The Boston Bruins have finished their coaching search and landed on former Bruins forward Marco Sturm. Sturm had spent the last seven seasons in the Los Angeles Kings organization, both as an assistant at the NHL level and as the head coach in the AHL. He gets his first crack as an NHL coach for a team that finished tied for last in the Eastern Conference and has very few in the way of likely impact prospects on the way. He is going to have his work cut out for him.

The good news for Sturm is that having a healthy Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm for the 2025-26 season will be a difference-maker in and of itself. Provided those two stay healthy, and goalie Jeremy Swayman rebounds well, the team should improve almost regardless of what Sturm does in terms of game planning.

Outside of some health and rebounds, more than anything, Sturm needs to find a way to get more scoring out of the depth. The fourth line started the season well, and David Pastrnak is who he is, but in between there wasn't very much to write home about. McAvoy and Lindholm will undoubtedly improve the team on the defensive end, so it'll be up to Sturm (and GM Don Sweeney) to improve the middle of the roster. To that end, it'll be fascinating to see how that (or if that) happens because Sturm is coming from an organization that lived by its defensive ability. Some of that rubbing off on Boston will help the team, but that's only half the game. The Bruins need more scoring and if Sturm can't squeeze more out of the second and third lines, especially with Brad Marchand's departure, then it'll be a tall order to get back to the postseason.

If nothing else, improving Boston's defence should help Swayman's numbers, which is good news for us fantasy players. The question is whether there is more scoring to go along with it, and that's very much an open-ended question for the next 10 months.