In Season 1, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov provided the Bruins little return on their investment

Boston Globe

26-04-2025

As for return on investment, both players fell significantly short of the dollars stuffed in pockets, which is not to say their underperformances were the sole reason the Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Yet they were presented as the fix, the perceived stabilizing forces — Lindholm to drive the offense and Zadorov to bring spine to the backline — and it's now a roster unable to prevent another DNQ next season if the second verse of those two proves to be the same as the first.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'In both cases,' noted Sweeney, 'the conditioning, and the way training camp went, I'm not particularly happy with, so we're going to address it.'
Advertisement
If unclear if that's GM talk for, 'Show up here in shape for September training camp and be prepared to earn your dough.'
That's about as blunt with the working help as managers or coaches dare get these days.
Bruce Cassidy
, during his successful tenure as the Black and Gold coach, was said to be much closer to the bone with his criticism, particularly when conversing face to face with his players. He was, by far, the most refreshingly honest coach in Bruins history when it came to answering media questions about the performance of individual players.
Advertisement
To that latter point, too much honesty (yep, that's a thing in pro sports) with his players likely played a factor in why Cassidy abruptly was canned three years ago, after initially being told, yep, he was good to go here for 2022-23. Beware the expression 'good to go.'
Related
:
'ROI for it, yeah, it's got to go up,' said Sweeney, addressing the short-changed return on investment on Lindholm and Zadorov. 'Ultimately, when you integrate those guys in here, you want immediate impact, for certain. But they started to grow into their roles, and understanding how they're going to impact our team going forward, and we need to do a better job surrounding them.'
In the case of both hires, their play did improve as the season unfolded, though Lindholm's come-to-the-offense meeting came when the season already was kaput. Sweeney now hopes both return for training camp in better shape and can build on the momentum they eventually established.
Zadorov on opening night lined up on the No. 3 defense pairing. That was, shall we say, curious. He was wildly undisciplined in the opening weeks, overzealous perhaps in his eagerness to justify his $30 million deal. He settled his game down eventually and better identified times and ways to make a physical impact.
Advertisement
Much to his credit, as underscored by Sweeney on Wednesday, Zadorov (the New Z) repeatedly stuck up for teammates, an ingredient achingly absent in the years since
Zdeno Chara's
(the Old Z) departure. Nonetheless, Zadorov still finished with a league-leading 145 penalty minutes, on a team that could ill afford a PIM imbalance on the game sheet.
Lindholm, who disclosed on locker cleanout day that he was hindered much of the season by a back he injured in August, was of virtually no use on offense pretty much up to the March 7 trade deadline, By midseason, interim coach
Joe Sacco
regularly, and justifiably, used him as the No. 3 center. Who saw that in the fine print of his $54.25 million deal?
'I think we were all struggling in the beginning, couldn't find our game,' noted Lindholm. 'Tough with coaching changes, things like that, a lot of stuff going on, but in the beginning, for myself, I wasn't good enough, and I think a lot of guys could say the same thing. Overall, we've got to be better at the start of next year.'
Lindholm added that 'he takes a lot of responsibility' within that collective failure and hopes to build on late-season success he had pivoting a potent line with
Morgan Geekie
to his left and
David Pastrnak
to his right. Lindholm finished 6-9–15 over the last 17 games.
Specific to Zadorov's case, Sweeney is hopeful that the return to the lineup of fellow blue liners
Charlie McAvoy
and
Hampus Lindhom
will square the pairings, setting up Zadorov with a regular partner and defined job description.
Nikita Zadorov (right) is 30.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
'He played with every different partner known to man this year that we put on the roster,' said Sweeney, who played a chunk of his career riding aside Hall of Famer
Ray Bourque
. 'And that didn't help him. It didn't help him settle his game down at times, certainly.
Advertisement
'Could he get better? Absolutely. Do we expect both of them to get better and impact our team? Absolutely.'
Sweeney again will be spending, perhaps liberally, when the UFA market opens at noon on July 1. More than once on autopsy day he noted the need to add at wing, in part because of the deadline departures of
Trent Frederic
,
Brad Marchand
, and
Charlie Coyle
, as well as the uncertainty as to whether Sweeney can bang out an extension with Geekie (RFA, career-high 33 goals).
Notably, Sweeney did not say center was a point of concern, which points to a 2025-26 reset that includes a top-six forward group anchored by Elias Lindholm,
Pavel Zacha
, and likely
Casey Mittelstadt
. Is there an offensive rainmaker among those three? Debatable. The lead candidate, of course, will be Lindholm. If so, it will have to be the Lindholm we saw the last five weeks of the season.
TOP 10 LIST
Wins, losses early in draft
The Bruins will pick no lower than No. 7 in the NHL Draft on June 27, with their spot to be locked in on May 5, the night of the lottery. They finished the regular season holding the No. 5 spot but could move up to No. 1 or 2, or remain at 5, or fall to 6 or 7.
Apologies if you were told there would be no math.
Joe Thornton
, their last No. 1 overall pick (1997), ultimately played up to his franchise billing, though not until he was wheeled to the Sharks. The Bruins also nabbed
Sergei Samsonov
at No. 8 in the same draft, and the Magical Muscovite was named the 1997-98 Rookie of the Year.
Advertisement
Samsonov's career wasn't nearly as productive as Thornton's, but he was a solid, effective choice.
Marian Hossa
(No. 12, Ottawa) might have changed the fortunes of the franchise had he been chosen to be Jumbo Joe's right winger. Oh, to dream.
Related
:
Beginning with that 1997 draft, the Bruins have made seven picks in the top 10 and twice selected players who turned out to be busts —
Lars Jonsson
, D, (No. 7 in 2000) and
Zach Hamill
, F, (No. 8 in 2007). Both were the biggest misses of their draft classes. Painful miscalculations.
Their other three picks in the top 10 all turned out to be primo choices:
Phil Kessel
(No. 5, 2006),
Tyler Seguin
(No. 2, 2010), and
Dougie Hamilton
(No. 9, 2011)
Not a single one of the five picks in the top 10 who made it spent their full careers in Black and Gold. Samsonov, who wore the Spoked-B for 514 games, was the lone pick who actually ended up playing the majority of his career as a Bruin.
The five other Original Six franchises, dating to 1997, totaled 44 picks in the top 10, with the Blackhawks topping the pack with a dozen. Only five of those 44 were No. 1 overall picks:
Patrick Kane
, Chicago, 2007;
Auston Matthews
, Toronto, 2016;
Alexis Lafreniere
, NY Rangers, 2020;
Juraj Slafkovsky
, Montreal, 2022; and
Connor Bedard
, Chicago, 2023.
As for who made the most hay from their high picks, that barroom debate looks like a tossup between the Blackhawks with their dozen and the Maple Leafs with their seven.
Advertisement
Chicago, with the third pick in 2006, selected franchise center
Jonathan Toews
. With Kane coming aboard the next year at No. 1, the Blackhawks went on to win the Stanley Cup three times (2010, '13, and '15) with Toews and Kane their offensive kingpins.
In the same timeframe, the Maple Leafs connected on all seven of their top-10 picks:
Nik Antropov
(No. 10, 1998),
Luke Schenn
(No. 5, 2008),
Nazem Kadri
(No. 7, 2009),
Morgan Rielly
(No. 5, 2012),
William Nylander
(No. 8, 2014),
Mitch Marner
(No. 4, 2015), and Matthews. Nice piece of hitting, 7 for 7.
Antropov retired after logging 788 games. The other six remain active. Career games for all seven to date: 5,689.
ETC.
This plus/minus tough to defend
Among the most important tasks awaiting the Bruins' bench boss in 2025-26: untangle the train wreck that was
Mason Lohrei's
defensive game.
A fluid and bold skater when wheeling through open ice, and perpetually shot-ready, Lohrei tops the organization's short list of emerging young talents. He's big (6 feet 5 inches, 220 pounds), eager to jump into opportunities on offense, and, oh, did I mention he likes to shoot?
But then there's this: Lohrei's minus-43 plus/minus. Ouchamagoucha.
It not only was the worst plus/minus among all Original 32 skaters, it was by far the worst on his own team, the most important lens through which to view plus/minus. Of all the other skaters with the Bruins from the season's October puck drop, the next worst was
Andrew Peeke's
minus-10. By comparison, Peeke looked like a Norris Trophy candidate.
Related
:
While we're on this subject,
Casey Mittlestadt
played 18 games in Black and Gold after his March 7 acquisition from the Avalanche and rolled up a minus-17. That's a pins-in-the-eyes pace of minus-77. If he's going to be a regular pivot in the top-six rotation, and that appears to be on the fall menu, then Coach TBD will need to sketch out some basic rules of defensive engagement and spacial awareness. Or at least arrange for Mittelstadt to have a long lunch with
Patrice Bergeron
.
Now, the asterisk that must be attached to Lohrei's minus-43 pertains to the protracted absences of fellow defensemen
Hampus Lindholm
and
Charlie McAvoy
. Because those two were out of the mix for a combined 97 games, the coaching staff for most of the season didn't have the luxury of easing Lohrei into more favorable matchups and easier minutes of work. He was force-fed an average 19:32 of ice time, amounting to an extra, say, 8-10 shifts per game that too often led him to the invisible fourth zone on the ice — the Twilight Zone.
Lohrei's game upon return will be best suited for third-pairing minutes and in relief duty at the power-play point. Above all, he needs to sharpen his read-and-react time in the defensive zone — unfortunately, that processing skill is something that cannot be tuned up in the offseason.
'Obviously, it's a learning experience,' said Lohrei, reflecting on the overall season and the added time he received. 'Getting those minutes in this league and playing with that kind of responsibility, there's ups and downs to that. So, learn from it, continue to grow, and get better.
Mason Lohrei (left) is 24.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
'You can work on all the different intangibles that might help you with doing it,' he added, when asked what it will take to improve his defensive structure. 'But at the end of the day, it's just about doing it, and, you know, in the summer there's not a lot [of that] you can focus on. I want to be more consistent in it. I think I can defend, and [have] shown that I can defend against really good players, but it's about 82 games and going out there and doing it every night and not having any lapses. It's frustrating when you do.'
Cronin a person of interest for Bruins' job
Bruins general manager
Don
Sweeney's
list of prospective coaching candidates remains hermetically sealed.
Meanwhile, one of the finalists in Sweeney's coaching search in 2022,
Greg Cronin
, was abruptly dismissed last Saturday two years into his Anaheim tour, despite adding eight wins and 21 points to the Ducks' totals of last season. Proof again, success doesn't always breed job security.
There could be coaches out there reluctant to take on the rebuild and resurrection of the Spoked-B brand, but the Arlington-born-and-raised Cronin is decidedly not one of them.
'Hey, I'm a coach, right?' said Cronin, 61, reached late in the week by telephone. 'All these openings, I'll throw my hat in and see what comes back. I mean, heck, I'd be doing handsprings and jumping over rainbows if I got the Bruins' job. I'm a Boston guy, and for a Boston guy, that's hitting the lottery times 10!'
Related
:
Interim boss
Joe Sacco
, another Boston guy, remains on the list. Boston guys
John Tortorella
,
Peter Laviolette
, and
David Quinn
(qualified under Comm. Ave. birthright citizenship) also are expected to submit résumés.
Loose pucks
Bruins CEO
Charlie Jacobs
remained resolute Wednesday when asked if he would consider rescinding the 4 percent blended price bump for 2025-26 season tickets. Nope. Rising costs, he said, necessitate the increase, even after the 9 percent bump imposed a year earlier. Look, we get it, ticket pricing is a pure supply-demand play, and the price will keep bumping up as long as the demand remains in lockstep. The much smarter play would have been a year ago, presenting 9 percent as a three-year price fix through 2026-27 (average 4.33 percent per annum). A 13 percent wallop over these two years, especially now with the DNQ cross-check smacked across the fans' backs, might just be the one that shoots down the box office's Black and Golden goose … Average distance (air miles) between the four playoff series in the East: 326. In the West: 1,042. Yep, they travel in luxury, no question, but the 3:1 ratio underscores that the hockey life out West is a long haul. The shortest one-way hop in Round 1: Tampa to Sunrise (183 miles). Longest: Edmonton to Los Angeles (1,366 miles) … Amid his back-and-forth defense Wednesday of Bruins draft choices through the years,
Cam
Neely
revealed he wished there'd been more time taken, more scrutiny by front office and scouts at the draft table, in 2015 after the club opted not to deal higher in the draft (likely to land Boston College defenseman
Noah Hanifin
at No. 5). 'What we should have done, looking back,' noted Neely, 'we should have taken some time out and said, 'Look, guys, let's regroup here. We didn't move up, we have three picks in row [Nos. 13, 14, 15).' I think it was very new for everybody. We stood backstage for those three picks. What we should have done was get back to our table and said, 'Are we OK with our list?' These are things you try to learn from.'
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at