Marco Sturm’s to-do checklist with Bruins should begin with these 4 duties

Marco Sturm stated all the proper issues on Tuesday throughout his introductory press convention as Bruins head coach.

“To be trustworthy, I can’t wait to simply go within the locker room and simply work with my guys,” Sturm stated in his first handle as Boston’s bench boss. “That’s what I like to do. That’s what I wish to do. And I can’t look ahead to Day 1 to see the Bruins followers behind me or behind us and pushing us to the following degree.”

The 46-year-old coach’s appointment because the thirtieth head coach in franchise historical past will not be with out advantage.

Regardless of his ties to the Bruins as a former participant with a penchant for scoring big-time targets, Sturm elevated his inventory as a head-coach in ready each abroad and on the West Coast — constructing a popularity as a defensive-minded presence on the bench with a knack for communication and cultivating improvement in youthful gamers.

Given the obtrusive deficiencies throughout Boston’s roster, Sturm might want to draw on all of his teaching strengths to raise a Bruins squad that posted the fifth-worst file within the league this previous season. 

There are a number of key goals that Sturm should obtain in Boston — whatever the depth chart in place as soon as regular-season play begins in October. 

Listed here are 4 priorities for Sturm getting into the 2025-26 marketing campaign. 

Shore up Boston’s defensive construction

Months earlier than the Bruins appointed Sturm as their new head coach, Don Sweeney pointed to Sturm’s former employer, the Los Angeles Kings, as a template for the kind of stingy, structured defensive identification that routinely retains golf equipment within the playoff combine. 

“Should you don’t defend within the Nationwide Hockey League, you don’t have sustained success,” Sweeney stated on April 23. “Nonetheless you wish to do, whether or not that’s zone, man to man, whether or not it’s a hybrid, whether or not that’s impartial zone, whether or not that’s…have a look at L.A.’s scenario this 12 months, going from 1-3-1 to slightly bit extra of a strain scenario that they’re doing, however they nonetheless do a very good job.

“They led the league in targets in opposition to. That’s a part of profitable hockey, it simply must be, and it’s going to be a part of our cloth.”

Given Sturm’s seven-year run within the Kings’ group — coupled with Boston’s reported curiosity in different defensive-minded assistants of their teaching search like Jay Leach and Mitch Love — it’s clear that the Bruins imagine their first order of enterprise is regaining its defensive identification. 

A bounce-back season for Jeremy Swayman holds probably the most weight over Boston’s probabilities of pushing for a playoff spot in 2026. However even with Swayman regaining his kind and each Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm returning with a clear invoice of well being, Boston’s defensive construction is in want of a refresh. 

Even when the likes of McAvoy have been patrolling the blue line, the Bruins have been inclined too far too many defensive breakdowns and puck-watching sequences in 2024-25. 

Sure, Swayman (-9.1 targets saved above anticipated, per MoneyPuck) left lots to be desired between the posts. However, the Bruins additionally struggled when it got here to clearing pucks out of Grade-A ice, rating twentieth within the NHL with 11.4 high-danger scoring possibilities allowed per 60 minutes of play (per Pure Stat Trick).

Be it augmenting the trusty zone protection that had been a staple in Boston because the days of Claude Julien or clogging up the impartial zone, Sturm must stabilize the Bruins’ protection if this workforce has any hope of righting the ship in 2025-26. 

Signing a scorer like Mitch Marner or Nikolaj Ehlers this offseason will surely assist the Bruins. However it received’t matter all that a lot if the Bruins are nonetheless taking over water in their very own zone. 

Unlock extra offense

The Bruins have the cap house — and probably the draft capital available — so as to add scoring punch this summer season by way of free company or commerce.

However, Boston can’t moderately count on to repair a dreadful offensive personnel in 2025-26 by merely funneling cash into the free-agent market, a lesson they discovered firsthand this previous summer season. 

Contemplating how usually Sweeney has talked about the necessity for Boston to “evolve offensively” this spring, it’s clear that Sturm goes to be tasked with unearthing extra scoring punch out of the personnel already in place.

Past David Pastrnak’s brilliance (43 targets, 106 factors) and a breakout season from Morgan Geekie (33 targets), the remainder of Boston’s O-zone strategy left lots to be desired this previous 12 months.

If the Bruins observe the Kings’ blueprint in 2025-26, that stingy neutral-zone trapping strategy might not unlock a lot by way of offensive creativity or risk-taking for a Bruins roster that needed to work very onerous simply to create scoring possibilities — not to mention put the puck at the back of the web — final season.

However, Sturm might stress rules that might increase Boston’s odds of producing high quality appears.

Preaching a shot-first mindset from Boston’s D corps might result in an uptick within the suggestions, rebounds, and different greasy targets that always turn into a major supply of offense as soon as Grade-A ice dries up within the playoffs. 

After preaching a “high quality over amount” strategy with their shot choice beneath Jim Montgomery, a Bruins roster quick on scoring depth is likely to be higher served going for the shot-heavy strategy pressured by Bruce Cassidy (and groups just like the Carolina Hurricanes) in hopes of accelerating the chances of those self same rebounds, suggestions, and different high-danger appears. 

It’s a job simpler preached than practicted, however rolling out a shot-first, forecheck-heavy strategy on offense ought to assist a Bruins workforce missing in established expertise increase its scoring capabilities past any offseason additions.  

“I imply, there’s other ways to strategy issues,” Sturm stated of fixing Boston’s offensive strategy. “I feel after I speak about, we wish to rating extra targets, scoring extra targets is not only within the offensive zone. Sure, that’s the place the puck’s going to finish up. However for me, all of it begins, how are we going to get there? 

“So, that’s a giant half too. Not simply specializing in one space. I feel there’s completely different areas within the recreation the place we will positively get higher. It’s popping out with the puck. We wish to have the puck extra. We gotta have higher entries, for instance, not flip pucks over. I feel that half was a giant situation.”

Discover a new assistant to spark Boston’s energy play

Getting Boston’s energy play again on monitor can be a necessity if Sturm plans on fixing the Bruins’ anemic offense. 

As soon as a foundational pillar of Boston’s offensive assault, the Bruins have been firing blanks on the person benefit for a lot of the 2024-25 marketing campaign, rating twenty ninth within the NHL with a 15.2 p.c success fee. 

With opposing PK items focusing their efforts on taking away Pastrnak’s howitzer from the left circle, Boston’s energy play had few contingency plans in place to generate high quality scoring possibilities with out their greatest participant uncorking a shot. 

Past potential tweaks cooked up by Sturm (slotting a left-shot D on the highest unit over McAvoy, deploying Pastrnak as extra of a “rover”, and so on.), the Bruins want one other authority on their bench to attempt to untangle a misfiring energy play. 

Boston is retaining assistants Chris Kelly, Leach, and goalie coach Bob Essensa transferring ahead. That leaves one teaching emptiness on Sturm’s employees, with the brand new Bruins head coach noting that he needs so as to add an assistant with “who has some power-play expertise.”

If the Bruins are shifting Kelly — who helped run Boston’s energy play this previous 12 months — over into Joe Sacco’s former position as the highest authority on the penalty kill, the Bruins can be smart to focus on an assistant who can overhaul the Bruins’ energy play. 

Preach persistence for a youthful roster

The 2025-26 Bruins roster is way from set in stone. However, the writing is on the wall that Boston will likely be fielding a youthful squad this fall and giving prospects like Fraser Minten and Matt Poitras extra rope to carve out vital roles transferring ahead. 

That may require extra persistence for a Bruins group that has largely operated in a “win-now” mindset for near twenty years now. 

However Sturm — who helped prospects like Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke turn into lineup regulars in Los Angeles — believes that he’s attuned to getting extra out of youthful gamers looking for their footing at hockey’s highest degree.

“We’re all going to make errors. Outdated, younger, it doesn’t matter,” Sturm stated. “So long as you’re going to assist him, but additionally you’ve acquired to be… once more, you’ve acquired to be very trustworthy and direct with him. You’ve started working with him. They usually additionally must be taught from it.

“I really feel like they’re going to be taught from our core group, from the older guys. And that’s why the entire thing, it’s so essential. It’s not simply me, it’s the workforce, proper? They usually gotta see it daily in observe. For instance, they gotta see how guys observe daily so the younger guys can observe. There shouldn’t be any excuses.”

The Bruins can be smart to concentrate on growing youthful gamers in hopes of including ancillary items to a core headlined by veterans like Pastrnak and McAvoy.

That may require some persistence on the a part of those self same veterans in the case of coping with these short-term rising pains in 2025-26 in hopes of better returns within the following years.

Sturm might want to promote Boston’s leaders on his imaginative and prescient nicely earlier than coaching begins so as to get the buy-in wanted for his first 12 months on the helm. 

“I’m very clear,” Sturm stated of his communication fashion. “I might say the conferences I’ve, the messages I’m going to ship – could possibly be system-wise, could possibly be something – I feel it’s very, very clear. There will likely be no grey space.

“We’re all going to work collectively, and one factor is, I wish to push these guys ahead. I hate dropping, and I’m very aggressive on and off the ice, and that’s one thing lots of people don’t learn about Marco Sturm.”

 

Conor Ryan is a employees author overlaying the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Pink Sox for Boston.com, a job he has held since 2023.