Built on saves, priced like a bubble team

Eighteen months ago the Bruins traded their captain, Brad Marchand, and finished the season tied for last in the East with 76 points. Last season, under first-year coach Marco Sturm, they took 100. David Pastrnak had 100 points, Morgan Geekie scored 39 goals, Pavel Zacha 30, and Jeremy Swayman became a Vezina finalist. Buffalo ended it in six games in the first round. On Sunday, Pastrnak was named the first Bruins captain since Marchand.

So the bettor's question is simple. How much of that jump was real? Boston was out-chanced on most nights. It ranked in the bottom seven in expected goals share. It won because it finished its chances better than all but one team and got the third-best goaltending in the league.

Our answer: some of it, and less than the standings say. Both strengths have some history in Boston, so the model keeps a slice of each. Strip out the rest and the team underneath is below average. The summer roughly broke even, so we land on a C team, 18th in the league, near 89 points.

On that number we agree with the crowd, even if we get there a different way. Season totals sit at 87.5 to 89.5, VSiN leans to the under, and FanDuel's price to make the playoffs is the longest in the East. NHL.com's staff picks leave Boston out of the Atlantic's top three, and most previews say what we say: last season outran its underlying numbers. The talking point everywhere is the missing No. 1 center. We see a different weak spot: the volume of shots Boston allows, which Swayman hid for a year. Everyone agrees the season rides on the goalie repeating. Our projection does not need a repeat to reach 89 points. The bigger swing is how often the backup plays.

1What last season really was

The standings and the shot data told two different stories last season.

Finishing and goaltending made the difference. Boston scored about 20 goals more than its chances were worth and its goalies saved about 31 more than expected. That is roughly 50 goals of margin, enough to turn a below-average team into a 100-point one. Both numbers swing hard in this franchise from year to year, as the five-season table shows: 2024-25 was below expected on both counts. We give credit only for the part that tends to carry over, and that is the smaller part.

The season also had two halves. Boston took 44 points from its first 41 games and 56 from its last 41, and nearly all of the goaltending surplus came after New Year's. The Bruins were also much better at TD Garden (59 points at home, 41 on the road), and home ice gave out in the playoffs. We treat both splits as noise, not a trait.

2How the model builds Boston's ranking

Our preseason rating starts from how well a team actually played last season, with luck stripped out, and then adds only what has historically carried over from one season to the next.

The starting point is below average. Measured on chances rather than results, Boston played like a lower-third team last season, far from its 100 points. That gap is the whole story of this preview.

Finishing and goaltending are the biggest push up. Boston has beaten its expected goals and its expected saves in most recent seasons, not only last year. Talent at both ends earns a real bonus, and it is why we rate Boston above its chance numbers.

Age helps a little. The lineup is slightly younger than the league average. Hagens, Minten and Khusnutdinov on one line pull it down, and no forward in the top nine is older than 31.

The roster is roughly flat. Peterka replaces Arvidsson's goals, two veteran defensemen replace Andrew Peeke, and the backup job goes from Joonas Korpisalo to an unproven goalie. On balance it is a small step down, and McAvoy's suspension trims the rating a little more.

Summer moves: in and out

Net: about the same team, a little thinner. Peterka for Arvidsson is close to even, the defense swaps are small, and the backup goalie is the clearest downgrade.

The table leaves out the internal changes. James Hagens, the 19-year-old from Boston College, played two games last spring and now starts on the third line. Fraser Minten signed a seven-year extension after his rookie season. Henri Jokiharju was waived to Providence, and Mason Lohrei, whose name came up in trade talk with nine defensemen on one-way deals, stays on the third pair.

The coach is neutral. Sturm starts his second season. One year of data says his teams defend by collapsing and blocking (section 6), with no measurable boost or drag yet.

The result is a C team, 18th in the league, projected for about 89 points. That puts Boston just behind Philadelphia and Columbus and a hair ahead of Washington and Los Angeles, on the outer edge of the playoff race. The sportsbooks are right there with us. When the market and our model agree on the season, the useful work moves to single games.

Our projected opening-night lineup. Each player shows his 2026-27 grade (A to E, with a 0-100 score: his percentile among NHL regulars at his position), his role and last season's numbers. Goalies are graded the same way against the league's 64 starters and backups.

Reading the lineup

Pastrnak carries the top line. The new captain grades A (92) after a 100-point season, and he is the only forward on the roster in the top tier. The crowd expects Peterka to reach 30 goals next to him. That is plausible, but Peterka grades C, a middle-of-the-pack top-six winger. Elias Lindholm is the question in the middle. He had 37 points in his first 44 games, then 11 in his last 25 as his back gave out, and he enters camp without a clear answer on it.

The second line had career years. Geekie (39 goals) and Zacha (30) both set highs. Geekie grades C+, level with Zacha; Elias Lindholm (B-) now rates as the best forward after Pastrnak. Repeating those totals is the hard part, and the previews that call the offense fragile have a point. Casey Mittelstadt, a natural center, plays the left wing.

The center debate, and our view of it. Every preview asks whether Boston has a No. 1 center. It does not: Lindholm grades B-, Zacha C+ and Minten C. Three solid, similar centers are a known quantity, and the team scored 3.27 goals a game with them last season. The weak spot is lower down. The bottom six grades from C down to D, and Boston's forward group ranks near the bottom of the league as a whole. The kid line of Hagens, Minten and Khusnutdinov brings speed and will have nights. It will also have long ones.

The blue line is two players deep. McAvoy grades A+, among the best defensemen in the league, and Hampus Lindholm B+. After Nikita Zadorov (C+), the grades drop fast: Clifton C-, Lohrei D+, Borgen D- and a rookie in Brunet. For the first six games, Borgen plays McAvoy's top-pair minutes, which is the thinnest this lineup will look all season.

4Who matters most

Pastrnak is the obvious name, and he matters most among the forwards. Our absence research adds McAvoy right next to him. Defensemen who play big minutes matter more to the nightly price than their profile suggests, because their minutes go to someone worse. In Boston the drop behind McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm is unusually steep, so each of them is worth more here than on a deeper team.

That makes the first two weeks a small test. The market reacts to star forwards and moves less when a top defenseman sits. On game day, check the blue line and the goalie before anything else.

5Goaltending: the season that made the season

Two years ago Swayman had a season to forget, and Boston's goaltending finished well below expected. Last season he gave the Bruins a huge November and a bigger March, and the months table shows why the second half looked so different from the first. Korpisalo, meanwhile, was below expected in October and November before settling down.

Our projection grades Swayman A, among the top tenth of NHL goalies, and Boston's goaltending as a whole ranks ninth. We still expect less. A Vezina-finalist season sits at the top of any goalie's range, and our numbers put Boston's goaltending several standings points below last season's. That is already inside the rating. The common line, that the season depends on Swayman repeating, is half right: a repeat would push Boston well above 90 points, but the projection does not need one.

The bigger unknown is the backup. Michael DiPietro played one NHL game last season and has strong AHL numbers, including a .930 save percentage. Our grade of E- mostly says we have almost no NHL evidence, so the projection pulls him toward a below-average backup. Sturm has talked about 55 starts or a few more for Swayman, which leaves DiPietro close to 30, and 14 back-to-back sets make many of them predictable. Jiri Patera is the third option in Providence. Confirm the starter before you bet.

6Boston's system: how they score and defend

Sturm's first Boston team had a clear identity. It let opponents shoot, filled the lanes, blocked more shots and threw more hits than most teams, and trusted the goalie to handle the rest. With Swayman playing at his best, it worked. Across the season the Bruins gave up more shot attempts than all but three teams.

Offense: speed and talent over structure. No team took a smaller share of its shots from settled play, and only five had more rush chances. Boston also got to the slot less than most teams. It scored on the counter and on Pastrnak's and Geekie's shooting, which is harder to repeat than a steady cycle game.

Defense: bend and hope. Opponents took more shots, more of them from the slot and more of them off rebounds than against almost any other team. Blocks and saves covered it. That is the part of the system we trust least without an elite goalie behind it.

What it means for scoring. Bruins games averaged 6.28 total goals last season: 3.27 for and 3.01 against per game, against a league average of 3.08 per team (6.16 per game). Our team scoring ratings carry that into 2026-27 as a league-average offense and a bottom-ten defense, which puts Boston's games a little above the league average in total goals.

7Special teams

Per minute, the power play was a top-ten unit both in goals and in the quality of its chances. The penalty kill allowed good-quality chances at one of the lower rates in the league, yet the goals still piled up, because Boston spent more time shorthanded than almost anyone.

How the power play works. It starts and ends with Pastrnak. He led the team in power-play points and is the shooter every penalty kill has to account for, which opens the ice for everyone else. Geekie and Zacha were the surprise: 21 power-play goals between them, cleaning up what Pastrnak's shot created. Hampus Lindholm moves the puck from the point.

Peterka is the new piece. He scored only five power-play points in Utah, mostly on a second unit, so the top-unit role is a bet on his shot rather than his record. If it works, Boston gets a second shooting threat opposite Pastrnak. If not, Elias Lindholm's 18 power-play points make him the natural option to move up.

How the penalty kill works. It mirrors the five-on-five system: size in front, blocked lanes and forwards who pressure the puck. Kuraly and Kastelic take the forward minutes, and Borgen arrives from the Rangers as another defender who kills penalties every night. The unit did its job per minute. The problem was the number of minutes.

What to watch. Discipline, not personnel. A physical team takes penalties, and fewer trips to the box would help Boston more than any change to either unit. On the other side, the power play is only as good as Pastrnak's health: without him, it loses its main threat and most of its structure.

8What would change our view

• Shots againstIf the attempts against drop toward the league average, the system is maturing and the rating climbs. If not, the goalie has to carry it again.
• Swayman's first monthA strong October would suggest last season was closer to his true level than our projection assumes.
• DiPietro's startsIf he holds up in the second games of back-to-backs, the backup gap closes. If not, those nights are the weakest on the schedule.
• McAvoy's returnEligible on Oct. 13. The first six games show how thin the defense is without him.
• Elias Lindholm's backA healthy Lindholm gives Boston three steady centers. Another second-half fade leaves Minten and Hagens with more than they can carry.
• Early-season formThe first 20 to 30 games say less than they seem. Hot and cold starts mostly reflect shooting and goaltending swings.