In the last two seasons, the Boston Bruins have had incredibly impactful seasons come from some surprising names. Guys like Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, and Trent Frederic have all recently had huge improvements from the season before.
The improved players have been a significant part of the team’s success over the past two seasons, and if they want to be successful again in 2024-25, they will need some guys to improve from the previous season.
Luckily, there aren’t any guys on the Bruins’ roster who are coming off of a huge down-season. A lot of these guys don’t need huge improvements in order to be impactful for the 2024-25 season.
The Bruins defenseman had an out-of-this-world season in 2022-23 when he had 53 points in 80 games, well, well above his previous career high in 2014-15 when he had 34 points in 78 games. Last season, he came back down to his career averages with three goals and 26 points in 73 games. Hampus Lindholm is a huge part of the blue line, and will be for the foreseeable future. They are a better team when he is on the ice than when he is off and has quickly become a vital part of the roster. But it would still be nice to see him get a bit closer to his numbers in 2022-23 in the upcoming season.
The Bruins had their struggles on defense last season, both with generating offense and being responsible in their own zone. They had stretches where they looked great and other times it was clear that the terrific play of the goaltending was covering up some larger issues. The base of the blue line is there, and the additions of Mason Lohrei and Nikita Zadorov should help fill holes, but getting improvement out of Lindholm would also go a long way to strengthening the defense. He is coming off of a very up-and-down postseason, and will be looking to be more consistent this upcoming season.
I think it would be a bit of a reach to expect Lindholm to hit the highs that he did in 2022-23 when he’d never hit more than 34 points in a season prior to that. But if he can be a bit more responsible in his own zone and get his points back up into the mid-30s rather than mid-20s, it would go a long way towards helping the team in 2024-25 and could make this blue line one of the best in the NHL.
Johnny Beecher’s 2023-24 season, his rookie season, had its ups and downs like many first-year players. It was a fantastic learning experience though and you could see the improvements he was making, culminating in a really solid playoff performance. Similar to fellow rookie Lohrei, there is a belief that their solid postseasons could turn into improved 2024-25 seasons.
Beecher, the Bruins 2019 first-round draft pick, had seven goals and 10 points in 52 games last season, averaging around 10:30 of ice time a night. He also played with the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League for a 17-game stretch, contributing four goals and eight points down there.
Beecher’s goal for improvement in 2024-25 needs to be consistency. In those 52 games, he had great stretches and then would disappear and be a non-factor for several games. If he can work on being more of a factor every night, get up to the 20-point mark on the season, and work up to a chance to spend some time on the third line, it would be a fantastic season for him.
Mark Kastelic, one of the newest members of the Bruins, has struggled to really get his NHL career going. He’s averaged less than 10 minutes of ice time a night the last three seasons with the Ottawa Senators and has yet to play a full NHL season. Now though, with a change of scenery, there is hopefully a chance to see some improvements out of him and take a step forward in the 2024-25 season.
Kastelic is most likely to start on the wing of the fourth line. He had 10 points in 63 games last season and 11 points in 65 games the season prior to that. The first goal for Kastelic will be making the Bruins roster out of training camp, and if he does, getting himself up to 15-20 points would be a great improvement for his 2024-25 season and solid numbers for a fourth-line guy who doesn’t get a ton of minutes.
The 2023-24 season really saw the best out of many members of the Bruins and there aren’t that many that really need to make huge improvements. The big question for the 2024-25 season will be how many guys will be able to get around their numbers from last season.
The 2024-25 Bruins have the opportunity to be a real threat in the league. They have made several steps to address their issues from last season with the additions of Zadorov and Elias Lindholm. With some more offense across the board and fewer turnovers, this team should be a contender. Now, I still have some worries about the loss of Linus Ullmark and their main strength from last season in the goalie tandem, but they should still be a major competitor.
Bruins training camp will begin on Sept. 18, and they’ll play their first game of the regular season on the road against the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers. Stay tuned to The Hockey Writers throughout the lead-up and into the regular season for all Bruins news and analysis.