The NHL resumes play this week following an exciting international hockey tournament at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. The Boston Bruins will return to the ice on Feb. 26 to face off against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are currently four points back from the second Wild Card playoff spot in the East, currently held by the Bruins. It’s an important game for the team to win to continue to work towards securing their hopeful return to the postseason.Â
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It has been an up and down season for the Bruins, a streaky season as many have called it. Overall though, they have had a significant improvement from their performance last season and are in a decent spot to be legitimate Stanley Cup contenders again, maybe even as early as next season. Making the playoffs would be the cherry on top of a season that had little expectations coming into.
There are a lot of variables when it comes to the success of an NHL team. But if the Bruins want to hold onto their playoff position, there are three big areas that will factor into whether or not they make it.
Discipline
The Bruins have a penalty problem, which is subsequently exposing that they also have a penalty kill problem. They are the second most penalized team in the NHL, only trailing the Tampa Bay Lightning, with 769 total penalty minutes in 2025-26. That is almost exactly double the amount of penalty minutes the Colorado Avalanche, who are the least penalized team in the NHL, have. The Avalanche are also first in the league with a 37-9-9 record.Â
The Bruins are taking too many penalties, which is leading to too many man down opportunities and allowing opponents to keep games closer than they should be. A prime example of this is their Stadium Series game against the Lightning right before the break. Two things can be true at the same time, the refereeing was quite bad in that game with many missed calls, and Boston also took bad penalties that let Tampa Bay get back into a game they were down 5 – 1 and eventually win. Boston registered 25 penalty minutes that game alone.
There are too many penalties, and the penalty kill this season is not good enough to withstand that many. The Bruins currently have the 28th ranked penalty kill in the league with a 76.4% kill percentage, almost a full 10% lower than the first place Chicago Blackhawks (85.7%).Â
This is still very much a bridge year for the Bruins, and it shows most clearly in the penalty kill performance. After many seasons of having a top kill in the league, their best penalty kill talent like Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, are no longer there to do the heavy lifting when Boston is a man down. There is a lot of work to be done to improve the penalty kill, something head coach Marco Sturm is very much aware of.
It is highly unlikely that the penalty kill is going to have some wild improvement going into the final stretch of the season, so it falls on the whole team to play more disciplined and stop taking so many penalties. Even giving opponents just one less power play opportunity in a game could go a long way in securing necessary wins to make the postseason.
Health and Next Man Up
While this isn’t necessarily something the Bruins can control, health has been and will continue to be an area of importance in the next few weeks. This is a roster that has been hit by numerous injuries throughout the 2025-26 season. David Pastrnak has missed five games this season due to injury, Hampus Lindholm has missed 14, Charlie McAvoy missed 12, and Elias Lindholm has missed 13, and that is just the beginning of the injury list.Â
Fraser Minten, Mark Kastelic, and Sean Kuraly are the only three players that have appeared in all 57 games for the Bruins so far this season. Whether or not they make the playoffs this season may come down to if they are able to stay healthy, and who will be able to step up if they can’t.Â
Alex Steeves, Jonathan Aspirot, and Marat Khusnutdinov are all guys who have taken advantage of the opportunities provided to them due to injuries this season, earning themselves contracts extensions (in the case of Steeves and Aspirot) and chances to play bigger roles. Steeves and Aspirot both started the season in the American Hockey League (AHL) while Khusnutdinov was a healthy scratch at the beginning of the season. Their ability to step up, along with others on the roster, has been a big part of the reason the team has been able to weather the injury storm as well as they have in 2025-26.
But in a very tight Atlantic Division, the Bruins are going to need their top players in top shape to secure a playoff spot. Otherwise, they may be on the outside looking in again.
Continued Success From Young Players
Minten and Khusnutdinov were revelations in January, helping to propel the team to an 11 – 2 – 1 record that saw the Bruins climb back into a playoff spot after falling out of it during a rough month of December. The team will need them to continue where they left off prior to the Olympics and carry that momentum into the final stretch of the season.Â
Mason Lohrei has definitely struggled a bit under Sturm, but the 25-year-old was starting to get into the zone leading up to the break. He registered eight points in 14 games in January, and is making strides to being less of a defensive liability on the ice. There’s still room to continue to improve, but he put together some of his best NHL moments in the final stretch of the 2024-25 season, so hopefully he can settle in and do it again in 2025-26.Â
The Bruins also have options in young players if health does become an issue again. Matthew Poitras looked good during the three-game stretch he was called up for leading to the Olympic break. He also had five points in seven games in the AHL during the NHL Olympic pause. He continues to be a guy with something to prove, and should get another NHL look if injuries pop up. Dans Locmelis is an intriguing, young prospect, who is coming off of a solid Olympic tournament for Latvia. He has 15 goals and 28 points for the Providence Bruins in 43 games, his first full professional season.
Final Stretch of 2025-26
The Bruins have 25 games left in 2025-26. While this season has been a great improvement from the previous one, making the playoffs would be the cherry on top and a sure sign that the rebuild/retool/whatever you want to call it, is going in the right direction. It would certainly gain some goodwill towards Don Sweeney and Cam Neely from their critics.
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Play resumes for the Bruins on Thursday, Feb. 26 against the Blue Jackets followed by the Philadelphia Flyers on Feb. 28 and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Mar. 3. All should be good matchups, with all three teams within nine points of each other in the standings.