Elias Lindholm’s REDEMPTION WILL DEFINE the Boston Bruins’ 2025–26 Season
Elias Lindholm fully admitted his first season in Boston was one to forget. Now healthy and motivated, he will be central to the Bruins redemption story. You’re Locked on Bruins, your daily podcast on the Boston Bruins, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What is up, Bruins fans, and welcome to the Locked On Boston Bruins podcast. I’m your host, Ian McLaren, and this is a daily show where we discuss all things spoke beat. Today is Tuesday, September 2nd, and I want to thank you so much for making Locked On Boston Bruins your first listen every day. It’s part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. And on today’s episode, we are going to break down Elias Lindholm’s candid reflections on why year one in Boston went wrong and why he’s determined to redeem himself in 202526. And later today’s Bruin of the day in honor of 92, it will be number 92, Morat Husnov. Before we get into all that, a quick reminder. You can find the podcast on social media, locked NHL Bruins, and you can find me, my hockey thoughts, dad jokes, Ian C McLaren. I am a lifelong Boston Bruins fan, and I’ve been covering this team and the NHL for various outlets for about 20 years now. If you’re new to the podcast, please do subscribe on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube. and each new episode will be automatically added to your feeds for you to listen and enjoy. Please do also rate and review if you have a moment. That would be greatly appreciated. So, last summer, of course, Elias Lindholm was one of Boston’s marquee free agent signings, 7-year deal, $7.75 million AAV. And to say that it was a bit of a disappointment would be an understatement because he did not have a season that comes anywhere near to that valuation. his first season with the Boston Bruins, he was often playing third line center and ended up with 17 goals, 30 assists for 47 total points, which was just three more than the previous season, one of his worst of his career. This is a guy who does have a 42 goal season on his resume. That’s probably a bit of an outlier, but he has reached 20 goals three other times with a 19 goal in 56 game season in 2020 2021. He can score. He can make some plays and he’s also very proficient in his own zone. He’s not a Patrice Berseron clone, but he’s like, say if Patrice Berseron’s Budweiser, then Lindholm is your Bud Light. He came in in a recent interview over in Sweden admitting fully after last year, I want a better season both for myself and for the team. And in my opinion, Elias Lindholm is as key as anybody to the Bruins finding some measure of redemption here this season. Now, things got off on the wrong foot because well, first of all, as I discussed way back in the day when Lenus Olmark joined the team, it does take some time for players to get acclimated to new cities, new systems, new locker rooms when they first sign with a new team in free agency. You’ve been somewhere for a while. In his case, he had gone from Calgary to Vancouver for a short stint. choosing to sign with the Boston Bruins and yeah, it’s difficult to move your family across the country. This is not a native North American either, so that is an added dynamic, although he’s been over here for quite some time now. Uh, finding a home for your family, meeting all the new people in the organization, finding your place within the locker room is huge because when he came in, of course, the Bruins still had Brad Marshon as captain, Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo as established leaders. And when you’re coming in as a guy who’s being paid more than the captain, there’s this weird dynamic there where you don’t really know when to step up, when to use your voice, uh how to establish yourself as really a core member of the team with those guys there. Um and on top of that, he started the season with some back issues. He had some injections, missed most of training camp or all of training camp, and he said it took him a couple months to get back to full speed. So, not only is he starting off on the wrong foot in terms of health, but he’s also dealing with getting acclimated to Boston and finding his place within the team, on the roster, and in the locker room. This year though, he will be starting fresh, healthy, and hopefully looking a bit more like the Calgary version of Lindholm that Bruins general manager Don Sweeney had coveted for quite a few years now. Again, I don’t think that 40 goal season is going to be something that he’s going to rediscover. He was playing on a line then with uh the late Johnny Godro and Matthew Kachchuck, two of the best wingers in the game. Uh he will be playing to start the season with David Postard, another one of the best wingers in the game, if not the best right winger in the NHL today. Well, maybe Nikita Coutrov has a say in that. but he’ll also have Morgan Geeki on the left side coming off that breakout 33 goal season. He’s a consistent South Trophy not candidate, but he’s in that conversation as one of the better two-way centers in the game. And that’s kind of the ceiling Boston hoped for when they signed him at that 7.75 million AAV. For his career, he’s played 900 games and he has scored 235 goals. So doing some quick math there, that is about 21 goals per every 82 games. If they could get 21 goals out of Lindholm, talked a lot about where the offense is going to come from, that would be huge for this team, especially anchoring that first line, which needs to dominate this season if the Bruins are going to have any chance at challenging for a playoff spot. The secondary scoring, there’s all kinds of questions about it, but the primary line, those primary drivers need to be at the top of their game for this team to have any chance. It’s going to be an interesting season. Lindol said in this interview over in Sweden, “We’ve brought in some players, more hardworking types. So the feeling is that we’ve added more of a Boston style to our game. Of course, Tanner Jano has brought in Sean Carali, Mikey Essimont, but they also signed some guys who can score in Matte Lamel, Alex Steves, who hopefully can bring some of that uh offensive pop that they need. Some of the younger guys hopefully can step up as well. But Lindholm knows it’s up to the core players to help. He said, “We have Pasta. Hopefully I can get back to my game.” Makavoy was a bit injured and missed most of last season. I wouldn’t say most, but a good chunk. February, March, April. Now we get him back. Lindholm went on. Victor Arvdson is coming. Jeremy Swayman maybe didn’t have his best season. I mean, that’s an understatement as well. A lot went wrong, Lindholm said. But hopefully things will go better this season and allow us to make the playoffs at least. Don’t forget this time last year, Don Sweeney, Cam Neely were saying, “We’ve added some players who make us harder to beat in the playoffs.” They didn’t even come close to the playoffs, making that postseason should be the baseline for success for any Boston Bruins season. He’s 12 years removed from his draft year. Lindholm can be considered a veteran leader with a ton of experience in the NHL. He’s only one of five players on the team 30 or over, which begs the question as to, you know, why was he given that long-term contract to begin with? But there you have it. He’s still around for quite some time at that $7.75 million cap hit. And he has to be better for the Bruins to improve beyond production. he has to steady a younger roster with his presence as a guy who’s been in the league since 2013 and as uh a guy who’s been on several teams hasn’t really gone on a deep playoff run only 40 playoff games but he does have 27 points in those playoff games they just need to get there first and again he has to be key to that for the Bruins to even get within in sniffing distance of a wild card spot. We’re going to touch on the Elias Lynholm story so far, why year one flopped in Boston, and then name our Bruin of the day. All that coming up as the podcast continues. The NFL season is almost here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if that bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. I love using FanDuel because it fits however you like to bet. Player props, building a Sam game parlay, even jumping in live as the action unfolds. It makes every game more exciting, whether you’re watching your team or just keeping an eye on your fantasy lineup. So, if you’re ready to play, download the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.com to get started. That’s fuel.com to place your first $5 bet. And if it hits, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the FanDuel app. Thank you so much once again for making Lockdown Bruins part of your daily routine. We’re also looking for your feedback. Lockdown wants to hear from you. We put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make your favorite podcasts even better. This is your chance to tell us what you like, what you don’t, and answer questions about our advertising. Go to lockedonpodcast.com/servey to get started. Everyone who completes a survey will be entered for a chance to win one of 10 $100 Amazon gift cards. Again, that’s lockedpodcast.comservey. You can also find the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for helping us out. Let’s continue our discussion on our boy Elias Lindholm. Don’t forget this guy was a fifth overall draft pick in 2013. 900 games played with stops in Carolina, the team that drafted him, Calgary, short stint in Vancouver before landing in Boston and signing that 7-year $7.75 million per season uh contract last summer. And of course, by his own admission, wasn’t the best season, although he did end up with a respectable 47 points. And despite the injury that he was dealing with to begin the season, the back issues, he did appear in all 82 games. So, you have to give him some credit there for fighting through it. Right now, he is Boston’s second highest paid forward behind Posternok ahead of Casey Middlestat and Morgan Geeki. He’s also the fourth highest paid player on the team in general. So it is super important for him to I don’t want to say live up to it because you know he was offered that by the Boston Bruins. That’s what Don Sweeney Cam Neely expected his value to be or what they decided they needed to offer him in order to secure his services. And the expectation was that it would stabilize Boston’s center depth in the post Patrice Berseron David Crerachche eras. So what happened? Why did year one flop? Well, in that Swedish interview again, he fully admitted the season wasn’t great. He said, quote, “I didn’t get off to a strong start. Had problems with my back. Missed the entire camp. To be able to play from the beginning, I had to take an injection and it took a few weeks before it helped. Couldn’t do anything for a month or two. So, I felt behind and had to catch up. He was playing October, November with this back issue, taking injections, and that certainly factored into the slow start that he had with the Bruins. He said it wasn’t a great start, but I hope this season can be better. He’s talking about the start to the season, but also the start to his tenure as a member of the Boston Bruins. He added before last season, he felt like they had a team that could do it, but a lot happened. Obviously, no one really knew what would happen with Brad Marshand. We also had the coaching change. There were many distractions and we traded away quite a few players. So, it turned out the way it did. It was a season I’d rather forget. So, at the end of the day, his individual struggles, his back issues, plus team instability was a pretty potent recipe for failure in year one for Elias Lindholm. Uh Brad Marshon had the pending unrestricted free agency. He then of course uh was injured. He was traded. The Bruins sent out Carlo Coyle as well. Trent Frederick, Justin Brazo, Jim Montgomery was fired, replaced with Joe Sacko. the Jeremy Swayman contract that went through training camp and kind of disrupted what should have been a normal introduction to a new season. All of it kind of worked against both Lindto but bigger picture the Boston Bruins in terms of uh what went wrong and I discussed this on yesterday’s podcast as well looking at the 76.5 point projection for the Bruins over under it was catastrophic and so many things went wrong for the Bruins to fall to the bottom of the Eastern Conference. And you look at the season before that and so many things went right for the Bruins. Charlie Coyle, Pavzaka having career seasons. Um Jeremy Swayman, Lenus Almark were still tandem playing at high levels. Uh you had uh health an elite season from Dave Aposterno and they went on and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in round one of the Stanley Cup playoffs. You look at the centers they have now between Lindholm and Middlestat and what they had in Zaka and Coyle as one two two seasons ago. You see you could have something there. I know a lot of people are not high on Middlestat and perhaps rightly so. Maybe that’s a guy we need to focus on as the Bruin of the day coming up to see what exactly he could be capable of. But Lindholm to his credit again played the full 82 games despite having those back issues and he did get better as the season went along. and late in the season playing alongside Posternok and Geeki, it looked like there was something there there and the Bruins would definitely benefit of course from having him uh playing to that level, right? They need him to be not necessarily Patrice Berseron, not necessarily um yeah, even David Crerachi. Just need him to be solid down the middle for this team. He did have nine points in eight games in April. that was uh the best month of the season for him despite only playing in eight games. So, there’s something to be said there for perhaps finding a new level of comfort on the first line, knowing your role both on and off the ice, and getting back to the player that we know that he can beat. 2022 23 he had 64 points, 22 goals, 42 assists in a full 80 games. 2023 24 was a bit odd because of going from Calgary to Vancouver, but he did add 10 points in 13 playoff games for the Canucks in 2024. And still despite the injuries, slow start, undefined linemates, 17 goals, 47 points, I think he could very well hit that 20 goal mark this season and his redemption arc is incredibly crucial for the Boston Bruins. If he can find his game, uh, then this team could be all right, especially on that top line. That trio needs to be solid, productive night in and night out. So, a lot riding on Elias Lindholm’s bounce back this season. If he bounces back, I believe so do the Boston Bruins to a certain extent. Coming up, we’re going to do our Bruin of the day. It’s a new segment here on Locked on Boston Bruins. We’re going to do this every day. Yesterday to begin with was Bobby Y or today it is 92 September 2nd. So we’re going to highlight number 92 Moratinov and we’ll do that here as the podcast continues. All right, let’s talk about today’s brewin of the day. Today is 92. So, we’re talking about number 92, Morat Hus Nudinov, drafted 37th overall by the Minnesota Wild in 2020. He was acquired by the Boston Bruins at the 2025 trade deadline in the Justin Brazo deal. Brazo traded to Minnesota in exchange for Hudinov and Jacob Lalco, who has since taken his talents back overseas. He played 75 games this past season, a modest seven points in 57 games with Minnesota, but he did have five points in 18 games with the Boston Bruins and signed a 2-year extension this summer with an average annual valuation of $925,000, which could be incredible value for the Boston Bruins. You know, I always like to look at Dober prospects to find out some nuggets about some players. He’s described as a high energy playmaker, strong two-way center who can play the wing, plays a full 200 foot game, undersized but fearless, and possesses some leadership qualities. He had 41 points in 63 KHL games in 2023 24. He was a world junior standout in 2021 and he had some gains in Boston despite limited minutes compared to what he showed in Minnesota. Right now, he’s a bit of a depth forward with upside for more offense and he’s got a great costcontrolled contract which makes him even more valuable as say just a bottom six center. A real potential hidden gem if given bigger opportunities here for the Boston Bruins. [Music] This kid is only 22 years old and he has real potential to break out this upcoming season. He has played only what like 91 NHL games. The breakout threshold as we all uh remember I’ve talked about it many times is 200 games. So perhaps he makes some gains this season and then really breaks out next year because of that, you know, time it takes, especially for an undersized forward. Uh he’s 5’9, 165 pounds, but he has the pedigree to have been a second round pick in 2020. And if you’re in a salary cap league like I am, Dobber says if he’s still minor eligible, which he is in my league as well, he’s worth holding on to because if he shows signs of breaking out, you can keep him on your roster for the remainder of his new contract, which again is wildly cap friendly at 925,000. That’s like an extension of his ELC. In May of 2020, Dober wrote, “As one of the youngest players eligible for the draft, he had a lot to do to prove himself. And no matter which way you cut it, he did it all. His main upside is displayed when his team doesn’t have the puck. Morat is a hound on the ice and he plays with a high energy, high event style. He uses his quick skating to shoot around the ice and pressure puck carriers as soon as they gain control. And on offense, he thrives in transitional play as he can use his speed as well as his low center of gravity to weave through defenders and create space to make things happen. That’s the kind of guy that you want on your roster. The main thing bringing him down is his size. He’s a strong player. doesn’t shy away from the physical side, but he does face issues when taking on bigger players. Um, but you still love to see that spark plug out there. Right now, they have him as second line or between second and third line potential, but I believe he could have even more upside. And I am excited to see what this speedy little rinkrat is able to do here. uh this upcoming season. So, Morat Husninov, the Bruin of the Day here for September 2nd, 92, number 92. Let’s take a look at the Bruins jersey numbers and see what other players have worn number 92 for the Boston Bruins. Few years ago, I went and did who wore it best. Right now we have Michael Knander who wore number 92 after being acquired in uh a trade prior to the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs. That’s a whole other podcast series to be done. Uh Guom Lef wore it in 2010. Going to be honest, don’t remember that era at all. Thomas Nosk and now Morat Hus Nudinov. And I believe he could be the one to wear it best at the end of the day. With all due respect, of course, to Michael Knander, the best player to wear it, but very limited stint as a member of the Boston Bruins. Uh what was it? 15 regular season games, although he did have 12 points in that time. So, Morat hoping for big things this upcoming season. And perhaps once again he’ll be the Bruin of the day after who knows recording his first hattick coming up this season. That’s it for today’s episode. Elias Lindholm his redemption is key to the Bruins bouncing back. Very excited to see what he can do this season. Thank you so much for making Locked on Bruins your first listen again today. For your second listen, check out the locked on NHL podcast. There’s no offseason around here. We’re bringing you the daily leaguewide stories that matter most with local coverage you love from Lockdown. Find Lockdown NHL on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Please again do hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube if you have not already. And we’ll be back tomorrow with all the latest on the black and gold. Be sure to follow on Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, XB Blue Sky, Locked NHL Bruins. And again, you can find me McLaren. Take care of yourselves, friends. Take care of each other. Happy first day back to school. For the parents who are celebrating, we have a PA day here today. So, our kids aren’t going back till tomorrow, which is somewhat ridiculous, but that’s the way it is. We’ll talk to you again here tomorrow on Locked On Boston Bruins, part of the Locked On podcast network, your favorite team every single day.
Elias Lindholm admitted last year with the Boston Bruins was “a season I’d rather forget.” Now, entering the 2025–26 NHL season healthy and motivated, Lindholm is determined to redeem himself — and that redemption will define whether the Bruins bounce back into playoff contention.
Host Ian McLaren breaks down:
Why Lindholm struggled in his first season with Boston (injuries, missed camp, distractions).
His outlook on a healthier lineup featuring David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Viktor Arvidsson.
Why Lindholm’s redemption is central to the Bruins’ success in 2025–26.
Plus: Bruin of the Day is Marat Khusnutdinov (#92). The 22-year-old forward, acquired at the 2025 trade deadline and signed to a new two-year extension, brings speed, energy, and responsible two-way play to the Bruins’ lineup.
Locked On Boston Bruins is your daily podcast for Boston Bruins news, analysis, and insider breakdowns all season long.
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