Marco Sturm Will Suffer for Don Sweeney's Sins Before the Bruins Rise Again

The Boston Bruins named Marco Sturm as their new head coach Thursday morning.

He’s the 30th coach in team history and he’s also the 13th former Bruins player to go on to coach the team.

Make no mistake about it, though. This is a tall task facing Sturm as he looks to revive a franchise that cratered during the 2024-25 season.

Don't get us wrong, Strum has the credentials to be a good coach. He has made his way up the coaching ranks quickly since he retired from hockey in January 2014. He’s coached the German national team, was an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings for four years and spent the past three years as the Ontario Reign head coach, the Kings' AHL affiliate.

Sturm’s opportunity to become an overwhelming hero in Bruins history begins now as he’ll guide a team that’s at a crossroads of sorts, much in part due to how general manager Don Sweeney has managed the roster.

The Bruins are coming off their worst season since 2006-07, when they matched the 76 points they had that season. In 2006-07, they were led by Sturm and Marc Savard offensively. A young Patrice Bergeron was just establishing his career, Zdeno Chara was in his first year leading the Boston defense, and Tim Thomas, who returned from playing in Europe the year before, was locked in as the starting goalie.

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The current Bruins lineup no longer has Bergeron. Sure, there is David Pastrnak, one of the elite scorers in the NHL. But their defensive stars, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm, are coming off injury-riddled seasons. Jeremy Swayman had a tough year in goal in a season in which he didn’t see the ice in training camp because he and the team couldn’t settle on a contract until just before the start of the regular season.

With last season a lost cause, Sweeney hedged his bets and moved captain Brad Marchand and veterans Brandon Carlo and Charlie Coyle for a mix of players and picks to prepare for a deeply uncertain future. The Bruins plan to be active in free agency this summer and they’ll have about $26.3 million in cap space to work with. The problem is they have a lot of holes to fill.

Chasing after Cups year after year has led to a barren farm system. Sweeney's misses at the 2015 NHL draft are now infamous and have put the Bruins in the position they're currently in.

The likes of Bergeron, Chara, Tuukka Rask and David Krejci papered over the cracks for years before the bill came. Now, it's here. And it's ugly.

It’s good to have Pastrnak as an automatic scoring weapon and Morgan Geekie has a brilliant surprise, scoring 33 goals in 2024-25, but questions swirl around what kind of production they’ll get from Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha and Casey Mittelstadt. They’ll hope Matthew Poitras can remain healthy and young players Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov can become solid contributors.

Although the Bruins lack NHL-ready prospects, they’ll have a few young players in need of more NHL experience to work into action. Sweeney needs Sturm’s adept touch there to work immediately if they’re going to be in the mix for the playoffs in an impossibly difficult Atlantic Division.

Defensively, getting McAvoy and Lindholm back cannot be understated. They’re elite puck movers and passers, which helps the forwards and they’re class defenders, which makes Swayman’s job much easier. Nikita Zadorov’s snarling, trollish defending evokes memories of the Big Bad Bruins and Mason Lohrei has shown promise over the past couple of seasons with his puck-moving and passing, but there’s a desperate need for more help there and much better depth.

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Fortunately for the Bruins, Sturm has had experience coaching teams with a thin defense corps in Ontario this season and has also made great use of prospects Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence in previous years.

Sturm is going to need Sweeney to be savvy enough in free agency to best fill the holes in the Bruins' roster that only appeared to get wider last season. This doesn’t mean the B’s need Mitch Marner to be a cure-all because he wouldn’t be, but with the money they’ve got available to them, they’ll have to be wiser with contracts than they were a year ago because if they aren't, the domino effect will harm everyone.

Sturm will have to work twice as hard to coach them up and Sweeney, even with a new extension in hand, will have to sweat things out more as the pressure mounts.

This opportunity for Sturm is a massive one, and after an outstanding playing career, he’s shown in a short time that he has the “it” factor modern coaches should have. Bruins fans will welcome him, and he is loved there, but if Sweeney can’t help him out, the honeymoon will be a short one.