Brad Marchand shares his thoughts on whether or not he’s open to a potential return to the Boston Bruins when he becomes a free agent this summer.
There are only 25 days left in the 2024-25 NHL regular season, but for Boston Bruins fans, this stretch might feel like an eternity.
It's one thing to lose games on a consistent basis. It's another to lose games and look inept at both ends of the ice. Unfortunately for the Bruins, their current situation is more the latter.
In what has been a very disappointing season for the Bruins, the team sunk to a new low in Thursday night's ugly 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on the road.
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The Bruins tallied just 19 shots against the Golden Knights despite trailing most of the night. It's the second time in the last three games Boston has been held below 20 shots. Overall, the B's have registered fewer than 20 shots in nine games this season. That happened only four times in the previous four seasons combined.
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Right now, Boston's offense is pretty much David Pastrnak or Morgan Geekie scoring a goal or creating a Grade A chance for a teammate. The B's have scored 44 goals since Feb. 1, and Pastrnak and Geekie have combined to score 19 of them. No other Bruins player has more than three goals during that 17-game stretch. This team has zero offensive threats outside of those two guys, so it wasn't surprising that Geekie scored the lone goal versus the Knights and Pastrnak picked up an assist on it.
The Bruins had a jolt of energy following the trade deadline with back-to-back wins against quality opponents in the Lightning and Panthers. But all of that momentum was quickly erased by four consecutive losses. And it's not just that the Bruins are losing, they're getting blown out in a lot of games. Thursday's game was the 14th time Boston has lost by four or more goals this season. That's a really high number.
14th time the Bruins have lost by 4+ goals this season. Most such losses season since they lost 15 games by 4+ goals in 1965-66.
— Ty Anderson (@_TyAnderson) March 21, 2025
Optimistic look at that: 1965-66 was the final season in the pre-Bobby Orr history of the Boston Bruins.
There are a lot of issues with this Bruins roster. General manager Don Sweeney has a lot of work to do in the offseason to fix the mess he's created.
The No. 1 priority needs to be bolstering the offensive talent up front.
Scoring goals in all situations, including the power play, has been a season-long struggle for this team. This problem is even greater when you consider the Bruins play in a division that features three of the league's top 10 teams (Maple Leafs, Lightning and Panthers) in goals scored and power play percentage.
Even though reaching the playoffs is an unrealistic goal at the moment -- MoneyPuck's model gives Boston a 0.5 percent chance of securing a wild card berth -- there are still a few things the Bruins can accomplish over their last 12 games.
One of them is give some prospects a chance to prove themselves against NHL competition.
Top prospect Fabian Lysell was recalled earlier this week and is expected to play on the current road trip. He has played in only one career game for the Bruins since being selected in the first round of the 2021 NHL Draft. He has played well for Providence this season and has improved his two-way skill set. The B's need to see if he can be part of the team's long-term plans. The best way to do that is give him as many reps as possible against NHL opponents.
The Bruins also need to evaluate the players they acquired in deals prior to the trade deadline. Where does Casey Mittelstadt best fit in the lineup? Is he a center or a wing? Which position on the power play best suits him?
Marat Khusnutdinov has scored two goals in six games with the Bruins, who have played him in a more offensive-minded role than he had with the Wild. He brings plenty of speed to the lineup, which the B's desperately need. Could he become a fixture in the bottom-six moving forward?
Henri Jokiharju is a good skater and moves the puck well. Could the young defenseman be a third pairing option next season?
These are all questions the Bruins must address in the final few weeks of the regular season. They have to evaluate what they already have on the roster and try to improve their draft lottery odds as much as possible. The future has to be the sole focus of the organization.