“I say this every year; I think it was instilled from the leaders from the Bruins, going back to Eddie Shore, Milt Schmidt, Johnny Bucyk, Fernie Flaman, Eddie Sandford, Ray Bourque, Rick Middleton, Terry O’Reilly, Wayne Cashman – I think they all set the tone,” Sweeney said. “It’s not only important what you do on the ice, but it’s what you do off the ice.”
Head coach Marco Sturm and some of his players caught up with the media ahead of the round. Here’s what they had to say as the 2026-27 NHL season approaches.
Sturm Enters Year Two with Confidence
Sturm is coming off a 100-point rookie season as an NHL head coach, and he is only looking to build on the initial success. After taking a brief time away from hockey at the beginning of the summer, Sturm dove into work, preparing the Bruins’ message and systems for training camp, which opens on Sept. 16 at Warrior Ice Arena.
“You go back at it as a coach, as a coaching staff, and try to find areas where we can get better and make a difference this year. There’s a lot of things going on with the draft, free agency, new signings, trades, whatever it is. You kind of try to adapt a few things, a few players, too, and here we are,” Sturm said. “I am really happy and very excited to be back and get things going again.”
Boston welcomed a new face to Sturm’s group in June with the hiring of Matt McIlvane as an assistant coach. The duo was behind the bench together when Germany earned silver at the 2018 Olympics and most recently coached against each other in the American Hockey League.
“One of the reasons I brought in Matt is I worked with him before. He’s a great communicator, pays a lot of attention to details and he’s a teacher,” Sturm said. “I really believe he’s going to be a great fit for our D-corps. We still have some younger guys, too, who he can really develop.”
