A new captain is in line for the Boston Bruins ahead of the 2026-27 regular season.
Among the players head coach Marco Sturm could choose for the captaincy is veteran winger David Pastrnak.
The Bruins bench boss joined the New England Hockey Journal’s Evan Marinofsky for a one-on-one conversation before training camp starts.
Sturm did not say in this interview that he would make Pastrnak the next captain, but he made it clear he admires his leadership.
“If you look at our guys now, I think David is a totally different leader than a Bergeron or Chara,” Sturm told Marinofsky.
“I do believe we have good leaders in our locker room. As a coach, he needs a strong voice in the room but can also help me out. He should be the connection between the coaches and also for the players in a lot of different areas of the game on or off the ice and can stay calm during stressful moments.”
Should the Bruins and Sturm believe Pastrnak can fulfill those requirements, then he’ll be named the captain.
“Being a captain is not easy. There’s a lot more to it than people know and think,” Sturm said.
“We will probably sit down here shortly; I know Cam [Neely] has already mentioned it. At one point, I don’t know when, like I have to ask. Do I have a captain?”
Pastrnak not afraid to address team
Earlier this spring when the Bruins faced off against the Buffalo Sabres in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he did not mind speaking up in Game 4 after trailing 4-0.
Behind the B gave a window into how Pastrnak stepped up after his team’s poor start. The Bruins went on to lose 6-1 and then in 6 games overall in the opening round to Buffalo.
“Embarrassing. We talked about it. It’s an afternoon game; we’ve got to be ready. No one showed up, and we’ve lost every battle. Boom, it’s 3-0, too many mistakes,” an angry Pastrnak said.
The forward was direct with what needed to be said in the moment during the playoff series.
Not only that, but he ripped into his teammates, demanding a better performance. It didn’t get much better, which led to the Bruins’ first-round exit against the Sabres.
Pastrnak also leads the charge offensively for the Bruins. He’s put up 100 points four seasons in a row dating back to the 2022-23 campaign.
Over that span, he’s scored the fourth-most points in the NHL at 316, which is only behind Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, and Connor McDavid.
Bruins Developing Culture under Sturm
The second-year coach of the Bruins was able to take this organization back to the postseason, but now it’s time to build off that success.
As a whole, Sturm feels like there was a lot of growth in the locker room last season. So, how did he get the team to buy into his messaging?
“I wanted to bring a clear message right from the start, and I think guys felt it,” Sturm said. “There was nothing behind it; it was just me as a coach. There was a lot of expectation coming in. No one really knew which way it was going to go, but the one thing I controlled was how I prepared and treated my players.”
Now Sturm feels like he will need to keep that success going as the Bruins coach, and perhaps he’ll have a captain to lean on this go-around for the 2026-27 campaign.
“The second year is usually the toughest one. We had a pretty damn good first year. I’m just looking to improve our team and hopefully get some guys playing even better than they did last year,” Sturm said.
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Boston Bruins need to name David Pastrnak next Captain