Boston Bruins
The Bruins shed light on the state of their center depth during Friday’s practice.
The Boston Bruins continued their training camp on Friday with another pair of practices at Warrior Ice Arena.
After a fast-paced session honing in on breakouts and the forecheck on Thursday, new Bruins head coach Marco Sturm opted to change things up a bit on Friday as he continues to augment Boston’s systems ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Here are five takeaways from Friday’s practice:
A slower, heavier session
Marco Sturm has been transparent about his approach over the first few days of training camp.
Considering the number of ways that Sturm plans to tweak Boston’s strategies and systems this fall, the Bruins’ bench boss has opted to chart out a different, simplified objective for each new day of practice.
Whereas Thursday’s practices featured an emphasis on quick puck play, forechecking and zone entries, Sturm centered Friday’s practice around Boston’s work in the defensive zone and the steps required to shore up what was a porous team structure in 2024-25.
“Today was a different day, right? Yesterday was everything with the puck,” Sturm said. “It was a high pace, good flow, lots of energy, and you were with the puck. Guys like to play with the puck. Today, it was different. We were working our way back without the puck, and my message today was how important it is to track and play good defense, because we want that puck back as quick as we can.
“So it allows us to play more offense. It allows them to have more offensive time. It’s not always fun, but I’ve got to make sure it’s going to be fun for our guys. … I’m just going to name the Florida Panthers — because those guys, they cover, and they track so hard. And all the good teams, they do that. And that’s something — I’m going to be on it all year long because I want to play offense.”
Beyond the focus on the D-zone, Sturm closed out both practices with an extended stretch of battle drills along the boards.
“I’ve done it before, but never for that long,” center Casey Mittelstadt said. “So yeah, it’s tough, but I think that’s probably the hardest thing. I feel like skating-wise, everyone’s skated so much in the summer now, everyone’s in shape. It’s more so the physicality and some of the stuff that lacks in the summer, and so I think it’s kind of a different kind of conditioning when you get into the battle. So, I loved it, and I think it’s very good.”
It should come as little surprise that 6-foot-7, 255-pound Nikita Zadorov relished the opportunity to throw his weight around on the boards.
“He’s got 6 inches and 70 pounds on me, so it’s not fun,” Mittelstadt said of being matched up against Zadorov. “If I see him out there, I try to skate away from him and not let him get me against the boards because it’s usually over at that point.”
Could Zacha be Boston’s third-line center?
On a Bruins middle-six grouping in flux, a Swiss Army Knife like Pavel Zacha could come in handy for Sturm.
Beyond Zacha’s profile as a dependable two-way skater who has averaged 54 points per season over his three years with Boston, his ability to play both center and wing could come in handy as Sturm tries to solve where the puzzle pieces fit up front.
Zacha’s track record of production made him a potential top-six candidate on the wing alongside a few other talented forwards in center Casey Mittelstadt and Viktor Arvidsson.
But speaking on Friday, Zacha acknowledged that the Bruins intend to start him at center at the start of camp.
“He said he likes me as a center, but if he needs me as a winger, he’s going to talk to me ahead of time and tell me what my situation is going to be,” Zacha said of his conversations with Sturm. “But he said at the start of training camp, I’ll be at center, and we’ll go from there.
“So that’s something he said he’s going to communicate with me before. So I know where I’m at, and that’s all I can really ask for.”
By keeping Zacha down the middle, the Bruins presumably have a four-man grouping in place at center between Elias Lindholm, Mittelstadt, Zacha, and Sean Kuraly.
That lineup composition does raise some questions over where exactly younger pivots like Fraser Minten or Matt Poitras factor into the equation if they make a legitimate push for NHL reps out of camp.
Even though Minten does project as more of a bottom-six skater, giving him limited shifts as a 4C also likely isn’t best for his overall development, nor is Poitras’ game indicative of a checking forward.
If Sturm and the Bruins do opt to identify “pairs” of forwards as a way to build out their middle-six grouping, a pair of duos in Mittelstadt + Arvidsson and Zacha + Matej Blumel could each anchor separate lines.
But it still remains to be seen who slots in on the wing to complement each of those two lines — as well as just how much runway would be afforded to younger players in that lineup composition.
For Zacha, his top focus entering camp is to put a disappointing 2024-25 season in the rearview. Beyond Boston’s slide down the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, Zacha was hindered down the stretch by a nagging lower-body ailment that cut into his production.
He appeared in all 82 games with Boston, but scored just 14 goals and 47 points — his lowest scoring output since the 2021-22 season with the Devils.
“Since January, I was struggling with a couple of lower-body injuries, and that wasn’t ideal for me … The second part of the season, it’s been better in my career, mostly,” Zacha said. “And that was something I didn’t have, the jump and the step that I needed to have. And we kind of worked on it for three, four months this summer to kind of get back to where I need to be.”
A pugnacious fourth line
As Sturm continues to preach straight-line hockey and punishing forecheck during camp, it should come as little surprise that a trio of Sean Kuraly, Mikey Eyssimont, and Mark Kastelic have primarily skated together through the first two days of camp.
If Sturm and the Bruins are trying to establish a hard-nosed identity up front, there’s a lot to like about what that trio of fleet-footed bruisers could do together as a unit.
Last season, Kuraly, Eyssimont, and Kastelic combined for 491 hits and 209 penalty minutes.
Eyssimont should become a fan favorite in Boston given his propensity for being the fly in the ointment on the ice, while Kuraly should provide structure and stability down the middle.
But Kastelic will be the straw that stirs the drink on that fourth-line group, so long as he can avoid the concussion issues that limited him to 61 games in his first year with Boston.
“It’s been a blast playing with those two, and I think we complement each other well out there,” Kastelic said of Kuraly and Eyssimont. “Again, a little bit of experience from those two guys — been around a little bit. I think they both play an honest, hard game, and that’s something I really respect and appreciate. So it’s been fun playing with them and building chemistry.”
Foes turned friends
Count Kastelic among those thankful that he no longer has to drop the gloves with Tanner Jeannot moving forward.
Jeannot, who has held court as one of the more feared scrappers in the NHL thanks to his devastating right uppercut, took on Kastelic during the center’s tenure with the Senators in January 2023.
“Strong guy. I saw that firsthand this year in fitness testing,” Kastelic said of Jeannot. “Saw some numbers on the bench press I’ve never seen before, so looking back, I’m happy that he didn’t connect with me too hard. Just happy to be his teammate now. And he’s a great guy off the ice. So it’s all in the past now.”
As for who was the victor in that previous bout?
“Probably him,” Kastelic said of Jeannot. “I don’t think I ate any [punches], but he definitely man-handled me a little bit. But I was happy I stood in there. He’s not an easy guy to go against. So I was proud of myself.”
A look at the lines
Here’s a look at how Boston’s lines shook out during Friday’s practices:
Group A
Morgan Geekie – Elias Lindholm – Viktor Arvidsson
Marat Khusnutdinov / Joey Abate – Casey Mittelstadt – Alex Steeves
Johnny Beecher – Fraser Minten – Fabian Lysell
Georgii Merkulov – John Farinacci / Brett Harrison – Dans Locmelis
Mason Lohrei – Charlie McAvoy
Nikita Zadorov – Henri Jokiharju
Michael Callahan – Billy Sweezey
Loke Johansson – Ty Gallagher
Jeremy Swayman
Michael DiPietro
Ben Hrebik
Group B
Matej Blumel – Pavel Zacha – Tanner Jeannot
Mikey Eyssimont – Sean Kuraly – Mark Kastelic
Riley Tufte – Matt Poitras – Riley Duran
Jeffrey Viel – Patrick Brown – Dalton Bancroft / Jake Schmaltz
Hampus Lindholm – Andrew Peeke
Jordan Harris – Victor Soderstrom
Frederic Brunet – Jonathan Aspirot
Jackson Edward – Colin Felix / Max Wanner
Joonas Korpisalo
Simon Zajicek
Luke Cavallin
David Pastrnak was once again the lone absence on Friday due to knee tendinitis, although the star forward was once again on the ice skating and shooting pucks ahead of practice.
As Sturm tries to identify promising linemates and reliable D pairs, he’s been impressed with what he’s seen so far from a D grouping of Hampus Lindholm and Andrew Peeke.
“I knew Hampus out of Anaheim. I knew how good he is,” Sturm said. “It’s really exciting for not just me, but I think for the whole team that he’s back. … [Peeke], I didn’t know him.
“I heard a lot of good things, especially coming out of the World Championship, that he played like a man. … He carried that over right away yesterday and today. I think he’s a big, strong presence right now. I really like that pair.”
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