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After playing 2025-26 without a captain, how will Bruins address it next season?
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- After playing 2025-26 without a captain, how will Bruins address it next season?
BOSTON — The Bruins made a decision to go into the 2025-26 season without a captain for the first time in over two decades. Instead, they named three alternates : David Pastrnak , Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm .
On Sunday, after the Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs, Marco Sturm met with the media at the team's breakup day. He was asked if the captain situation would change in his second season.
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"I always said that I wanted a captain, but now being through that the first time, me as a head coach not having a captain, I thought it went really well," Sturm said. "Maybe because guys were very close to the leaders of the group, I thought they did a good job overall. Everyone had their input. There was no outsider. They always kept it really tight. So I actually didn't mind it.
"But having said that, there will be more conversations to have with Don (Sweeney) how we want to move forward," he continued. "But personally, I liked how we handled, especially the players, how they handled the situation all year long."
Sweeney said prior to the season that he believed the next captain will emerge organically.
"It comes with a lot of responsibility," the GM said in September . "So I'd like to see a little more organic, natural progression of it."
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Brad Marchand , the Bruins' last captain, was traded during the 2024-25 season when Boston missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
The Bruins returned to the postseason this year, but were eliminated by the Buffalo Sabres in six games. Sturm didn't believe having one captain wouldn't have been more beneficial than just having alternates.
"I don't think so. I really don't. I didn't see a big difference on the ice and off the ice. Nothing really changed, what I can tell," he said. "In the room, guys got used to. So I think the guys who needed to step up during the season did, and I didn't see any difference for us."
McAvoy and Pastrnak, who handled most of the team's player leadership, were on the same page about bringing the team together.
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"Leading into the year we met with Sweens, and we talked a lot about how we wanted to reestablish the culture," McAvoy said. "We spent a lot of time in the offseason doing that and trying to have a real strategic game plan on what we wanted to do, how we wanted to grow me and David as leaders, getting more people to be a part of the leadership group so another thing to look back on at the end of this year and check a box. I think we did a great job, we put some onus on guys to want to be leaders and be a part of it and everybody did amazing. We learned a lot about ourselves."
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