Bruins

8 takeaways from Bruins’ end-of-season press conference

"I anticipate that we will have a playoff team and play meaningful hockey at this time of year in 2026.”

Don Sweeney and Cam Neely have a long summer ahead of them. Barry Chin / The Boston Globe

April 23, 2025

6 minutes to read

Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs, team president Cam Neely, and general manager Don Sweeney addressed the media Wednesday at the team’s end-of-season press conference at TD Garden.

Along with the commencement of the team’s latest head-coaching search, Boston’s top brass touched on several other topics following a disastrous season for the Original Six franchise.

Here are eight takeaways from Wednesday’s address:

An endorsement from ownership

Despite harping on both the “disappointment” and “embarrassment” rooted in Boston’s dreadful 33-39-10 record in 2024-25, Jacobs stressed in his opening address to the media that both Don Sweeney and Neely will remain in their current roles this summer — and will be tasked with retrofitting an ill-constructed roster that sputtered in several critical areas in 2024-25.

“I’m proud to sit alongside these two gentlemen — because I know we’ve got the right people in the right seats on the bus to bring this franchise back to glory,” Jacobs said of Neely and Sweeney.

“Cam and Don in their respective roles as president and general manager have proven that they can take a franchise that has missed the playoffs and build one for sustained success,” Jacobs added. “It is my opinion that we can do it again, and this time, get over the hump and become a Stanley Cup champion.”

Sweeney’s uncertain contract status

Despite Jacobs’ endorsement of both Sweeney and Neely, there is a lack of clarity regarding Sweeney’s long-term future beyond the upcoming 2025-26 season. Sweeney — who replaced Peter Chiarelli as GM in May 2015 — confirmed Wednesday that his contract is currently set to expire after the 2025-26 season.

Neely remained noncommittal when asked if he intended on crafting a new long-term contract extension for his GM.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’m still contemplating what the best course of action is, but as I mentioned, I really feel like Don has done a good job here for the most part,” Neely said. “Obviously the year that we had is a huge disappointment, and that falls on all of us, not just Don, that falls on all of us.

“I’ll figure that out in the near future whether we’re going to re-sign Don or not,” he added. “But he’s got another year.”

Offseason priorities

The Bruins are not just one free-agent pickup away from reasserting themselves as a premier Cup contender.

It will be a busy offseason for Sweney and Co. when it comes to retooling a roster that ranked 24th or worse this season in goals scored per game (27th, 2.71), goals allowed per game (26th, 3.30), power play (15.2 percent, 29th) and penalty kill (24th, 76.3 percent).

But after David Pastrnak (106 points) outpaced Boston’s second-leading scorer in Morgan Geekie by 49 points this year, Sweeney stressed that the Bruins need to allocate its resources this summer — be it via trade or their projected $28.8 million in cap space — to bolster Boston’s offensive firepower.

“We have to find, through the development of our current players — some extra scoring potential,” Sweeney said. “And we have to probably address the wing positions that will deepen the scoring ability that showed up ineffectively this year in the way the roster was built.

“We didn’t score enough. … Our power play was dormant for most of the season — and we didn’t defend with the structure and conviction that we have in years past.”

While Sam Bennett headlines a lackluster crop of free-agent centers, Boston could upgrade their scoring output on the wing if players like Mitch Marner, Nikolaj Ehlers and Brock Boeser hit the market.

Season-ticket pricing increase remains intact

Despite Boston’s dreary showing during the 2024-25 season, Bruins season ticket-holders are staring at a blended price increase of 4 percent across all levels for the 2025-26 season. That follows a ticket hike ahead of the 2024-25 season that came in at 9 percent.

Jacobs was asked if there was any consideration to rescind those ticket pricing increases, given the product on the ice this winter.

“Ticket pricing is a sensitive subject. I’m aware of that,” Jacobs said. “Things cost more … I expect that you probably pay [a] higher electric bill than you did last year. I know that we, for instance, pay more to open our building for security, for ushers, for concession workers, for parking attendants, everything.

“People deserve a raise and an increase. Likewise, we increase our ticket prices as our expenses go. I mentioned this before, every dollar we bring in, 50 percent goes to the players. … We’ve made our decision. We’ve raised our ticket prices, and no, we will not be rescinding that.”

A reset for key players

Boston’s stark regression in 2024-25 was orchestrated in part by a sharp downturn in net from Jeremy Swayman, as well as underwhelming returns from key free-agent pickups in Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov.

Sweeney expects a stronger showing moving forward from Lindholm, who was hampered ahead of training camp due to a back injury. Boston’s GM also pointed to Lindholm’s strong play down the stretch alongside Pastrnak and Geekie as a source of optimism.

In the 93:58 of 5-on-5 ice time that the Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line logged this season, Boston outscored opponents, 16-4.

“Do we expect both of them to get better and impact our team? Absolutely,” Sweeney said of Lindholm and Zadorov. “[Return on investment] for it? Yeah, it’s got to go up. Ultimately, when you integrate those guys in there, you want immediate impact for certain.

“But they started to grow into their roles and understanding of how they’re going to impact our team going forward, and we need to do a better job surrounding them.”

As for Swayman, Sweeney stressed that the Bruins need to do a better job of cultivating a more competitive environment in their goaltending corps moving forward.

Swayman “categorically denied” that his heavier workload played into his struggles (.892 save percentage, -9.1 goals saved above expected) in his exit interview with Sweeney. But Sweeney added that the team would be better served carving out more reps for Joonas Korpislao, who appeared in just 27 games.

“That’s part of the internal competition we have to get back to and being able to push for playing time, for opportunity,” Sweeney added. “There were opportunities in the course of the year where Korpi was playing really well and probably deserved the net.”

Pushing back against drafting whiffs

The Bruins’ best path toward building a sustainable contender lies on developing internal talent and supplementing an established core with impactful (and affordable) entry-level and bridge-deal contracts.

Years of relinquishing draft capital and failing to add impact NHL talent to their pipeline has hampered Boston over the years. But Neely pushed back against the assertion that Boston’s drafting has been a net negative.

“We have traded those picks. We have traded some of the prospects to try and improve our club to win Stanley Cups,” Neely said. “So the narrative that we — we’re not hitting on all our draft picks. No one is. You pick in the top 10? You better hit. We haven’t done that in quite some time. So have we been perfect? No. Can we be better? Yes. “

Expectations for next year

Despite Boston’s dreadful record this season, Jacobs stressed that Boston’s management feels as though the team could be back in the playoff picture as soon as next spring.

“If Cam and Don came to me and said, ‘Listen, we do think we have a path towards a championship team, but we need patience. Of course, we can be patient,” Jacobs said. “I do feel, though, and we’ve spoken at great length about this.

“The team that we currently have — healthy — with the additions we intend to make this summer, I anticipate that we will have a playoff team and play meaningful hockey at this time of year in 2026.”

Loose pucks

While the Bruins are going through some “internal discussions” when it comes to bringing back free agents, Sweeney added that re-upping Morgan Geekie on a “longer-term” deal remains a priority. “We know he’s going to be on our team next year,” Sweeney said of the restricted free agent.

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Sweeney confirmed that several Bruins players will take part in the IIHF World Championships — set to take part next month in Sweden and Denmark. Both David Pastrnak and Jakub Lauko will play for Czechia, which won the 2024 tournament in Prague. Jeremy Swayman, Mason Lohrei, and Andrew Peeke will play for Team USA, while Elias Lindholm will represent Sweden.

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Sweeney added that Johnny Beecher might have “something small” to repair via surgery this offseason, but otherwise Boston doesn’t expect any other players to go under the knife.

Pavel Zacha will not play for Czechia at the World Championships while resting a nagging knee injury, while Sweeney added that Hampus Lindholm will not be “restricted in any way, shape, or form” this fall after suffering a fractured patella in November 2024.