Inside Marco Sturm's road to coaching the Bruins: An L.A. mindset, a big AHL risk and an NHL reward

New York Times

2 days ago

The beer was cold. Todd McLellan's Manhattan Beach house was comfortable. McLellan, then head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, had serious business to discuss with one of his assistants.
It was 2022. After three straight postseason no-shows, the Kings had made the playoffs. Phillip Danault and Viktor Arvidsson, respectively signed and acquired in 2021, gave Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick desperately needed reinforcements. Quinton Byfield, Jordan Spence and Alex Turcotte were rising.
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'The teardown,' recalled McLellan, now head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, 'was basically over in L.A.'
The wind off the Pacific Ocean blew under the Kings' wings. The Southern California sunshine sparkled on the resurgent club.
But as he sipped his beer in McLellan's basement, Marco Sturm told his boss he wanted to say goodbye to all of it.
The Boston Bruins do not care that Sturm has never been an NHL head coach. By hiring Sturm on Thursday, the franchise acknowledged the former Bruins player will develop in conjunction with his rebuilding roster.
But general manager Don Sweeney identified Sturm's three AHL seasons of postseason qualification and player development as critical to his decision. Those components do not always go hand in hand.
The AHL is complicated. The league has everything: high-end picks assured NHL promotions, struggling first-rounders with tattered confidence, undrafted free agents with chips on their shoulders, older players fighting Father Time. Mix in impatient GMs, agents grousing about benched clients and half-empty buildings, and a three-hour bus ride can feel like 20.
But the thing about the AHL and its resources is that all of this goes through the head coach. You cannot help but grow.
'You're ultimately responsible for everything,' said McLellan, who coached the AHL's Houston Aeros for four seasons before entering the NHL as a Wings assistant in 2005. 'Yeah, there's a manager there. But when it's all said and done, everything there runs through you.'
By 2022, Sturm had checked multiple boxes. In L.A., he oversaw the power play. He was the head coach for Germany's national team for three seasons. In the 2018 Olympics, Sturm coached the Germans to silver.
But he did not have North American head-coaching experience. Sturm knew that would decrease his odds of running an NHL bench.
It just so happened that the Ontario Reign, L.A.'s AHL affiliate, had an opening. John Wroblewski had left the club after two seasons.
The Kings were happy with Sturm, first hired as Willie Desjardins' assistant in 2018. McLellan, who replaced Desjardins the following season, thought highly enough of Sturm to retain him after a week of consideration.
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But Sturm believed that assuming more responsibility in the AHL would serve him better than staying at McLellan's side. McLellan understood the reward and the risk. In 2000, he left the security of the WHL's Swift Current Broncos to coach the Cleveland Lumberjacks in the IHL. It got him into pro hockey. But the IHL collapsed in 2001.
In Sturm's case, raising his hand for Ontario would not guarantee him a return ticket to the NHL.
'You decide to invest in yourself a little bit,' McLellan said. 'It's not about the position. It's not about the prestige. It's not about money. It's about improving your skill set so that later on, it pays off. Was there a risk for Marco? Of course there was. But there was also a reward there.'
Zdeno Chara played 1,680 career NHL games. It was the most of any player drafted in 1996. But Sturm (938) accomplished one thing Chara did not. Sturm, the No. 21 selection that year, never played a single AHL game.
So it was with a sense of unfamiliarity that Sturm, 43 at the time, accepted the Reign position. With Chris Hajt and Brad Schuler as his assistants, Sturm made winning and development his top priorities.
'We want to win hockey games in the American League and put a good product on the ice. We want to develop players at the same time,' Reign general manager Rich Seeley said. 'It's not one or the other. It's both.'
It did not take Seeley long to notice Sturm's presence in the dressing room. He radiated positivity.
Players felt welcome, appreciated and settled. Sturm defined roles and told them what he expected. They responded.
'He made you feel comfortable early,' said forward Jeff Malott, a first-year Reign player in 2024-25 after arriving from the Winnipeg Jets system. 'I was an older guy in the American League. He gave me the space to play and figure out my game in a new environment.'
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Systematically, Sturm followed the Kings' defense-first model. Sturm designed a hybrid in the Reign end: zone on some occasions, man-to-man on others, smothering at all times.
This followed L.A.'s organizational philosophy. It also reflected the influence of Darryl Sutter, Ron Wilson, Claude Julien and Terry Murray, some of the coaches Sturm played for.
'If you can't check and defend,' Seeley said, 'it's going to be hard to be successful in the NHL.'
The Reign went 34-32-6 in Sturm's first year. Spence scored 45 points, third most on the roster. Byfield scored 15 points in 16 games. Spence would play 71 games for the Kings the following season, and Byfield has not played in the AHL since.
In 2023-24, Ontario went 42-23-7. Sturm helped Akil Thomas emphasize consistency. He got Brandt Clarke to understand the value of defending. Thomas and Clarke advanced to L.A. full time in 2024-25.
Joe Hicketts, 27 in 2023-24 and a first-year Reign defenseman, was transitioning from the Iowa Wild. From what he's heard, Hicketts' previous club has shifted priorities.
'They've taken a development mindset,' Hicketts said of the Wild. 'Coming to Ontario, Marco wanted to win. The organization had goals that they wanted to win. Marco pushed us to meet those goals and expectations. It was a welcome change of scenery for me. Getting to know him over the last two seasons, he truly cared about us not only as players but as people. He was willing to help us out with anything we needed.'
In 2024, Sturm earned interviews with the San Jose Sharks to replace David Quinn. He was runner-up to Ryan Warsofsky, then a Sharks assistant.
This season, the Reign won 43 games, their highest total under Sturm. He rolled four lines. He encouraged his forwards to forecheck hard. He was precise about the quantity of clips he showed in video sessions.
He got Samuel Helenius (20 games with the Reign, 50 with the Kings) to bear down on faceoffs, finish checks and be strong on the boards. Sturm helped the 6-foot-5, 208-pound Malott focus on getting to his spots to maximize his size. Malott scored 23 goals and 28 assists, third most on the team.
On March 23, Malott scored twice in a 7-4 win over Iowa. Three days later, he was recalled by the Kings. Malott never returned to Ontario.
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'Oh, it was fun. Yeah, it was good,' Malott said of his 18 NHL games, including six in the playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers. 'Yeah. Yeah. It was a good stretch there. Genuinely did feel prepared. There's a lot less to think about when you feel confident in the systems.'
As captain, Hicketts had a regular monthly meeting with Sturm, along with a handful of older players, to discuss anything that required addressing. But Sturm's door was always open.
Hicketts was at his offseason home in Grand Rapids, Mich., when he heard the news of the Bruins hiring Sturm. He was happy for Sturm. But he was also bummed to say goodbye.
Sturm, among other things, had convinced the Reign to reserve day rooms for the players for road games against the Coachella Valley Firebirds. The bus trips the Reign used to take to play the San Jose Barracuda became flights.
'When you're sad to see a coach leave,' Hicketts said, 'I think it's a good indication you enjoyed playing for him and his entire staff.'
In 2007-08, his second full Bruins season after arriving in the Joe Thornton blockbuster, Sturm scored a career-high 56 points. It was probably not a coincidence that the Bruins made the playoffs for the first time since 2003-04. As a coach, Sturm insisted on the marriage between individual and team results.
'At the core,' Hicketts said of Sturm's philosophy, 'it was trying to get each individual to put their best product on the ice so the team as a whole could succeed. That is what this generation of athletes in hockey wants. They want to succeed. But they want the team to succeed with it.'
Sturm also experienced rock bottom as a player. On May 1, 2010, he tore the ACL and MCL in his right knee. He never played for the Bruins again. On Dec. 12, 2010, the Bruins traded him to the Kings for future considerations. Sturm's unavailability that season gave Brad Marchand the opening he needed to become an NHL full-timer.
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'If you have a player in your organization looking for somebody that's been through it before, he's touched every base,' McLellan said. 'There's not a base Marco hasn't experienced. He can get to any individual in your organization based on that experience.'
Sturm has foundational players in David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy. He has five returning defensemen who can execute his in-zone strategy. He will wait for Sweeney to supply him with more forwards to pursue pucks. Sturm will make the Bruins hard to play, like they were before they lost their way in 2024-25.
'The Bruins have some DNA from many, many years ago that never really leaves,' McLellan said. 'So I'm sure that's going to show up in their game.'
When McLellan heard that Sturm got the job, the news made him feel really good. He likes Sturm and his family a lot.
But the hire also put McLellan on notice. He now has a friend and ex-colleague coaching a division opponent.
'Our job in Detroit,' McLellan said, 'just got tougher.'