5 Questions Bruins Must Answer After Beginning Painful Rebuild

Welp.

We’ve seen enough press conferences and practice action shots to know it’s real: Brad Marchand is a Florida Panther. 

As you’ll recall, the Bruins traded their former captain, who spent his 16-year career playing for Boston, to the rival Panthers at the trade-deadline buzzer for a second-round pick. It put a bow on the franchise’s first selling day of GM Don Sweeney’s 10-year tenure as general manager.

The Bruins also got rid of Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic and Brandon Carlo as they usher in a new era and start to fill up their famously depleted draft pick cupboard.

It’s clear they are entering some sort of rebuild mode, but how far will they take it and how will it unfold? With several staple players gone and several remaining, the Bruins have plenty of questions to ask themselves on the verge of a new era.

Look at Me...Who's the Captain Now?

Derek Cain/Getty Images

Will the Bruins pick a captain to replace Marchand this year or will they ride it out and let the happenings of the rest of the season help determine that for next year?

Sweeney confirmed the team will ride it out this season with no “C,” which feels like the best course of action given the abruptness of the trade and the importance of getting the next captain right to usher in the rebuild.

Anything could happen from now until the start of next season, but you get the sense David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy are the frontrunners for the captaincy. McAvoy, 27, serves as an alternate captain at the moment. He’s been a quiet leader and the No. 1 defenseman on the team for years, and he spent many of those years partnered with one of the best leaders in Bruins history, Zdeno Chara.

Meanwhile, fellow alternate captain Pastrnak’s got three years on McAvoy in Bruins tenure. He’s kept the Bruins afloat on the scoresheet through multiple iffy seasons at this point, and he’s likely to hit 100 points for the third consecutive season. 

McAvoy is out with a brutal shoulder injury sustained during the 4 Nations Face-Off, and given the state of the Bruins, they’re in no need to rush him back into the lineup. Will Pastrnak keep dragging this team on his back for the rest of the season? That could play a role in who gets the captaincy.

Can Jeremy Swayman Bounce Back?

Mark LoMoglio/NHLI via Getty Images

Swayman’s performance in net has been decent in chunks throughout the season, and the current state of the Bruins franchise is hardly his fault. But he’s followed up an elite season with a disappointing step back after signing the eight-year, $66 million contract that made him the sole No. 1 netminder for the first time in his career as the epic tandem with Linus Ullmark broke up.

His .916 save percentage last season has dropped to .898 this season, and his goals against average has dropped to 2.93. His -1.5 goals saved above expected ranks 60th out of 94 NHL goalies, per MoneyPuck.

That said, he’s played well coming out of the trade deadline break. Perhaps there was some weight off of his shoulders and he will finish off the year strong.

What is the Bruins' Draft Strategy?

Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images

The Bruins and their fans have not had to think about draft pick positioning for essentially over a decade. Their last top-10 pick was Dougie Hamilton in 2011. Yeah, folks, they’ve genuinely been buying and competing since then. 

Right now, they own a 30-28-8 record through 66 games. If the season ended today, they’d be in the No. 10 pick spot for the 2025 draft, which would give them a 3.5 percent chance to win the lottery.

Regardless of their specific draft positioning, they’ll be drafting higher with the opportunity to snag more impact players than they have in ages. Many point to the 2015 draft as a catastrophe for the Bruins, as they passed up Mat Barzal, Kyle Connor, and more. This offseason could provide a redemption for Sweeney’s drafting reputation if he and his staff play it right. 

They own all three of their first-round picks and a 2026 first-rounder from Toronto over the next three drafts. On top of that, they’ve got five second-round picks to work within this timeframe. You’ll probably see those numbers increase as the selling continues, but right now, despite all of the tough decisions, they’re at least in a great spot to snag future homegrown staples.

Who Will Be the Bruins' Next Head Coach?

Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Will the Bruins stick with interim head coach Joe Sacco after firing Jim Montgomery? Clearly, neither Montgomery nor Sacco were able to do much with this roster, and coaching wasn’t the issue. 

Still, a situation like this is an opportunity for a fresh start throughout the organization, so you have to think the Bruins are at least mulling over available coaching options for next season. Sacco is a coach familiar with the roster and developing younger players, so he’s still a frontrunner to remain head coach in my eyes—there’s no rush to urgently get him out the door. 

Will Gerard Gallant’s name come up? Gallant has been successful in moving proven teams along on their playoff journeys, but he’s not the guy you think of when it comes to figuring out this stage of a rebuild.

When you think of this stage, you do think of giving the younger guys with minimal to no NHL experience a shot. How about Boston University head coach Jay Pandalfo or Denver head coach David Carle?

It'll be fascinating to see where the Bruins end up taking their next head coaching search, but there's arguably less urgency surrounding it now given the direction of the team.

Are Don Sweeney and Cam Neely on the Hot Seat?

Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Sweeney’s seat had never been hotter than the first half of this season. Now that he’s finally steered the team in a selling direction for the first time in his decade at the helm of the Bruins front office, has that changed?

This is one you could see taking a bit more time to play out, especially knowing the Cam Neely-Sweeney one-two management punch has largely worked as a unified front. At the same time, you got the feeling if firing Montgomery didn’t pan out, firing Sweeney was the next move.

We're in uncharted territory when it comes to the deadline moves he made, though, so you wonder if that was his signal to Jeremy Jacobs and Neely that he's willing to commit to a better future for the team.