The PuckUps Podcast with Brian DeFelice, Ep. 61: 6 Bruins QUESTIONS heading into next season

Brian discusses six different questions facing the Bruins heading into next season!

Join Brian DeFelice every Monday and Friday (Tuesday, and Friday in the offseason) as he discusses all things Boston Bruins, NHL, and the world of hockey. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and be a part the show by submitting comments, and questions via X (@briandefelice_ / @thepuckups), email: info@thepuckups.com, or voicemail (617)-539-6958.

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Transcript

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You're listening to the Puck Ups Podcast. It's time to hit the ice with Brian D Felice. Welcome into episode 61 of the Puck Ups Podcast. I am Brian D. Felice and thank you all for joining me. On today's show, I want to talk about six questions that I have surrounding the Boston Bruins heading into next season. But first things first, if you haven't done so already, please go ahead and subscribe to the Puck Ups on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else that you get your podcast. And later on this week, I want to do another mailbag episode. So if you want to get in touch with me or be a part of the show, you can email me at infothepuckups.com. You can tweet at me on X at Brian Dflees underscore. You can tweet at the show at the Puck Ups or leave a comment on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, anywhere the show is a social media account and post content. No, I don't know about you guys, but I was pretty damn happy to see the calendar flip from July to August because it means we're that much closer to hockey season. Now, we could go a few different ways here. We could go with the glass half-empty approach and say, ah, well, you know, August is going to be just as dry as July in terms of hockey stories because it's the dead days of the summer, and we're still nearly two months away from the regular season, yada, yada, yada. But I'm going to choose to do a glass half full approach here. And that is, you know what? Yeah, we're still seven, eight weeks away from the regular season starting, but we're only four and a half weeks away from rookie camp and the Bruins Prospect Challenge, where the Bruins rookies will play the Sabres rookies, James Higgins will be in that tournament. And then immediately after that, you have training camp where there is no shortage of storylines. And then we're off and running in the regular season. In the meantime, we'll allow ourselves to be entertained by preseason NFL football and regular season start of NFL football. The Red Sox are on a torching pace right now, right? Meanwhile, we're only a few weeks away from your local coffee shop, your favorite coffee shop, having uh pumpkin flavors going forward for the fall. And all of our local CVS is a couple of weeks away. You'll see, not even you'll walk in through those automatic sliding doors, you look to your left, you look to your right, and you'll see some Halloween decorations in mid-August. And you're gonna say to yourself, What is going on here? Why does CVS already have Halloween decorations out? Doesn't matter why, they do, and you know what? That means falls around the corner, and that means hockey's around the corner. So I'm gonna choose to go with the glass half full approach. And uh, if you want to join me, join me. If you don't want to, all power to you. But something else that indicates that hockey season is around the corner is when NHL.com starts their 32 and 32 series, which is covering each organization their own day, where they put out articles about the team's storylines, their questions, their projections, all that good stuff. And it's done alphabetically, which means the Bruins, they're one of the first teams every season, this year included. And so Emily Benjamin, who covers the Boston Bruins for NHL.com, she is heavily included in these articles. And one of the articles was three questions she had surrounding the Bruins. So I'm taking that article and I'm gonna add to it this episode and do six questions that I have for the Boston Bruins heading into next season. So we'll get that started right away. Now, the first burning question that I personally have is what is Pavel Zaka's future in Boston? We've talked about it all off season, and it's still the question that is unanswered, and it might be unanswered for the next year, or it could be answered any day now, which is kind of why it's a polarizing conversation. And it's also polarizing because the player is currently in his prime and on a great cap hit, 4.75 million dollars. And he's a good contributor to this Bruins team, plays an important position and plays it well, plays in all situations, key contributor, good player, real good player. But he has one season left under his contract, and he's due for a significant pay increase. And you know, if the Bruins were uh a championship contender right now, I think this conversation would be less polarizing because you would be willing to go into a season with a key player on a final deal unsigned, because worst case scenario, maybe they're your own rental for the season and and the end goal is a championship, right? But that's not what the Bruins are, they're not a contender right now, they're they're still a little bit away, obviously. So you just want the Bruins to be able to optimize the situation. If that means signing the player, great. If that means trading the player for some, great. For others, they'll hate that. But ultimately, and I've been very consistent in this, the Bruins organization right now is not in a position to lose a player like this for nothing, especially because they're not contending right now. So it would just be it would be a team that's that's not championship hopeful losing a good player for nothing. It just it doesn't make any sense. So for these reasons, I'm very curious what happens with him and when it happens. So that's my first question for the Bruins is what is the future for Pavel Zacca? Is he extended before the season? Does he go through the whole year without a contract in place beyond his current contract? Or do they extend the mid-season somehow? Do they trade him? I don't think they trade him unless they suck next year, and they're not planning to suck. They might suck, but that's not their plan. So if their plan's not to suck, and I don't think they'll trade him unless they suck, I don't think trading him is in their plans unless that hand is forced to them. Or somebody comes knocking and really blows their doors off, which I don't know if that's gonna happen because if a team I don't know, I just don't know if that would happen. But this is a storyline to keep an eye on. He's a good player, and I would not hate if the Bruins extended him, it would just depend on you know the term and the money, you know, classic contract details. So um, but it if the alternative is losing him for nothing, then you gotta trade him. But obviously, the Bruins aren't trying to trade their current top center, even though he's not you know a bona fide 1C in this league. There's a difference between being a 1C and being a 1C on a team that doesn't have a 1C, right? So um, in any event, what happens with Pavel Zaka? What does his future hold? So we'll see what happens there. I still think that there's some dominoes to drop this summer around the league. Dylan Larkin's trade request is still out there. There's probably some others behind closed doors that the public doesn't know about. Um I just think that the NHL is kind of on their summer vacation right now for the most part. Uh, and but I do think there's gonna be some player movement prior to the start of the regular season. I'm not saying that that's Saka, but I do think conversations are still happening this summer, and I expect player movement still before uh opening nights around the league. The next question that I have is can Morgan Geeky still produce at a high rate without David Pasternak? Now, this might not be relevant, this might be a moot point. Maybe Marco Stern plays Morgan Geeky with Pasternak next year. And this question doesn't matter. But the reason why I asked the question is because Geeky's had a really strong last couple of seasons in totality. But I'm skeptical of him potentially being an offensive driver without Pashtunak along his side, and I think that if the Bruins want to be a much better team, they need that. Like they need scoring depth throughout their lineup, they can't just rely on whatever line Pashtunach is on to be the line that's going. Like other guys have to carry their own line as well. We saw it last year a bit with Zaka, Middlesta, and Arvidsen, but that was as a trio. And hats off to them. But I'm talking about an individual. The Bruins need another individual in their top six who can carry a line on their own without Posternock. That way you now have depth and versatility, and you can come at teams in waves. And to me, Morgan Geek is one of those candidates on the Bruins who could he possibly be that type of player where he can drive his own line. I'm not saying he's a play driver. Like, I don't think that like he drives transition, I don't think he puts other teams back on their heels, but can he can he be a legit goal scorer without Posternock? Because teams have to respect that at the end of the day. So, you know, when you look at Geeky's last couple of seasons, great. He has set career highs and goals and points in each of the last two years, respectively. But the 24-25 season, he got off to an abysmal start. He was terrible, he was healthy, scratched, he was not producing at all until December 1st hit. And from December of 2024 through the end of the season 2025, even though the team sucked and the Bruins sold off a bunch of pieces, Geeky went on a torching pace and he was incredible. But a lot of that was with David Poshunok. I'm pretty sure most of it, if not all of it, was okay. But noted, okay, that momentum carried into the first half of the 25-26 season. And Geeky, I want to say he had 25 goals in his first 37 games last year. Most of that was David Pasternak, if not all of it. And then he cooled off significantly in the second half of the year, where he had 14 goals in his final 45 games played. And a lot of that was without David Pasternak, just like the first part of the 24-25 season was without David Pasternach. So I bring this up just to say I have my questions about Geeky's ability to be a game breaker, game changer when he's not on a line with David Pasternak. Here are some other numbers from last season worth noting. And it's not entirely expected, this notion that I'm talking about. I think a lot of players um fall into this camp on the Bruins roster, but this is kind of my point. If the Bruins want to be a better team with internal options they currently have, they need somebody to step up and be a line driver without Poshnaw because he can only play on one line at a time, right? So last year, Morgan Geeky played 376 plus minutes, just about 377 minutes at five-on-five on a line combination that did not feature David Pashtunak. In those 377 even strength minutes, the line Geeky was on recorded 16 goals. So those goals are spread out through Geeky and whatever linemates he was playing with at that time. So 16 goals in 377 minutes on line combinations for Geeky at 5 on 5 without Poshanach. And I'm pretty sure some of those combinations that were actually decent were in terms of goals for versus goals against in their time together, was Geeky, Elias Lindholm, and Alex Steves. And there was one other combination that Geeky was on that actually had a net positive goals for versus goals against. I forget exactly who the linemates were because when you go on puck money and you you narrow the ice time down to at least 10 minutes played together to see all the combinations of Runes had last year. There's a lot.6 minutes last year um on a line combination with David Pashtenok at even strength. So whether it was Geeky Lindholman Pashtunak or Geeky Minton Pashtunak, Geeky Zaka, whom like whatever. If if Geeky and Pashnok run a line together with whoever the third person was, there was 547.6 minutes of that even strength ice time. In that time, whatever line it was, the comp whatever line combinations were in those 500 plus minutes, had 29 goals. So again, it's not unexpected, not really rocket science. Oh, so you mean to tell me that Geeky spent about a hundred and whatever fifty more minutes with Poshinach last year, and he had and those line combinations had more goals. You're a genius, Brian. No, I I get that. I'm just saying when you when you go on to Puck Money and you look at Geeky's line combinations without Poshnock, there's like nothing there. There's there's very little production. Again, the Steves Geeky Lindholm line, they were okay, and they played about a hundred minutes together, maybe a little bit more. Decent chunk of time together. But my point in all of this is if Geeky can prove that he's not just a power play merchant or David Posternach merchant, and he can be his own guy on his own line. Well, now you can start to split up your talent a little bit, and maybe you have a top six of Zaka, or honestly, maybe like Minton, maybe Minton centering Pasternak and Paterka. So now you have uh Pashtunach who is a hundred plus point guy, Praterka, who I expect, we'll get to him in a second. I expect him to be a 65 at least point guy plus, and a young kid in Minton, and that should bolster Minton's production too. But if that's a line, and then you have a second line of Zaka and Geeky, who can carry his own weight as can Zaka, and then your third guy with them is a Hagens, just for an example, or maybe it's Middlestaad, maybe it's Husendinoff, but could be Hagen's, right? Well, now you're starting to talk about a lineup that has more balance and depth scoring and higher end scoring. So, but if if Geeky can't be his own guy, if he can't be Geeky, was I want to say the the third leading goal scorer in the NHL for a calendar stretch. Now, much of that was with Pasternock, but if he can be 80% of that without Pasternach, all right, that's decent, that's decent depth of the Bruins. Okay, I don't expect Geeky to be better without Poshanach than with them, but can he be close to what he was without him? I'm I'm I have my questions, but hey, if he can, that's a great development for the Bruins. So that's my second question. First question is what happens with Zaka? Second question, can Morgan Geeky more or less carry his own line without Pashtunak, or do the Bruins need to keep him stapled on Pashtunak's line because he can't be that? All right, my third question is will JJ Peterka have a bounce back season? And to me, I I fully expect this. I think this is pretty much a lock. He had 68 points in 77 games with Buffalo a couple of years ago. That dipped down to 47 points in 82 games this past year with Utah. Now, granted, he's a lock for at least 25 goals. He's hit the 25 goal mark the last three seasons. So he should give the Bruins at least 25 to 35 goals, I think, this year. But the 47 points last year in Utah, I that is not gonna happen again with the Bruins. He will have a bounce back year, whether he's playing with Pasternak or not. I expect him to bounce back and surpass 47 points. But I think, and I've said it on this show before, but with Utah, there was just not enough of a need for his skill set. Like the Utah already had Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Dylan Gunther, Nick Schmoltz. Like, there's there's some serious talent, offensive talent on that roster that has been there longer than Praturka. So if Praturka, and like I don't think it's just a Praturka thing. If Praturka was playing with Utah this whole time, and let's say Nick Schmoltz was in Buffalo, and he entered the fold last year after Petrka had been there for three or four years or whatever, I think it would have been Nick Schmoltz who would have been on the outside looking in at times because they're because he didn't have the same familiarity that the other guys already had in that system, and there's kind of a redundancy with some of their speed and skill there. Whereas he comes to Boston and all of a sudden his skill set is unique to the Bruins because outside of David Posternach, they don't really have any explosive offensive guys. You hope James Higgins can be that, right? But in terms of guys that have a little bit more experience, so you add him to this lineup because Elias Lindholm skates with a piano on his back, and that's that's a bad joke. I shouldn't say that because he has a back injury. I take that back. Um, but he's not the fleetest of foot, right? And Morgan Geeky, guy can wire a puck, not the fastest skater. Pavel Zaka. Zaka can skate. I would not call him explosive, but he can skate. Um, you know, who's Nedinoff, he can move, he can jet. Don't want to take anything away from his skating. Okay, he's a smaller guy, but he can definitely skate. Fraser Minton, he can skate, he's still developing, but again, Minton's not, I wouldn't call Minton a burner. He's that doesn't mean he's not a good skater. So I'm just saying there's definitely a need for an offensive guy who can really scoot up the ice. And I think James Higgins in time will be that for the Bruins too. But Petrka brings an element of explosiveness and offensive creativity and finish that will be welcomed to this Bruins lineup and he'll be utilized as such. He'll be featured prominently on power play time. He'll be featured in top six offensive minutes with some, again, if it's with Posternock, then forget it. He's he'll he'll clear 47 points by January. So, yes, I do think JJ Paterka will have a bounce back season for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of fit and opportunity and yes, his skill set. But I don't think that last year in Utah was a down year because he's not capable. I think his skill set was a bit redundant, and I think that the coaching staff trusted guys that share similar skill sets that have already been there. So it just, you know, it just didn't work out. It wasn't a fit, and and and you know, Utah moved on, and I think the Bruins will benefit from it, as do I think Will Peterka. The next question that I have, and I mentioned some of these names a minute ago, but can the Bruins young guys take another step forward next year? To me, this is massive. This is massive. And we can talk about Fraser Minton and Marathous and the Dinah because they played a full season with the Bruins last year. A couple other names I want to throw in here. Obviously, James Higgins in his first full season, we expect in Boston. Frederick Brunei, can Frederick Brunei take that step to the next level? Matt Pachra, what does Matt Pachra do next year? Again, still unsigned as an RFA, but what is his future in Boston? What's his role? Because Matt Pachra might have to break into the lineup in a fourth-line role, maybe, if the Bruins are willing to, you know, put him in over a corale, but that doesn't mean that he can't move up in the lineup, or maybe he starts in the third line. I don't know. These are these are all questions that I have. And then later in the year, does Dean Laterno, does he turn pro after his junior year at BC? I think a lot of people expect him to. What side of 95 that's on? I guess we'll see. But if Dean Laterno does something similar to James Higgins last year where he jumps into the lineup in the spring, what does he do with it? Does Dean Laterno have a Porter Martin-esque impact right away where people are looking at him saying, Oh my, who is this kid? Not that people didn't know who Porter Martin was, but just in terms of wow, that that young bursting onto the scene, killing it. So not to put that pressure on Dean, I'm just saying, if all of these things happen, if if Fraser Minton goes from 35 points last year to 45 points next year, and again, I think it depends on who he plays with, because if he plays with Poshnock all year, maybe he's a 45 to 55 point guy. If he doesn't play with Pashtenok and he deals with some sophomore slumps, maybe he still hovers around 35 points. Okay, but if Minton can take a step forward, if Husandinoff can go from 33 points to 37 or 40, if Higgins can have 35 points in this first full season, if Dean Laterno bursts onto the scene in the spring, carves out a big role for himself. You see the promise there. If Frederick Brunet can take advantage of an opportunity and cement Himself as an NHL everyday player. If Matt Pachra, right, if he can stay stick around in the lineup all year. I know these are a lot of ifs, but if half of these things happen and you're David Pashnok and you're Charlie McAvoy and you're looking at these developments, you're happy. But at least you see, you know what, I'm not going to have to do this all by myself because these kids are going to be helping me along the way and they're and they're the future too. But if Minton has a down year, if Minton goes from 35 points to 30, if Husadinoff goes from 33 points to 25, if Higgins has 15 points in his rookie year and is up and down from Providence, if Laterno stays in Providence when he gets called up, or when he when Laterno signs pro, if he is, if he's in Providence all spring and not Boston, if Frederick Brune is a depth defenseman and gets waived, if Matt Patra gets traded or you know plays minimal fourth line minutes in and out of line, whatever. If all of these negatives happen, which again, I don't think they all would, but some of them could, then your Poshnock, your McAvoy, you're looking around, what do we got here? Because we're not much closer to a championship than we were last year, whatever. So I just think it's unfair. I think it's unfair to put all this pressure on these young kids hitting right away, but it is the reality that them and the Bruins are in right now. If the Bruins want to win a championship with David Poshinock, with Charlie McAvoy, with Jeremy Swayman, with James Higgins, with Fraser Minton, with Husadina, with Dean Laterno, with Will Zellers eventually, right? We'll see what happens with Zellers. I want to see what he does at North Dakota. I think he'll be in Providence uh next spring as well. Less likely, if I had to pick between Zellers and Laterno being in Boston next spring, I would say Laterno. I feel like Will Zellars is the prime candidate to go to Providence next year after his season ends at North Dakota and then come back for training camp in the 27-28 training camp and see if he can make a team then. But in any event, if the Bruins want to win a Stanley Cup championship with their current core in their prime and their young and up-and-coming core, well, we all know who David Posternock is. He's one of the best players in the world. He was ranked the second winger in hockey recently for the second year in a row, according to Angel.com, which I don't think anybody would uh disagree with. But we know who he is. Like he has cemented who he is. So we need to see if the younger players can be what we hope they could be. And again, fair or unfair, that pressure does exist. So this is a storyline to keep track of. Because you know what? When the Bruins did win the Stanley Cup back in 2011, again, not all not all situations are the same. But if David Creichi doesn't burst onto the scene in the 07-08 season, if Lucich doesn't do the same, if you know, uh again, I mean Kessel did, and then he was used as trade bait. But when you when you saw Lucic and Craichi in 0708, when you saw those guys burst onto the scene and you said, okay, these guys join Kessel, these guys join Bergeron when he comes back healthy next year, like you started to see, okay, this team could be something led by Chara, you know, and you know, you add players along the way, but you have to see that the youth um have that promise and that potential. So next year's a big year, I think, for everybody. Um, again, fair or unfair. My next question is how do the Bruins shore up their defense? Okay, and and when I say this, I mean on the ice in in terms of personnel. We all know there's an overabundance right now of rostered NHL defensemen or capable NHL defensemen between Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zodoroff, Will Borgan, Connor Clifton, Mason Lawai, Henry Yokiharyu, Jordan Harris, Jonathan Aspro, and Frederick Brunei. You got 10 guys right there for theoretically with an extra D spot, seven spots. Now, the first six games, you're without McAvoy, so that opens up a at least a spot. But I'm curious how the Bruins shore up their decor. I know players lose games to injury, and sometimes performance makes them get scratched. So a lot of these guys will be will be playing anyway at some point. But the reality is guys are gonna have to either be traded or waived before the start of the opening night to make you know make ends meet, to make the roster make sense, uh, to be roster compliant. And I'm I'm curious to see how it all shakes out. And then on the ice, the Bruins they had their bacon saved time and time again last year by Jeremy Swayman, and at times to his credit, Jonas Corpusalo, where now Michael D. DPH will have to showcase that he can do the same um next year for the Bruins. But their goaltending, again, primarily Swayman, saved their ass last year. The Bruins give up a lot of opportunities. The Bruins' goals, goals against expected, were through the roof. Their high danger and medium danger chances against were through the roof compared to the NHL. So, you know, clearly, and the listen, the Bruins got to 100 points and made the playoffs, okay? So credit to them. But again, a lot of that's on the fact that Jeremy Swayman was a Vesna finalist. So you can't rely on that every year. You know, yes, Swayman has to carry his weight and be that guy. I'm not trying to absolve him from that duty, but realistically, to be that player every year is, you know, it's you're asking somebody to be near perfect all the time, and that's just not human nature. So the Bruins implemented a bit of a hybrid zone and man-on-man defensive structure last year uh without being in that coach's room. I think it's tough for any of us to fully know exactly what the X's and O's are and what players' assignments are supposed to be at all times. When do you switch off from man to man to zone? Is it more of an on the fly thing? Is it a D pair? Is it is a deep D pair to D pair, line to line? Do certain lines play zone while other lines play man on man for a period and they switch like who knows how how they go about it exactly. But what I do know is the Bruins, they were bend, bend, bend, but don't break a lot, and they would have broken if not for their goaltender. So what can the defenseman do better next year? And not just the D-man, obviously, it's a team game. So forwards and defense as a as a five-man unit, what can they do better next year to avoid having so many high danger chances against? And is it is it just a is it a reps thing? Do the coaches have to make some tweaks? I'm sure there's probably a lot of it, but that's a question that I have. How does the Bruins blue line iron itself out in terms of personnel? And then structurally, how can the Bruins defense core and team defense round out to not rely so heavily on goaltending all the time? And then my final question is involving goaltending, and it's basically asking will Jeremy Swayman be great again? I know he can be great again, but will he be? Because for all the things I just mentioned with the Bruins defense, if they can't figure out their defensive structure to be to be a team that gives up less uh scoring chances against, I'm not talking shots because not all shots are dangerous scoring chances, but the Bruins give up high danger scoring chances and medium danger scoring chances more than anybody in the league, pretty much. So if the Bruins can't rectify that, will Jeremy Swayman be as good as he was last year, which was a Vesna finalist? And some of that will be predicated on Michael Di Pietro. And can D Pietro carry his weight and not put too much strain on Swayman's uh work schedule workload? So will Jeremy Swayman once again be a Vesna finalist or thereabouts? Because if he can be, well, that's probably gonna give us a bit of a sneak a peek at to what the Bruins you know possibilities could be to make the playoffs next year. And you know, if the Bruins can show up their defensive uh chances against and have Vesna caliber goaltending, then you know they could have, you know, they should be a playoff team again, or at least battling for a spot, right? So Swayman had 31 wins last year, and he's projected to have 33 next year. We'll see if that happens, but if it does, and DPH gets another 10-12 wins, and you have the loser point involved, plus there's two more games on the schedule. I guess I should account for that too. But if if if Swayman can give you 33 wins and DPH gives you 10 to 15, then you know, add in the loser point for some losses, and the Bruins should be battling for a playoff spot. So that's my question on Jeremy Swayman. I know he can be great, but will he be great again? Which which season of the last two was the outlier? Was it the 24-25 season or the 25-26 season? I think it's a 25-26 season. That's more of who he is. But right now, that's my question going to next year. Will he be great again? So that'll do it for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. As I said earlier, I will be doing a mailbag episode later on this week. So please send me your questions here on YouTube. You can tweet at me at Brian D. Fleas underscore. You can tweet at the show at the puck ups. You can email me at infothepuckups.com. So thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you on Friday.