BOSTON -- It was early in the season, a time when the Boston Bruins did not yet know what they were, what they could be. They had just lost 4-3 at home to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 13, a game that began a run of six consecutive defeats.
It was amid that uncertainty that Marco Sturm sat Charlie McAvoy down.
They hadn’t known each other long, just through training camp and the first weeks of the season, and were still in the process of feeling each other out, the newly hired coach and one of the team’s star players.
“I had a lot more run-and-gun in my game early,” McAvoy said. “I was all over the place. He was like, 'We could sit here and do this all day, it’s fine, I will go over this with you until we find it, where [you] fit in this.'”
For McAvoy, who had his season cut short last year in February following a shoulder injury that turned into a rare infection, the approach by Sturm was welcome. There was honesty in it, respect, a clear dedication to figuring everything out.
“Even his messaging was super respectful,” McAvoy said. “It was kind of like, 'Hey, I need you to be this for us, for the group, and we’re going to do it together.' It was really nice, and then I feel like that was a little turning point.”
The Bruins started winning, started clicking, started focusing on what they believed they could be, in defiance of what everyone else had predicted them to be. They started learning what they had in themselves and what they had in Sturm, who had been handed control of an NHL team for the first time back in June.
During a season in which multiple coaches have a good shot to win the Jack Adams Award, from Lindy Ruff of the Buffalo Sabres to Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning to Dan Muse of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the job that Sturm has done in Boston has flown a bit under the radar.
But that’s not the case for McAvoy, who has played under four coaches in his nine NHL seasons for the Bruins (36-22-6), who will continue their campaign to return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Saturday (3 p.m. ET; ABC, SN360, TVAS).
They can see what they have in Sturm.
“In terms of my relationship, I’ve absolutely felt that, felt supported,” McAvoy said. “And I think it makes everyone better when it’s a ‘we’re in this together’ kind of approach, because at the end of the day, I want to play for him and I want to have results and success for him because you can see what it means to him and how he wants it for us. I just think that gets the most out of the group.”
The Bruins had put themselves in a difficult position in 2024-25, enduring a disaster of a season in which they fired coach Jim Montgomery, lost two of their best defensemen (McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm) to season-ending injuries by February, and made five separate trades at the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline, including dealing forward Brad Marchand, their captain and the last vestige of their 2011 Stanley Cup championship team, to the Florida Panthers.
The end result was their first season without playoff hockey since 2015-16.
It was not an easy situation for a rookie head coach to walk into. And yet, it has gone better than most even on the Bruins could have hoped.
“I’m happy where we’re at right now at this point,” Sturm said. “Forget about points, just the way we play and present ourselves every night. Good structure and I think good discipline. The guys are buying in, and guys know now at this point what it takes to win.
“I’m still learning, too. It’s my first year. A lot of games, with Olympics and this and media. There’s a lot more to it. I’m trying to learn everything every day like my players, but it’s a good thing. It just pushes me to go forward, too.”
Although this is Sturm’s first season as an NHL head coach, it’s not as if he’s a newcomer to the League. He played 14 seasons as a forward in the NHL and had 487 points (242 goals, 245 assists) in 938 regular-season games, including 193 points (106 goals, 87 assists) in 302 games for the Bruins.
After his retirement following the 2011-12 season, Sturm coached Germany's men's national team from 2015-18, leading his native country to a silver medal at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. He then joined the Los Angeles Kings as an assistant coach from 2018-22 before serving as the head coach of the team's American Hockey League affiliate in Ontario from 2022-25.
“All the things that were sort of playing out during the interview process with Marco have borne out,” Boston general manager Don Sweeney said. “Very, very passionate about the game, wants to communicate with his players, has conviction in how the team is supposed to play.
“The learning curve associated with the National Hockey League and coaching, no matter if you coached at the American League level, is steep. In game, out of game, amount of games, lack of practice ... those are things that are challenges, and he's handled them pretty well.”
Through his directness and his ability to communicate and teach, Sturm has been able to shape the Bruins despite low expectations, a condensed schedule, and a roster that came in with a lot of unproven names and without a lot of offensive firepower.
He has done that by adding structure to their game, details, an uptick in set plays. It's a different approach than some of the longtime Bruins have seen in their tenures, with McAvoy saying that Sturm's “strategy is different from anyone I’ve played with. We play the clog. We like to frustrate teams, play more of a patient game.”
Perhaps McAvoy’s favorite part about Sturm’s approach, though, is his demeanor, how he handles the room, the calmness with which he tackles most everything, something that the defenseman believes has rubbed off.
“I think the honesty part of it is refreshing,” McAvoy said. “I need that. I’ve had coaches that kind of tell you what they think you want to hear and it ends up being worse because I don’t know where we stand. Like, I need you to tell me what I’m doing right or what I’m doing wrong so that I can improve on it. ... You need the honesty. You need it. It’s just crucial for your improvement and for it to be a good relationship.
“I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes and then you get mad at me when you’ve just got to tell me what you need better.”
It’s that straightforward approach that has resonated.
“I think we forget it’s his first year coaching in the NHL,” forward Morgan Geekie said. “He does a great job coming in with the confidence that he has. It makes things pretty black and white, and we understand pretty quickly what he’s trying to get across.”
When asked about it being Sturm’s first season as a head coach in the NHL, about whether he seems like a rookie, given how well he has fit in with the Bruins, McAvoy’s face lit up while explaining what Sturm has become for the team this season.
“This actually might be a really good example,” McAvoy said. “You come in as a rookie, right? You’ve played hockey your whole life. He’s been coaching for a while now. Maybe it’s not a head coach in the NHL, maybe I haven’t been a player in the NHL, so by all terms you’re a rookie, but you can fall back on the foundations you have.
“So, he’s obviously done it for a while now and he has done a great job this year, but I think there’s room for everyone to grow. Like, from my first year to now -- and I think he would say the same thing -- he’s going to keep becoming a better coach just by doing it, and that’s exciting for us and for him.”
