3 Bruins Who Need to Improve in 2024-25
In the last two seasons, the Boston Bruins have had incredibly impactful seasons come from some surprising names. Guys like Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, and Trent Frederic have all recently had huge improvements from the season before. The improved players have been a significant part of the team’s success over the past two seasons, and if they want to be successful again in 2024-25, they will need some guys to improve from the previous season.
Luckily, there aren’t any guys on the Bruins’ roster who are coming off of a huge down-season. A lot of these guys don’t need huge improvements in order to be impactful for the 2024-25 season.
Hampus Lindholm
The Bruins defenseman had an out-of-this-world season in 2022-23 when he had 53 points in 80 games, well, well above his previous career high in 2014-15 when he had 34 points in 78 games. Last season, he came back down to his career averages with three goals and 26 points in 73 games. Hampus Lindholm is a huge part of the blue line, and will be for the foreseeable future. They are a better team when he is on the ice than when he is off and has quickly become a vital part of the roster. But it would still be nice to see him get a bit closer to his numbers in 2022-23 in the upcoming season.
The Bruins had their struggles on defense last season, both with generating offense and being responsible in their own zone. They had stretches where they looked great and other times it was clear that the terrific play of the goaltending was covering up some larger issues. The base of the blue line is there, and the additions of Mason Lohrei and Nikita Zadorov should help fill holes, but getting improvement out of Lindholm would also go a long way to strengthening the defense. He is coming off of a very up-and-down postseason, and will be looking to be more consistent this upcoming season.
Johnny Beecher
Johnny Beecher’s 2023-24 season, his rookie season, had its ups and downs like many first-year players. It was a fantastic learning experience though and you could see the improvements he was making, culminating in a really solid playoff performance. Similar to fellow rookie Lohrei, there is a belief that their solid postseasons could turn into improved 2024-25 seasons.
Beecher, the Bruins 2019 first-round draft pick, had seven goals and 10 points in 52 games last season, averaging around 10:30 of ice time a night. He also played with the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League for a 17-game stretch, contributing four goals and eight points down there.
Mark Kastelic
Mark Kastelic, one of the newest members of the Bruins, has struggled to really get his NHL career going. He’s averaged less than 10 minutes of ice time a night the last three seasons with the Ottawa Senators and has yet to play a full NHL season. Now though, with a change of scenery, there is hopefully a chance to see some improvements out of him and take a step forward in the 2024-25 season.
Kastelic is most likely to start on the wing of the fourth line. He had 10 points in 63 games last season and 11 points in 65 games the season prior to that. The first goal for Kastelic will be making the Bruins roster out of training camp, and if he does, getting himself up to 15-20 points would be a great improvement for his 2024-25 season and solid numbers for a fourth-line guy who doesn’t get a ton of minutes.
