Bruins Roster Projection: Predicting Lines Ahead Of Opening Night

Believe it or not, there’s just one week to go before the Bruins and the rest of the NHL open the 2024-25 season.

Boston still has a few preseason games to play before dropping the puck for real on Tuesday, Oct. 7, in Florida against the defending Stanley Cup champions. From the outside, it appears the roster is largely set with a veteran-heavy core back in the fold on Causeway.

That being said, there are still some roster moves that will shake out, and we’ve done our best with what information we have right now to project Jim Montgomery’s opening night lineup below.

FORWARDS
Pavel Zacha — Elias Lindholm — David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand — Charlie Coyle — Morgan Geekie
Trent Frederic — Matt Poitras — Justin Brazeau
Tyler Johnson — John Beecher — Mark Kastelic

The top six feels like it should be pretty shored up — at least for now. The Bruins raised some eyebrows with a handful of roster moves over the weekend. Included was sending Fabian Lysell to Providence. In a perfect world, he would have forced the Bruins’ hand as a no-doubt option for the second-line right wing, but he apparently didn’t show them enough. Boston’s brain trust didn’t rule out he could still make the team, but it was a pretty glaring move.

The domino that falls here is Geekie slides in on Charlie Coyle’s right, and Justin Brazeau lands on the third line. Brazeau scored five goals in just 19 games last season as a bottom-six forward. He’ll be a solid option, but if someone like Lysell did come out flying, it would have made Brazeau a perfect fourth-liner. The other bottom-six question mark is Tyler Johnson. The veteran is hanging around and has impressed. If he makes the roster, maybe the line of thinking is the team wants to put out its smartest, most responsible lineup until the Jeremy Swayman situation is settled. The Johnson decision might ultimately come down to whether Max Jones — who would bring plenty to the lineup — is healthy enough to be in the lineup right away.

One thing to add here: In the season premiere of “Behind the B,” general manager Don Sweeney acknowledged a desire to set aside some cap space for a potential in-season forward addition. It would probably require some cap maneuvering, but the Bruins have been able to do as much in the past when needed.

DEFENSEMEN
Nikita Zadorov — Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm — Brandon Carlo
Mason Lohrei — Andrew Peeke

This grouping has been fairly set in stone once the ink dried on Zadorov’s six-year, $30 million deal signed on the first day of free agency. The Zadorov-McAvoy pairing has all the potential to be one of the NHL’s best, especially if Zadorov looks like the player he was in the playoffs last season and McAvoy can fully regain the form that made him a Norris Trophy hopeful just a couple of short years ago.

Lohrei might be one of the more important players to watch in this group and really the entire roster. If he can take a sizable step forward, it significantly raises both the floor and the ceiling of this group. He shined at various points in his 52 games (counting playoffs) last season and largely held his own. Sweeney praised the 23-year-old for his ability to take coaching, and his ability with the puck on his stick is second to none among Bruins D-men. If he can limit his learning curve mistakes, he might be a vital piece to the puzzle.

GOALIES
Joonas Korpisalo
Brandon Bussi

So, you might have heard, but Swayman won’t start the season between the pipes for Boston. The restricted free agent has yet to report, as he seeks a new contract. The Bruins sound optimistic that will eventually happen, but as Montgomery noted this week, the club will almost certainly break camp with Korpisalo as the No. 1 guy. In that case, we’ll know early just how much Boston’s system and coaching can improve a goalie. Korpisalo is coming off a tough season. His .890 save percentage was the worst of his career for a full season, down from his .904 career mark entering the season. The Bruins certainly have earned the right to believe they can get Korpisalo back on the right path in their system with goalie coach Bob Essensa getting his arms around the 30-year-old. This is probably the most talented team Korpisalo has played for to this point in his career, and he could certainly benefit from that in front of him.

Bussi, meanwhile, has yet to make his NHL debut. He has been solid at the AHL level, and it will be fascinating to see what he can do at this point if and when he gets his shot with the big club. The Bruins don’t have a back-to-back until late November, so it’s not like they’ll have to go crazy managing Korpisalo’s workload early, but they’ll work Bussi in as they see fit until Swayman’s situation gets resolved.