Matt Vautour: The Bruins are asking a lot of Marco Sturm
BOSTON — There is no hard and fast predictive test from a press conference that indicates how the guy at the podium will fare when he's behind the bench.
Jerod Mayo's introductory press conference was a coronation as the Patriots announced their next great coach. At Joe Mazzulla's first media availability, for understandable reasons, he seemed on edge and overwhelmed. Today, Mayo is unemployed and Mazzulla has a ring and as much confidence as anyone.
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So, drawing too many conclusions from Marco Sturm's introductory press conference as the new head coach of the Bruins would be foolish.
But, in his first public appearance as an NHL head coach, Sturm came off as comfortable, confident and intelligent. His German accent even added a bit of gravitas. But only time and games will show if he is ready.
But he came off like he felt ready, which is good because the Bruins are asking a lot. They want him to:
Develop the young players.
Fix the power play.
Maintain the culture.
Get the Bruins back on the right path.
Takeaways from Marco Sturm Day 1:
All of this requires projection and imagination — Whether or not they did so intentionally, the Bruins lowered expectations on a big free agent haul. That doesn't mean they're not going to sign key pieces, but Sturm emphasized his belief in the current roster.
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'I still love our team, even without any additions,' he said. 'We have good goaltending. When everyone stays healthy, we have a really good D-corps. We're hopefully going to add a few pieces up front.'
And when Sweeney was asked about roster-building, he talked about decisions regarding Matt Poitras or Fraser Minten, not Mitch Marner or Sam Bennett.
That's probably the realistic approach. The Bruins have the eighth most projected available cap space ($26.27 million) according to Puckpedia, but they also have the fewest players signed to NHL contracts of any team in the league. Not including the goalies, they have five forwards (David Pastrnak, Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt, Mark Kastelic and Elias Lindholm) and four defensemen (Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov and Andrew Peeke) who are roster locks for next year.
So that money is likely going to be spread around. Some is presumably going to Morgan Geekie and Mason Lohrei, who are restricted free agents. The rest has to go toward filling a lot of roster spots.
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Development will be key — No matter who the Bruins sign, draft or trade for, they'd benefit from increased contributions from their young players. They're counting on Sturm, who did a good job of drawing improvement from Los Angeles Kings prospects in the AHL, doing the same in Boston with Matt Poitras, Fraser Minten, Fabian Lysell or any one of a handful of other players, who have straddled the line between the AHL and the NHL.
'He's been part of player development, so he knows that path and what it takes to make those steps, so he can challenge whoever it's going to be,' Sweeney said. 'So that was more about the process of how we're going to get there, but it was always about the coaching.'
It's not just developing young guys but putting older players in position to succeed. Can he get more out of Elias Lindholm or Casey Mittlestadt? More offense out of Charlie McAvoy?
Sturm said he was being picky about which jobs to pursue — In addition to his family being partial to living in Boston, Sturm said he wanted his first head coaching job to come under the right circumstances.
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'I wanted to be an NHL coach. But also I looked at some teams and I knew that wouldn't be, probably a good fit. There's a reason why I took my time,' he said. 'I always wanted to come back here, obviously, but I think the timing of it was just perfect, right? I mean, selfishly, I'm glad the Bruins didn't play well last year, because otherwise I wouldn't be here, let's be honest.'
Sweeney's candidate pool ran deep — While all interviews are obviously not created equal, Sweeney said he spoke to 14 coaching candidates during the process.
At a time when the Bruins are reimagining what their system, culture and roster should look like, there's an advantage to hearing a lot of ideas.
Sweeney said hearing the parade of hopefuls critique the roster was difficult but valuable.
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'Coaches came in and gave their honest opinion of how they wanted to see things. The things you had done well, the things you hadn't done well, the outside perspective that teams have had of the Bruins organization over the years, the changes that have gone well and haven't gone well during those years, and success or not having success,' Sweeney said. 'Those are eye-opening at times, and it's constructive. You have to take it to heart and make adjustments. ... Marco went through some of the things that he felt that we had done well, but things that we had gotten away from, and where the league is at and where the league is headed to. ... There were some very constructive things that took place during the process that I'm grateful for.'
Sturm is keeping a guy on his staff who was a candidate for the job — As the Bruins have often done, they're keeping much of their staff intact even with a new coach. That's a challenge for anyone, but in Jay Leach, Sturm will have a guy working for him, who interviewed for his job. That might work fine. But it's at least a strange dynamic.
The Bruins weren't quite ready to disconnect themselves from their recent history — Is Bruins culture something that can continue with new players and new leaders or is it something that needs to be re-imagined and rebuilt?
While they no longer have any players from the 2011 Stanley Cup-winning team, the culture created by Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand was referenced often.
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'The culture we built here 20 years ago. It's still here, that the style and the winning mindset we had,' said Sturm, who was a player on the teams that first established that culture. 'I think that's something that gets me really excited, and that's what I believe in.'
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