Penguins Update: What’s Bruin?

I have a confession to make. I have some serious “other team envy” going on, and not just a little.

Glancing at the standings, I see the Boston Bruins are perched atop the very tough Atlantic Division with a record of 7-2-1. Practically the opposite of the 3-6-1 mark posted by our Penguins after 10 games.

The two black-and-gold squads are opposites in other ways as well. While the Pens sank like a stone en route to four-straight losses on their recent road trip, the Bruins went 3-0-1 on a recent west coast swing, with a final stop in Dallas.

Granted, our competition was a bit stiffer, but not by much.

Continuing with the opposite theme, the Bruins are tied with three other clubs (the Caps included) as the heaviest team in the league, at an average weight of 205 pounds. The paperweight Pens are the lightest at 194 pounds.

Hits? The Bruins are seventh with 244. I’ll bet you can’t guess who’s last.

Yep. Our Pens with a paltry 122.

Fights? Three to one in favor of the Bruins. That’s largely because other teams don’t want to tangle with monstrous d-man Nikita Zadorov, who recently clobbered the fisticly capable Darnell Nurse, or aggressive wingers Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic.

Hard to believe the Pens and Bruins were more or less in the same sinking boat as recently as 2024-25. While the Pens were wrapping up their third-straight, non-playoff season under Mike Sullivan, the B’s collapsed in disarray, managing just 76 points while missing the playoffs for the first time in nine seasons. This a scant two seasons after establishing an NHL regular-season record with 135 points.

Long-time captain Patrice Bergeron, the team’s heart and soul, had retired the previous offseason. They fired Jack Adams-winning coach Jim Montgomery. They traded their new captain, ball-of-hate Brad Marchand, to Florida for a conditional second-round pick.

To say the Bruins were in trouble would be an understatement. Yet they are where they are and we are where we are.

What gives?

The work of GM Don Sweeney, that’s what. Acquiring young guns Fraser Minton and J.J. Peterka through adroit trades and adding kid forwards James Hagens and Matthew Poitras through the draft, to name a few of his better moves. All productive.

To cut to the chase, Sweeney has some sense of how to construct a hockey team. He understands that it requires a blend of players with different attributes. He also knows that having functional size on hand is important in today’s NHL.

In addition to the aforementioned sluggers, the Bruins boast enviable size with the likes of scoring forwards Morgan Geekie (6’3” 212) and Pavel Zacha (6’4” 212), to say nothing of big ‘n’ tall d-men Hampus Lindholm (6’4” 220), Mason Lohrei (6’5” 224) and Frederic Brunet (6’3” 203).

Not only does all that girth create matchup problems galore for the opposition, it makes it easier to sprinkle comparative water bugs like Hagens and feisty Marat Khusnutdinov into the mix.

As for Kyle Dubas? Following four seasons of largely spinning his wheels while shunting players in and out of the organization, I’d say the Pens’ POHO/GM doesn’t have the same sense for how to build a team. A failing that’s dogged him since Toronto, where he never was able to assemble the right supporting cast for his uber-talented core.

Not only is this season’s sub-optimal blend small and benign, they’re s-l-o-w. Hardly a master plan for winning hockey.

I miss Ray Shero. Our former GM had the good sense to throw the “Penguin blueprint” out the window upon his arrival. Indeed, his first order of business was to make us harder to play against. Either by accident or design, Dubas has taken the polar opposite approach. “Soff” doesn’t begin to describe this bunch.

Sadly, what’s done is done. As constructed, the Pens are a bad hockey team. There are no quick and dirty fixes. While nothing’s going to change that, promoting hungry young kids like Rutger McGroarty and Avery Hayes post haste would be a start. Saviors, they won’t be. But at least they might provide a discernable pulse.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue my Bruin envy.