Bruins announce 2025 Opening Night roster

After rounds and rounds of cuts, Monday afternoon came with the officially official naming of the Bruins' roster for Wednesday's Opening Night.

The Bruins failed to leave much to the imagination when it came to their roster, really, as the Black and Gold made their final camp cuts on Sunday. And with a lack of waiver-wire movement in Boston in either direction (not a bad thing for the B's), 5 p.m. came with mere confirmation for the club.

"We got guys that are going to be tough to play against, hard to play against," Bruins team president Cam Neely said. "Teams are going to circle playing against the Bruins and go, ‘Oh damn, we got to play them tonight’.

"That's the type of lineup that we put together, knowing that hopefully throughout the year we can add some offense somewhere. Our specialty teams have to get better. They should be able to get better. There's no reason for them not to be better. So, I think that's an area of improvement with being healthy on the backend and also goaltending. Those are areas I really believe we're going to improve upon. It's just a matter of making sure that we're keeping the puck out of our net, because it's going to be a little bit more challenging to score some goals."

And with the names known, and a few more practices under their belt, here's how things are projected to line up for Sturm on Night 1 behind the bench...

The Bruins are going to stick with their top line from a season ago, and that's because there's really no reason to mess with a good thing. Together for just under 94 five-on-five minutes last season, the Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line outshot opponents 55-38 and outscored them 16-4. That rates out to a ridiculous 10.22 goals per 60 minutes. Obviously, the small sample size inflates that success and makes 'em look like the best thing since the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line that torched the NHL for half a decade, but this line is without question the B's top scoring threat and will be a line that Sturm has to rely on given the openly-acknowledged scoring depth issues they may have.

The Bruins are still trying to figure out exactly what they have with this trio, but it does appear that this will be Boston's second line after they finished their preseason with a goal in last Saturday's win over the Rangers. The line will have plenty of speed, but its defensive issues could be glaring, as Sturm has repeatedly cited Mittelstadt's turnover issues in camp.

In an offseason headlined by talk of 'young players' making their push onto the Boston roster, Fraser Minten proved to be the only one who did exactly that. And the Bruins are going to do what they can to make sure that Minten has a safe landing spot, as he will begin his 2025-26 season with Tanner Jeannot and Mikey Eyssimont on his line as his bodyguards.

"I thought that line was really effective, against the Rangers," Sweeney said of his third line. "They're setting the tone to be very direct. [Eyssimont] played really well against the Rangers there, in New York. And again, he's excited about that opportunity, you know, playing a little more of an elevated role."

Expect heavy defensive-zone work for this trio, with Khusnutdinov being its wild card as a speed and skill guy.

To keep it simple, the Bruins elected to keep Johnny Beecher and Jeffrey Viel over higher-upside offensive players such as Matej Blumel, Fabian Lysell, and Alex Steeves because of their fits for what the Bruins want to be this year.

"[Viel] had a really good year last year. We know he can play and he's got a style, that abrasiveness that we've we value," Sweeney said. "in [Beecher]'s case, he's got PK and faceoff elements that are important. We talked about specialty teams, he's going to have to earn his job back in some ways."

Charlie McAvoy is healthy and ready to go. So much so that the Bruins are going to ask him to help Mason Lohrei get back to the basics with his game after a historically bad season on the plus-minus front in 2024-25.

The best thing that you could say about the Bruins' preseason play was not about the team itself, but about defenseman Hampus Lindholm. Skating in what was his first NHL game action in almost a damn calendar year, Lindholm's skating looked good and effective. And it doesn't appear like he's been permanently altered by the fractured patella that ended his 2024-25 season after some rehab complications. That alone is a massive lift.

The Bruins appear set to open the year with one of last year's lone bright spots as its third pairing, with Nikita Zadorov slated to skate opposite Henri Jokiharju. In this duo's over 273 minutes of five-on-five play together last season, the Bruins outscored opponents 12-5 during. And Zadorov-Jokiharju were on the ice for just 1.1 goals against per 60, which was the lowest per-60 out of any Boston defensive pairing that logged at least 200 minutes last year.

The Haverhill, Mass. native beat out Jonathan Aspirot for the seventh defenseman spot out of the gate on this year's roster. Limited viewings, of course, but Harris is a defenseman who is not afraid to chip offensively and activate down low in search of some offense. The B's might need that.

No surprises here. The Bruins feel good about their goaltending room after a disjointed 2024-25 season, and both Korpisalo (.931 save percentage) and Swayman (.942) put forth some excellent preseason numbers. The Bruins are going to need elite goaltending in 2025-26 if they're going to hit their ceiling.