With the Stanley Cup playoffs quickly moving to a possible Florida/Edmonton rematch in the Final, the other corners of the hockey world are pushing forward with their own hockey business.
After an extensive coaching search that included roughly 15 initial interviews that was a veritable who’s who of NHL coaching candidates, it seems that the Boston Bruins are down to their last few finalists for the vacant bench boss job with the Black and Gold.
Marco Sturm, Mitch Love and former Edmonton Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft were all believed to have been given second interviews, and each of those candidates brings some undeniable pros and cons to the table.
Per sources ; Jay Woodcroft, Mitch Love, and Marco Sturm are among the favorites as potential hires as HC for @NHLBruins @penguins and @SeattleKraken . #HockeyX pic.twitter.com/WC9CwBVOxV
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) May 27, 2025
One potential candidate that was expected to be in the mix, Dallas Stars assistant coach Misha Donskov, was not among the finalists as his Stars team continues to battle the Oilers in the Western Conference Final. And it doesn’t appear likely that interim head coach Joe Sacco or Bruins assistant coach Jay Leach are among the final names being considered for the head job as well.
While Donskov has enjoyed an excellent run in his hockey coaching career, one potential sticking point for him was likely the lack of head coaching experience at any of his stops along the way as a bright young NHL assistant. With a high-profile NHL head coaching job like the one in Boston, it might have been asking for trouble to make a major bench boss hire with somebody who hasn’t run their own program at the NCAA, AHL or NHL level prior to getting the gig.
Woodcroft is the most experienced of the likely finalists as the former head guy in Edmonton coaching Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl prior to their current bench boss Kris Knoblauch, who is one win away from guiding them to back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances.
And Love comes after a strong body of work as an AHL head coach in the Calgary Flames organization and as an assistant coach specializing in defense with the Washington Capitals, the exact area that the Bruins want to get back to basics with next season. Their zone defense meandered too far away from their basic principles while Jim Montgomery’s high risk offensive system created too many holes defensively for the Black and Gold.
The Bruins finished 26th in the NHL in goals against average with a 3.11 mark that was significantly worse than they’d been in over a decade, and it was no coincidence that all of the teams around them didn’t make the
“On January 3, we were at 20-15-4, had gotten back to a .565 point percentage wise, and then we went 9-12-4 in the next 25 games, and that's not good enough. Our schedule was arguably a little harder at that point in time, but it's still not good enough,” said Don Sweeney at the Bruins end-of-season press conference. “And we need to address, obviously, get our goaltenders back to where they're pushing each other and defending in front of them much better, and that will be part of the coaching search
“Structure, detail and being organized is paramount. You can't [not] have it and survive. I want a coach that's going to evolve a little bit offensively, and again, that's part and parcel with being able to communicate with sometimes younger players and their stubbornness or their inexperience. We went through some of that this year where players were below their watermarks, and they couldn't get back from it. In the [first] 20 games [under Joe Sacco] they had defended with conviction, but then they got away from it. We have to have that detail [to our game], we have to get our power play back on course. This is a year where most special teams were significantly underperforming. Goaltending was part of that. Our goaltenders weren't very good on the penalty kill side of things, as the stats would show us. But again, that might be the breakdowns in front of them from a penalty kill standpoint. Driving internal competitiveness is something we have to get back to, and a coach has to be an extension of that. We are going to address those things through the coaching search, and we're not going to lower the expectations.”
The most intriguing name in the B’s head coaching mix, though, is also the one that might also end up getting the gig in Marco Sturm. The German forward played five seasons and over 300 games for the Black and Gold and played on B’s teams with current members of the Bruins organization like Player Development Director Adam McQuaid, P-Bruins assistant coach Trent Whitfield, front office member Zdeno Chara and was, of course, linemates with Patrice Bergeron during his early years.
Sturm cut his teeth in the LA Kings organization as an NHL assistant coach and as an AHL head coach, and he’s obviously in the Bruins circle of trust with President Cam Neely and GM Don Sweeney having played for both of them previously. One thing that seems particularly important to Boston’s current management group is restoring the pride and traditional style of play within this Bruins group, and that kind of terrain and expectations will not have to be explained to a guy like Sturm.
The 46-year-old has actually authored some pretty iconic moments in Boston Bruins lore whether it was an epic game-winning playoff goal in Game 6 against the Canadiens during the 2008 playoffs that ushered in a golden Bruins era that led directly to the 2011 Stanley Cup title, or the game-winning overtime score that gave Boston a victory in their very first outdoor Winter Classic game at Fenway Park.
This goal by Marco Sturm was a huge moment that started the turn around for the Bruins. Starting a run that lasted nearly 2 decades. Now Sturm looks to turn the Bruins around again from behind the bench. pic.twitter.com/vbwUEZahVm
— Shamus Sullivan (@shamuspsullivan) May 28, 2025
One thing complicating the situation is that two other NHL teams with current head coaching vacancies, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Seattle Kraken, are reportedly interested in those same head coaching candidates in what could become a really advantageous bargaining position for each of them.
But when one actually thinks about it, it doesn’t feel like a complicated decision at all that somebody like Sturm might be the right guy, at the right time, to help bring glory back to the Bruins after the 46-year-old German import helped do it as a player almost 20 years ago.
