1 week Ago By Conor Ryan
By Conor Ryan COMMENTARY A miserable Bruins season is finally nearing its end. Boston has just four more games left on the regular-season docket before ushering in what stands to be a long and eventful offseason. And even though Boston was officially bounced from playoff contention this past weekend, there are still a few things worth keeping tabs on with the Bruins at this juncture of the NHL calendar.
Here are five stats worth following over the final week of Boston’s season. 79.2 percent: Boston’s current odds of landing a top-five pick in 2025 NHL Draft As painful as it was to see the Bruins cough up another multi-goal lead on Sunday en route to a 6-3 loss to the Sabres, that setback once again put Boston in a favorable spot when it comes to landing a top-five pick in the upcoming NHL Draft.
Currently, the Bruins hold the fourth-worst record in the NHL — putting them in position to pick a top-five talent for the first time since choosing Tyler Seguin second overall in 2010. A win over the Sabres on Sunday would have led to major ramifications, as Boston would have leapfrogged the Sabres, Flyers, and Kraken in the standings. As dreadful as this season has been for Boston, adding a blue-chip center talent like Michael Misa, James Hagens, Anton Frondell, or Caleb Desnoyers would stand as a worthy consolation prize for enduring months of misery.
Is the Anton Frondell hype justified? Do you think he is a Top-5 prospect in the 2025 #NHLDraft #HockeyTwitter The kid sure can wire a puck!!! pic.twitter.com/8h5npCyzm8 While the final draft order will be determined via the NHL’s draft lottery (set to be held next month), Boston should put itself in a good position to land at least one of those coveted pivot prospects if it stays at the No.
4 spot. According to Tankathon , the Bruins currently hold these odds in the draft lottery at the No. 4 spot: 1st overall: 9.
5 percent 2nd overall: 9.5 percent 3rd overall: 0.3 percent 4th overall: 15.
4 percent 5th overall: 44.6 percent 6th overall: 20.8 percent A lot can change between now and Boston’s final regular-season game on April 15.
The Bruins are currently tied with the Flyers in points (71), with the Flyers having played one fewer game than Boston. The Kraken are right behind those two cellar-dwellers with 72 points, while a matchup between Boston and Pittsburgh (73 points) on Sunday will undoubtedly hold major draft consequences. If the Bruins want to accelerate an arduous retool, dropping a few more games stands as the best path forward — especially if it allows this team to potentially add a future franchise center.
Caleb Desnoyers @monctonwildcats showing off the mitts in this dangle sequence! 2025 #NHLDraft #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/xfMkhXbmHf 11: Consecutive Bruins goals that David Pastrnak has factored in David Pastrnak already has a 60-goal campaign and a pair of triple-digit scoring seasons on his resume.
But the 28-year-old winger’s most impressive accomplishment might be reaching the 100-point threshold once again in 2024-25 with this roster . The lone reason the Bruins aren’t battling with the likes of San Jose and Chicago for the No. 1 pick is due to Pastrnak, who has been an offensive juggernaut down the stretch this season.
Even with Boston hampered by a putrid power play (15.5 percent, 28th overall), Pastrnak has scored 30 goals and 69 total points over his last 47 games. Over the last two weeks, Pastrnak has had a hand in 11 straight Bruins goals — which stands as a franchise record.
Some fancy footwork from 88 pic.twitter.com/ALQywbeGHN If there’s any solace that the Bruins can find as they rework their roster moving forward, it’s that they have a franchise player capable of driving a line on his own in Pastrnak.
9: The number of 5-on-5 goals Boston has scored during their new top line’s ice time Pastrnak’s chemistry with Morgan Geekie (now just a tally away from 30 goals) has been one of the few positive developments this season. But is Pastrnak also starting to find a spark with center Elias Lindholm? Pastrnak and Lindholm’s inability to get on the same page as linemates in October and November stood as a major roadblock for the Bruins — who initially hoped that Pastrnak’s playmaking prowess would help validate Lindholm’s $7.75 million price tag as a two-way center capable of putting up 60+ points.
But in the 48:58 of 5-on-5 ice time that a Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line has logged together (most of which has been recorded over the past week), the Bruins have outscored opponents, 9-3, and held a commanding 20-6 edge in high-danger scoring chances. A nice start 👌 pic.twitter.
com/PLtayrE1RI It remains to be seen if any of that encouraging play will carry over into next season. But given the dearth of proven top-six centers available on the free-agent market, the Bruins will welcome a scenario where this Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak trio asserts itself next season as a potent first line. The bad news? As good as the Geekie-Lindholm-Pastrnak line has been, the Bruins have now gone 213:55 of ice time across four games since the team has scored a goal that Pastrnak hasn’t factored in.
With Pavel Zacha and Casey Mittelstadt sputtering as a duo on the de-facto second line, the case can be made that Boston needs to allocate some of their hefty cap space this summer on a proven scoring winger that can add drive play on a line without Pastrnak. Has anyone asked Mitch Marner of his thoughts about Dunkin? 0: The number of points Fabian Lysell has scored across eight NHL games The underlying numbers in Fabian Lysell point to an offensive-minded winger trying to make things happen at the NHL level. Since Lysell was recalled by Boston on March 18, the 22-year-old winger is tied with Pavel Zacha — and trails only Pastrnak, Lindholm, and Geekie — for the most individual high-danger scoring chances generated at 5-on-5 play on the roster.
But Lysell’s willingness to bring the puck into Grade-A ice hasn’t manifested into any tangible production — with the former 2021 first-round pick still without a point through eight total games with Boston. It’s clear that Lysell still has room to grow when it comes to board battles and his defensive play. But some of those flaws could be lessened (or at the very least, accepted), if Lysell was validating his projected profile as an uber-skilled, scoring winger.
So far, the results haven’t been there for the young forward. .920: Jeremy Swayman’s save percentage the last four games The easiest way for the Bruins to right the ship in 2025-26? It has a lot to do with Jeremy Swayman regaining his standing as an elite, No.
1 goalie. And while there likely shouldn’t be a whole lot of stock put into these final weeks of regular-season play, Swayman seems to be putting himself in position to end a disappointing season on a high note. Over his last four games, Swayman has sported a .
920 save percentage — recording a 2.49 goals saved above expected rate (per MoneyPuck ) over that stretch. What a stop by Jeremy Swayman: pic.
twitter.com/DAG8ViKPyk It’s too little, too late to salvage this season. But it would serve Swayman well to close out this campaign on a solid run — giving him some semblance of momentum to draw from going into a long summer.
Conor Ryan Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023. Sign up for Bruins updates🏒 Get breaking news and analysis delivered to your inbox during hockey season.
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