- Cam Neely says the Bruins may go another year without naming a captain
- David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy have split the load since the Brad Marchand trade
- Read below for Neely’s full comments and when the decision gets made
The Bruins might open another season without a captain, and the man running the franchise sounds fine with that.
Team president Cam Neely was asked Monday whether Boston plans to stitch a “C” on somebody before 2026-27. He did not commit to anything.
“I don’t know if you necessarily need to have a guy unless there is that one guy that really stands out. We’ve been blessed to have great captains here.”
Neely was speaking on the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, and he leaned on the three names that set the standard in Boston.
“From [Ray] Bourque, [Zdeno] Chara, [Patrice] Bergeron. We like leaders, not followers. So you can hopefully have 20 leaders. That’s the one thing that we look at: who is going to help lead the team? Maybe it’s more of a tradition in hockey where you have a letter on your sweater. Don [Sweeney], Marco, and I are going to sit down shortly to talk about that.”
Those comments came during a five-GM panel that put Neely on stage alongside the bosses of the Red Sox, Revolution, Fleet and Boston Legacy FC. Watch the full session:
Boston has had the job open since trading Brad Marchand to Florida in March 2025. Last season was the first the Bruins played without a captain since 2001-02.
It went better than anyone expected. Pastrnak, McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm wore the “A” under first-year head coach Marco Sturm, and a club that finished dead last in 2024-25 got back to the playoffs before Buffalo knocked it out in six.
McAvoy stopped by earlier in the same broadcast to talk about what the Jimmy Fund means to him:
The 28-year-old defenseman put up a career-high 60-plus points last season while playing through a broken jaw and a broken hand, then won Olympic gold with Team USA in Milan. His six-game suspension for slashing Zach Benson in Game 6 is the one blemish on the resume.
Pastrnak has the other case. He piled up 71 assists and dragged Morgan Geekie to a second straight 30-goal season, and he has gotten louder in the room as the roster has turned over around him.
Sweeney laid out the thinking back in May, when he said leadership in Boston had become a collective process and the group had taken ownership of it. Nothing Neely said Monday moved off that.
Ten NHL teams are walking into 2026-27 with the letter unassigned, believed to be the most at one time in league history. Neely, Sweeney and Sturm sit down soon, and nothing the Bruins president said Monday sounded like a team in a hurry to shrink that number.
