The Sunday Read: Inside Sturm’s First Year Behind the Bruins Bench

BOSTON –– Marco Sturm sat down at his desk at Warrior Ice Arena.

The head coach had just wrapped up a Friday afternoon skate with his team ahead of a two-game weekend for the Boston Bruins.

Sturm has not had much time to pause, let alone reflect, during his fast-moving first year behind the B’s bench. Suddenly, there are nine games remaining in the regular season, and Sturm’s Bruins are in playoff positioning, battling for stability in the standings.

​How has Sturm been handling the demands of this final stretch?

“I’m doing good. Plugging away,” Sturm said. “First of all, enjoying my time to be the head coach of the Boston Bruins, and also now still being in the playoff hunt in March, end of March, where every game counts. That’s something you want to be in as a player and a coach.”

External expectations were all over the place as Sturm entered training camp in September. Internally, though, he always had a plan. It was just a matter of implementing it.

“Marco’s been confident from day one. I’ve always referenced the passion he has, the teaching,” general manager Don Sweeney said. “The staff as a whole has really worked hard to identify areas where we can continue to get better at and push our players. Thus far, I think it’s gone well, and we’re proud of our group.”

In the beginning, Sturm said he leaned on his experience as a player in Boston to help him adjust to his new routine. The former NHL forward spent five years (2005-10) with the Bruins; he skated in a cumulative 938 games in the league over 14 seasons.

Sturm had also been building towards this opportunity. He was the head coach of the Ontario Reign in the AHL for the three prior seasons (2022-25), and was an assistant for the Los Angeles Kings from 2019 to 2022.

The hope was always to land back in Boston. Sturm and his wife, Astrid, were a young family with their kids, Mason and Kaydie, when he was skating for the Black & Gold. Mason is now playing hockey at Bowdoin College in Maine, and Kaydie is a freshman guard for the UMass Boston women’s basketball team. It has all fallen into place for the Sturms.

“My family waited for this moment for a long, long time. Probably since the day we left here,” Sturm said. “I knew we would be back, I just never thought we would be back because I’m the head coach – that’s insane. But we’ll take it.”

Sturm lived away from his family during the hockey season for the seven years he was in the Los Angeles Kings organization. He would join them in their home base, Florida, for parts of the year.

“It was fine at first because I was chasing a dream. Thanks to my wife and my kids – we found a way, and they let me do my job chasing my dream,” Sturm said. “But after year five or so, I could tell. I’m a family person, so it was getting time. Times were getting tougher and tougher without my family. Kids were getting older, too. It was just a hard stretch. But we knew we had to do it.”

Sturm would come home from a game, flip on more hockey and “talk to himself,” he said with a chuckle. Now, simply being with his wife and kids – who are frequent visitors from college – at the end of a long work day makes all the difference. Teddy, their Chiweenie (a Chihuahua-Dachshund mix), is happy to have her dad around as well – “She runs the show,” Sturm said. He missed the home-cooked meals, too; Schnitzel is the go-to.

​“My family is so happy. My kids are so happy. Being away from my family the last seven years was not easy,” Sturm said.

The support system has provided Sturm with an extra boost, and he’s put it all into getting the most out of his roster. From the start, Sturm was not afraid to voice his vision and the type of players he needed in the system. Acquiring Viktor Arvidsson in the July trade with the Edmonton Oilers was something Sturm was more than happy about.

Arvidsson played for the Kings from 2021 to 2024 and crossed paths with Sturm during that time.

“He pushed a lot for me to come here in the summer. I think we both wanted it and wanted this to work. It’s been really good for both me and for him,” Arvidsson said.

​The 32-year-old forward has been a top-six fixture for the B’s this year. Arvidsson sparks the second line, which has been at the top of the production list for Boston. He has 44 points (21 goals, 23 assists) through 61 games – marking the sixth 20-goal season of Arvidsson’s career. It is exactly the impact Sturm was hoping for.

“He’s been really good; the first season, it’s not easy. Your first year in the league, it’s not easy just to become a head coach. I know he was the head coach in the minors, but it’s a little bit different,” Arvidsson said of Sturm. “I think he’s done a great job, and he’s very structured. He knows how we want to play, and he has a vision. He has really tried to execute it in video and in practices – it’s been really good for our group.”

Sturm has also given chances to players who were not a core part of the group before the coach’s arrival. Jonathan Aspirot, for one, spent six years in the AHL and had yet to make his NHL debut before getting recalled from Providence at the end of October. The 26-year-old defenseman has not gone back, locking down a first-pair assignment with Charlie McAvoy. The Bruins signed Aspirot to a two-year extension in January.

Aspirot said Sturm’s messaging to him has been consistent – believe in himself, trust his skill set and do his job to the best of his ability every night. It helped that Aspirot was quick to adapt to Sturm’s style of play, too.

“I think just trying to keep my game as simple as I can and work hard every shift. Close the gap pretty quickly,” Aspirot said. “I think [Sturm] has been great this year. He has been unbelievable for us. I have really enjoyed working with him…A lot happened this year. I am super excited for what happened this season. Just super grateful.”​

Nothing is given in Sturm’s world, as his players have learned. Aspirot did not start on the top pair, nor did Fraser Minten open the season centering the first line, where he is now. The 21-year-old forward caught Sturm’s eye in training camp and has continued to develop into a responsible two-way player. Minten is smart, Sturm said, and asks good questions. That, plus his work ethic and production, have placed the rookie alongside David Pastrnak, and on the power play and penalty kill.

“We like playing for Marco. He’s really good at helping me through anything, any time there’s a mistake or something like that,” Minten said. “Just coaching me through. I think if you’re somebody who can play his system, he will reward you with opportunity. I’ve just been trying to do that, and it’s been great so far.”

It has been a full-team effort to get the Bruins to where they stand today, and Sturm knows that. It, in fact, is how he designed it. There were growing pains to start the year, but the buy-in and belief that followed have been the group’s engine.​

“Those guys make it easy on me because I know they give me everything they have every night. It’s never really an effort issue – never ever,” Sturm said. “It was a lot. You’ve got a new team, new system, coaching, management. There’s a lot going on. I feel in every corner, I feel like I’m getting more and more comfortable. So that’s a good thing.”

Sturm, to state the obvious, is deeply invested in the B’s current run. It is the former player in him, he said, that gets excited for these moments rather than nervous. It has been challenging for Sturm to ever turn his brain off, but he is trying to take time here and there to relish in his reality.​

“Even just going out for lunch and going for a walk, enjoying Boston and the restaurants. Yesterday, I went to the North End for a coffee. That’s something that brings me down a little bit before I crank it up again,” Sturm said. “Coming back, not just moving back with my family, but also in the city that we always wanted to come back to, it is even better.”