitive.”
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