Boston Bruins

A grocer's money and the first NHL game on American ice

The franchise was founded in 1924 by Charles Adams, who had made his money in groceries. The brown and yellow came off the shopfronts of his First National Stores chain, and the name was settled on in general manager Art Ross's office to fit those colours. On 1 December 1924 the team played the first NHL game ever staged in the United States, at the Boston Arena. When the league shrank to six clubs by 1942, Boston was one of them, and remained so for the twenty-five years that followed.

The club moved into the Boston Garden in 1928 and stayed 67 years, closing the place with a playoff defeat to New Jersey. Its replacement opened in 1995, built nine inches from the old building's footprint, and is now TD Garden.

Six cups and the long gaps between them

Tiny Thompson in goal and Eddie Shore on defence carried the first championship in 1928-29, with two more following in 1938-39 and 1940-41. Then came the drought, broken when Bobby Orr arrived in 1966 and won rookie of the year, and Phil Esposito became the first player in the league to pass 100 points in a season. Those teams won the Stanley Cup in 1970 and again in 1972.

Ray Bourque held the defence together for more than two decades from 1979, with Cam Neely arriving by trade from Vancouver in 1987. Neither won a title in Boston. The sixth cup came in 2010-11, with Tim Thomas taking the Conn Smythe Trophy. Two more finals were lost: in six games to Chicago in 2013, and in seven to St Louis in 2019.

The high-water mark for the regular season came in 2022-23, when the team won 65 games and took 135 points, both single-season league records, along with the Presidents' Trophy. They lost in the first round. Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci both retired that summer, and the club has been trying to replace them ever since.

Sturm's first year, and a season nobody forecast

The 2024-25 campaign ended with Boston near the bottom of the standings and the roster stripped back. Marco Sturm took over as head coach for 2025-26 and the team finished 45-27-10 for 100 points, fourth in the Atlantic Division and fifth in the Eastern Conference, scoring 272 goals and conceding 250. The identity was grinding rather than pretty, and it got them into the playoffs when the expectation had been a draft lottery position.

David Pastrnak led the scoring with 100 points, 29 goals and 71 assists in 77 games. Morgan Geekie scored 39 goals and 68 points in 81 games. Charlie McAvoy put up 61 points in 69 games from the blue line. Jeremy Swayman played 55 games, won 31 of them at a 2.71 goals-against average and a.908 save percentage, and finished 28.8 goals saved above expected — which is to say he covered for a defence that was thin in front of him.

The first round drew top-seeded Buffalo. Boston lost the opener 4-3 on 19 April, levelled with a 4-2 win on the 21st, then dropped two in a row before a 2-1 overtime win on 28 April forced a sixth game. That ended 4-1 to Buffalo at TD Garden on 1 May, Pastrnak scoring the only Boston goal, Swayman making 22 saves and Alex Lyon stopping 25 of 26 at the other end. Sturm afterwards: "I just wanted them to know how proud I am, and also, now we got a little taste." The analysis since has been consistent — more skill, more speed, more production from the defence, and more scoring behind Pastrnak.

Camp, a vacant captaincy and a suspension

Training camp opened on 16 September 2026 with off-ice testing, and the first on-ice sessions ran the following day at Warrior Ice Arena. The announced camp roster was 49 players — 27 forwards, 16 defencemen and six goaltenders — to be cut to 23. Practices and morning skates at Warrior were open to the public through 23 September and again on the 27th. There are four exhibition games rather than the usual six: Washington at home on 20 September, Philadelphia at home on the 22nd, then away to Philadelphia on the 24th and Washington on the 25th.

Boston played the whole of last season without a captain, with Pastrnak, McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm wearing the A. General manager Don Sweeney has said one will be named before the opener, and Pastrnak is the favourite. Sturm on him: "David, he's a totally different leader... he just does things differently." Sweeney's framing of the season was blunter: "We're looking to test the growth of our hockey club."

McAvoy will not be there for the start of it. He was given six games by the Department of Player Safety for slashing Buffalo's Zach Benson, an appeal was denied, and he is eligible to return on 13 October against San Jose. That leaves ten waiver-eligible defencemen competing in camp for a blue line that is already crowded. Pavel Zacha's contract remains unresolved with free agency ahead of him.

The younger group is where the club has committed money. Fraser Minten signed a seven-year, $50.4 million extension on 8 September, at $7.2 million a year, after 17 goals and 35 points in 82 games. James Hagens, taken seventh overall on 27 June 2025 out of Boston College, had 37 points in 37 games as a freshman and gold with the United States at the 2025 world juniors; he signed his entry-level deal in April 2026 after six AHL games with Providence, and scored six goals in two games at this month's prospects showcase. He is 19. Matt Poitras and Frederic Brunet are in the same conversation.

The 2026-27 diary

The schedule released on 16 July gives Boston 42 home dates, 17 of them at weekends and nine of those matinees. It starts on 29 September against the New York Rangers at 8pm on ESPN, and there are 14 sets of back-to-back games, the first on 2-3 October. Nine of the eleven games in November are at home. McAvoy's return on 13 October falls on the league's Frozen Frenzy night of staggered starts.

The date circled hardest is 1 December, when Bergeron's No. 37 goes to the rafters before a 7.30pm game against Colorado. Buffalo visit on 5 January on TNT. The season closes with four Atlantic Division road games, including the first trip back to Buffalo since the playoff series, the last of them in Tampa Bay on 10 April. There is no outdoor game on the calendar.

A night on Causeway Street

TD Garden holds 17,850 for hockey and averaged roughly that last season, which is the building effectively full. It is a compact bowl and, when the team gets a run of play going, among the loudest rooms in the league. Todd Angilly, a bartender in the building before he got the job, has sung both anthems since 2019, following Rene Rancourt.

The cues are fixed. Kernkraft 400 after a Boston goal, with the crowd on the hook; The Standells' "Dirty Water" after a win, as it has been since the early 1990s; a large flag passed hand to hand across the lower bowl; "Let's Go Bruins" before the puck drops and again whenever a game tightens late. The Hub Vision board carries replays, graphics and fan cameras through stoppages.

The cost is the sticking point. A review of the building rated value two out of five, with tickets well north of $100 even through a rebuild, parking between $30 and $65, and concessions among the most expensive in the league — Sal's oversized pizza slices and Sam Adams and Harpoon beer zones included. Concourse widening and new social spaces such as the Rafters Club on Level 9 have come out of recent renovations.