The Bruins (44-14-12, .714 points percentage), eliminated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round, have yet to offset the departure of defenseman Torey Krug, who signed a seven-year contract with the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 9, and possibly the loss of captain
Zdeno Chara
. The 43-year-old defenseman, who has played for Boston the past 14 seasons, is an unrestricted free agent, but the door has not been closed on bringing him back in a more limited role.
"No, we've again communicated consistently with Zdeno and (agent) Matt Keator," Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said Oct. 17. "We're just waiting for him to initiate what he'd like to do moving forward. I feel very comfortable allowing that to take the necessary time and let Zdeno ... make the decisions along that route."
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The Bruins did improve their depth at forward by signing Craig Smith as a free agent. He likely will add scoring and solid two-way play on the third line, but Boston has not made any other major moves. Though Sweeney said he still is looking to add experience, he also said he expects younger players and prospects to compete for ice time, especially early in the season when first-line forwards Brad Marchand (sports hernia) and David Pastrnak (shoulder) each is expected to still be recovering from offseason surgery.
"As I've mentioned before, we have several players that are knocking on the door that we'd like them to see them continue to push, both in our forward group and our back end," Sweeney said. "A little bit of a growth opportunity in -- we still have to figure out how the season plays out, but we're comfortable at some point in time we're going to be up and running, and our guys will be ready to go. We felt all along that we were going to need some internal growth."
Here is what the Bruins look like today:
