It’s August, and that means football is almost in the air. Once that kicks off, ice will be ready and hockey will be played. For the Boston Bruins, there will be plenty to watch for during the 2025-26 season. We have discussed how they stack up amongst their division, and now we will dive into what they need to improve on the most if they want to have better success compared to the 2024-25 season.
The Power Play Has to Have Life
If the Bruins ever had the opportunity to have the power play, it would’ve been much better if they had forfeited it and continued to play the game at five-on-five. Their power play was dreadful, ranking 29th in the league and having a 15.2% success rate. It’s not to say they have had an elite power play. In fact, since the 2021-22 season, they’ve consistently had a success rate of 22.2%, which often placed them middle of the pack. However, last season’s was just dreadful, and a lot of it had to do with its predictability.
Related: Bruins Lack Talent Compared to the Rest of the Atlantic Division
If you were a penalty kill unit, you more than likely knew where the puck was going. When you look at the heat map on Hockey Viz, you see the Bruins’ shot counts were extremely high from the faceoff circle on the left side. That’s the office where David Pastrnak sets up, waiting for the one-timer. He is the Bruins’ top threat offensively, and the power play now runs through him. It’s predictable. Part of that has to do with a lack of talent, but the Bruins need to find more creative ways to have power-play success. The bumper position has been a barren wasteland since Patrice Bergeron retired.
Seeing Mason Lohrei get more power-play opportunities would be huge. In the absence of Charlie McAvoy, he thrived in that role and looked fluent running the power play. The Bruins do have talented players, with Pastrnak, Morgan Geekie, and Elias Lindholm, so there’s no reason for the power play to be completely inept. If the Bruins are lackluster in capitalizing on the man advantage, they need to be better at generating offense in general.
Generating Better Offense in General
It all boils down to talent, and the Bruins do lack that compared to the rest of the teams in their division. Although, they aren’t completely depleted to the point where they don’t have guys that can step up to the plate and deliver. A lot of youth could be counted on this season, with Fabian Lysell, Matthew Poitras, and Fraser Minten competing for spots on the big league roster. Those three alone would give the Bruins a new dimension of youth and skill that they did not have last season. Goal scoring was at a low for the Bruins, ranking 27th in the league. Furthermore, they could not finish and ended the season with a negative-14.78 goals scored above expected. Pastrnak and Geekie cannot do it all, so the Bruins will need more impact in the goal scoring department. However, the offense goes beyond just their goal scoring.
This team did not do a good job possessing the puck, and when they did have the puck, they did very little with it. NHL Edge laid out numerous statistics for the Bruins from an offensive standpoint. Overall, they finished below the 50th percentiles in shots on goal, goals, and shooting percentage. A lot of their shots came from lower danger areas, and they’ll want to improve their high danger presence. Last season, they fell below the 50th percentile in shots on goal, so creating a better presence in those areas will be huge.
The additions of guys like Tanner Jeannot could help. He scored seven of his goals from the high-danger area, and a large chunk of his shots on goal as well were high danger. Viktor Arvidsson is also a player with a shoot-first mentality who creates offense in the high-danger areas of the ice.
Not only do they need to improve the offense in those areas, but they also need to improve the defense, too.
Better High-Danger Defense
The Bruins were atrocious defensively during the 2024-25 season. Oftentimes, they would get lost in coverage, and teams would feast on the opportunities they got in the high-danger areas of the ice. They allowed the 17th most high-danger attempts during five-on-five play, and when you look at the heat maps from their defensive coverage, you see just how often teams got their looks in the high-danger areas of the ice.
Teams primarily stayed on the perimeter, but they were able to find open passing lanes to get the puck to the inner slot. The opposition did a tremendous job getting closer and closer to the goalies. This was also an issue during the 2023-24 season, but the goaltending was so good that it was able to mask those issues. They never got corrected, but with a healthier blue line and a new coaching staff, this should improve during the upcoming season.
Improving These Areas Can Improve Their Record
The Bruins won’t be the most talented team on the ice, but they can still work hard and compete. Fixing their power play goes a long way, and if they improve in the high-danger areas of the ice, it’ll put them in a better position to have success.
