Neely weighs in on Bruins not naming a captain again this season

The Boston Bruins have not had a captain in place since the team traded Brad Marchand to the Florida Panthers in March 2025.

Granted, that vacancy atop Boston’s leadership hierarchy didn’t appear to negatively impact Marco Sturm’s club last season.

Behind an established veteran grouping led by David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy, the Bruins put a miserable, cellar-dwelling 2024-25 campaign in the rearview mirror en route to a brief playoff appearance this spring.

Stitching the “C” on one player’s sweater still feels like an expected outcome this fall as a retooling Boston roster looks to build off of last year’s unexpected results. 

But, Bruins president Cam Neely stressed on Monday that the Bruins aren’t necessarily in a rush to appoint a captain this season — at least if one player in particular doesn’t separate himself from the pack. 

“I don’t know if you necessarily need to have a guy unless there is that one guy that really stands out,” Neely said Monday while appearing on the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon. “We’ve been blessed to have great captains here.

“From [Ray] Bourque, [Zdeno] Chara, [Patrice] Bergeron. We like leaders, not followers. So you can hopefully have 20 leaders. That’s the one thing that we look at: who is going to help lead the team? Maybe it’s more of a tradition in hockey where you have a letter on your sweater. Don [Sweeney], Marco, and I are going to sit down shortly to talk about that.”

Whereas Boston’s leadership grouping is anchored by its two longest-tenured players, Pastrnak and McAvoy, several other veterans like Hampus Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov have also emerged as vocal contributors and tone-setters in the Bruins’ dressing room. 

Speaking after Boston’s season came to an end in early May, Sturm echoed a similar sentiment to Neely as far as the potential for the Bruins to move forward without one set captain in place. 

“I always said I wanted a captain,” Sturm said. “But now, being through it the first time [with] me as a head coach and not having a captain, I thought it went really well.  Just maybe because guys were really close, the leadership group.

“I thought they did a good job overall. Everyone had their input. There were no outsiders. We always kept it really tight. So I actually didn’t mind it. But having said that, there will be more conversations to have with Don [Sweeney] on how we are going to move forward. But personally, I liked how we handled it — especially the players and how they handle the situation all year long.”

Pastrnak’s standing as one of hockey’s elite offensive talents, his track record of being a consistent presence in the lineup, and his emerging voice amid an overhauled leadership core in the last few years make him an appealing option if Boston does single out one player worth donning the “C.”

But, speaking in May, Pastrnak praised the collective effort of Boston’s roster to prop up a room that will inject even more young talent into its depth chart in 2026 and beyond. 

“It was a full group effort,” Pastrnak said. “Everybody helped us. There’s so many leaders. And during the year, the season is so long. So early on, you lean more on certain guys, the older guys and the more experienced guys.

“But as the season goes and you’ve been together for a while, there are a lot of guys [who] are a younger age and middle-aged stepping up as a leader.”

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.