Bruins Report Card: Two Stars Shine, One Question Remains

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By the end of the 2024-25 season, the Boston Bruins appeared to have found their top line.

David Pastrnak, Morgan Geekie, and Elias Lindholm made up the first line late last season. Early in training camp, it was clear that new head coach Marco Sturm was keeping it the same.

Sturm did not hesitate to switch up the group when he needed a spark, but the linemates often found their way back to each other. Pastrnak took on a new role, as well as an elevated leadership role, while Geekie had another season full of career-highs. However, it was not smooth sailing for Lindholm, whose fit near the top of the lineup is in question after this season.

The line did not have the same jump they had at the end of 2024-25. They were outscored 19-16, outshot 162-155, and outattempted 384-331 this season.

At the end of the season, Cam Neely said the Bruins will try to rectify their need for a No. 1 center.

DAVID PASTRNAK: A​

Season Stats: GP: 77; G: 29, A: 71, Pts: 100; +/-: +4, PIM: 72; ATOI: 20:39

Playoff Stats: GP: 6; G: 3, A: 4, Pts: 7; +/-: -7, PIM: 8; ATOI: 20:58

Expectations​

David Pastrnak is the best player on the Bruins roster. I don’t need to remind anybody. He entered the season coming off three straight 100-point seasons. This season, most of the weight was on him after the departure of Brad Marchand at last year’s trade deadline. Pastrnak already drove the bus on offense, but he was one of the core pieces that prevented the Bruins from undergoing a full teardown.

This season was also the Bruins’ first full one without a captain, and similarly to Charlie McAvoy, Pastrnak had a greater leadership role on his shoulders. He started in that greater role last season, as he was the only alternate captain playing in the last 18 games.

He missed the first few days of training camp, but once he returned, the first line was set.

Season Review​

Pastrnak turned into a playmaker this season, and he recorded a career-high 71 assists. He tied Connor McDavid for the league lead in primary assists with 57. Pastrnak still hit 100 points, marking the fourth straight season, and he now sits with 933 career points.

Last week, Pastrnak was named to the Second All-Star Team for the third consecutive season.

He scored 29 goals, which is the lowest goals-per-game (0.38) he has recorded in a season since his second in the NHL (0.29).

“That’s all on him,” Marco Sturm said about Pastrnak’s playmaking this season. “I never really worked with him. I always watched him. So I can’t even give you a real answer. I think he just, as a player, you kind of go through phases, and I think he had a long stretch where, all of a sudden, he made more plays than ever.”

Sturm occasionally put the lines in a blender, and oftentimes played a young player like Marat Khusnutdinov, Fraser Minten, or both with Pastrnak. Together, the three outscored opponents 14-6 this season, finishing with the second best goal differential among Bruins’ forward lines.

Pastrnak led the team in scoring (3-4–7) during the playoffs, but his minus-7 tied with Pavel Zacha for the team’s worst.

Future​

“I’m turning 30 in a couple weeks. You know, I had one sniff at the Cup so far. It gets harder every single year,” Pastrnak said after Game 6. At the end-of-season press conference, Don Sweeney responded, saying Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron were asking the same questions when Pastrnak entered the league.

Pastrnak is signed through the 2030-31 season with an $11.25 million cap hit. He has a full no-movement clause until 2028-29, and he has trade protection throughout the rest of his contract. He is not going anywhere unless he dictates it’s time to move on.

Leadership was a “full group effort,” said Pastrnak, and it will continue to be regardless of whether the Bruins name a captain or not.

Pastrnak certainly pitched a case to be named the next captain:

MORGAN GEEKIE: A​

Season Stats: GP: 81; G: 39, A: 29, Pts: 68; +/-: -5, PIM: 22; ATOI: 17:24

Playoff Stats: GP: 6; G: 2, A: 2, Pts: 4; +/-: -1, PIM: 6; ATOI: 18:11

Expectations​

Morgan Geekie, after a slow start last year, broke out and scored 33 goals. After the season, he signed a six-year extension that kept him in Boston until the end of the 2030-31 season. Even if he could produce 20 goals, the contract would be worth it.

He found success alongside both Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm last season, and they were looking to roll that into this season.

In October, ESPN listed Geekie at the top of their list of “regression candidates,” citing his 22.0% shooting percentage from the 2024-25 season.

Season Review​

Geekie not only found the scoring touch that earned him a six-year deal last summer, but he expanded on it. He led the team with 39 goals, which ranked him 16th in the league. He also had 12 power-play goals, which also led the team. Both numbers are career-highs.

He started the season on fire, avoiding the slow start that held him back in previous seasons. By the holiday break, Geekie had 25 goals, only five behind Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead. That rate slowed down, coupled with some extensive goal-scoring droughts, but he still ended the season one shy of 40. He connected on 21.5% of his 181 shots, slightly down from last year while firing more shots (150).

“For me, scoring goals was something that I felt personally that maybe that was a bit of my responsibility, and you take a lot of pride in that as a player and whatever your role is going to be,” Geekie said on breakup day. “I think for me, I learned a lot. You just have to impact the game in different ways, but I think as those streaks kind of wore on I kind of got farther and farther away from shooting the puck and kind of giving it a chance to go in. I think I just maybe lost confidence in maybe not my ability to shoot, but if you don’t think you’re going to score, you’re probably not going to score.”

He also has one of the hardest shots on the Bruins’ roster, hitting over 100 mph twice this season.

At times, Marco Sturm separated Geekie and Pastrnak. Geekie occasionally ran as the third-line right wing, but he did not look as comfortable as he did alongside Pastrnak. This season, Pastrnak had the primary assist on 19 of Geekie’s 39 goals, and there is a case to keep them together in the future.

Come playoffs, Geekie finished with four points (2-2–4) and a minus-1 rating.

Future​

Geekie is here to stay, and his contract already looks like a favorable deal for the black and gold. He finished second on the team in points, and his contract only accounts for 5.3% of the team’s salary cap. He will be 32 when his contract expires in 2031.

Geekie adjusted to Marco Sturm’s system and, after the season, told reporters he realized he could still learn a new one. Though he played elsewhere in the lineup, he proved stronger on the left wing with Pastrnak on the opposite side.

Every season of Geekie’s career has been an improvement on the last. With talks of regression, he did the exact opposite and provided the Bruins with one of their more valuable contracts over the next five years.

ELIAS LINDHOLM: C​

Season Stats: GP: 69; G: 17, A: 31, Pts: 48; +/-: -7, PIM: 38; ATOI: 17:53

Playoff Stats: GP: 6; G: 2, A: 0, Pts: 2; +/-: -3, PIM: 2; ATOI: 18:42

Expectations​

Elias Lindholm had high expectations when he signed on July 1, 2024. There was a role for him, one the Bruins desperately needed to fill. However, he did not meet those high expectations in the 2024-25 season, but a fresh start under a new defensive-minded head coach provided some more optimism.

Lindholm had a productive showing for Team Sweden at the 2025 IIHF World Championships and wanted to use that to flush the 2024-25 season. His two-way game is his calling card, and he showed flashes of offense on the Flames’ top line playing alongside Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk. He peaked at 82 points in 2021-22, dropped to 64 in 2022-23, and has not hit 50 since.

Lindholm had back issues last season, hampering his performance, but he did not miss any time. He said he felt 100% at the beginning of the season.

Season Review​

The first line was formed late last season, and Marco Sturm kept them together throughout this campaign. He used Lindholm on both sides of special teams, and he posted 20 power play points for the first time since his Calgary days.

While the power play numbers were nice, the 5-on-5 numbers were not. Only 21 of his points came at 5-on-5. The Bruins were outshot, outscored, and outchanced during 5-on-5 play with Lindholm on the ice.

The back problems also returned. The Bruins’ long bus trip home from New York did not help. Lindholm missed time before the Olympics and struggled to fully recover.

“I felt good until the injury and then pushed myself real hard to be able to go to the Olympics. Kind of a long shot, but after the injection obviously I ended up going,” Lindholm said after the season. “After that, it was tough to kind of recover, I think going over there, and my body was not great, but battled through and then came back and kind of kept grinding and couldn’t find the confidence or stuff like that to play my game.”

Ahead of the Olympic break, Lindholm produced at a 0.84 points-per-game pace. After the break, that number fell to 0.44.

Down the stretch, Lindholm played on the third line with Geekie and the rotating cast of left wingers. He finished the playoffs on the second line after Viktor Arvidsson’s injury and Marco Sturm’s line shuffle.

Lindholm scored twice in six playoff games, and he finished with a minus-3 rating.

Future​

Lindholm is not the No. 1 center the Bruins signed, and Cam Neely made that clear when he said the team did not have a player of that caliber after the season.

He is locked into his contract until 2031, when he will be 36, and there is a full no-movement clause until May 31, 2029. He has a modified no-trade clause in the last two years of his contract. The back issues do not make it look any better, either.

While Lindholm is not the Bruins’ 1C, there is a spot for him on the roster. Both Pavel Zacha and Fraser Minten are capable of moving up the lineup, leaving Lindholm as an option in the middle-six. Though paying $7.75 million to a third-line center is not ideal, it might be the reality of the next few years of Lindholm’s contract.

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