The Boston Bruins find themselves at a critical point heading into March 2025. The current campaign has not exactly gone well for them, as they have 62 points with a 27-24-8 record, which has them on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoff hunt in the Eastern Conference. They are only two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final wild card spot, but the New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators also stand in the B’s way.
Boston is at risk of missing the postseason for the first time since the 2015-16 season, and while they haven’t exactly been going on deep runs every year, you could always count on this team to be competitive. That has not been true this season, and with the trade deadline quickly approaching, the front office has to decide whether they want to stock up for a playoff push, or sell off some spare parts and begin rebuilding.
For years, general manager Don Sweeney has done virtually everything he can to keep the Bruins competitive, and it was clear that at some point, it would come back to hurt the franchise in the future. That time appears to be now, as Boston is a middling team with very few assets at their disposal that give hope for the future. With that in mind, it’s clear that the rebuild needs to begin now, even if it may be painful.
Bruins need to finally pull the plug and begin rebuilding
The Bruins have been a playoff contender for the past 15 years or so, which is good; you’d obviously rather be in the playoffs than sitting at home watching them. The problem is that they only have one Stanley Cup to show for it, won all the way back in 2011. They lost in the Final in 2013 and 2019, and they saw their magical 2022-23 campaign come to an end with a crushing first-round defeat at the hands of the Florida Panthers.
At the time, that felt like the end of the road for the B’s. Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci called it a career, and they lost several other key players, such as Tyler Bertuzzi and Taylor Hall, over the offseason as well. Yet Boston exceeded expectations last season and made it to the second round of the playoffs, where they got bounced by Florida again.
The hope was that big offseason additions like Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadarov would help the Bruins build off that campaign, but things have panned out as expected. Jeremy Swayman has been awful in net after signing an eight-year, $66 million contract extension right before the start of the season, and even when he does play well, the defense and offense take turns letting each other down on a near-nightly basis.
The end result is an incredibly frustrating team to watch. The Bruins have the talent to win, but they cannot put all the pieces together. It cost Jim Montgomery his job after just 20 games, with Joe Sacco replacing him. Unfortunately, things haven’t gone much better for him, and now Boston is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Perhaps the biggest issue with all of this is that the future does not look much better for the B’s. Their prospect pool is incredibly barren, largely because Sweeney has dealt away a vast amount of draft picks at the trade deadline in past years. To continue to do so would be malpractice given the state of this team right now.
Rather than dealing away picks and prospects, Sweeney and the front office need to change course, which is why it’s time to sell. Boston has pieces they can build around in Swayman, David Pastrnak, and Charlie McAvoy, but it’s going to take some time. The most prudent path forward is to get a head start on their rebuild and move some of their spare pieces before it’s too late.
Does that include veteran forward and team captain Brad Marchand? It would certainly be difficult to see him playing for a different team, but if the right offer comes across the table, Sweeney will have to pull the trigger on it. Marchand is Boston’s most valuable asset at this point, and if moving him can help the B’s put together their next title contending team, it’s what needs to happen.
In a perfect world, the Bruins would have won at least one or two more Stanley Cups to give themselves some leeway during this transitional period, but that didn’t happen. Sweeney’s gambles did not yield another title, and now, Boston has to pay the price for it at the upcoming trade deadline.
The time for trying to figure out how to make this team a contender is over. There are too many holes on the roster, too many players not performing up to expectations, and too many injuries to account for at the deadline. It’s time to tip the band-aid off and blow this team up, or else Boston will find themselves stuck in the middle for years to come.
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