For the second consecutive offseason, the Bruins have undergone major roster renovation. But unlike last summer, when the story was more about what was going out the door, what’s been coming in the door is what’s interesting about this offseason.

While the B’s lost two long-time players in Jake DeBrusk and Matt Grzelcyk in free agency, GM Don Sweeney made one of the bigger splashes across the NHL by landing mammoth defenseman Nikita Zadorov and the two-way centerman he’s been looking for in Elias Lindholm, as well as depth forwards Mark Kastelic (via the Linus Ullmark trade), Max Jones and Riley Tufte.

Just how it all comes together on the ice will be up to Jim Montgomery and his rejiggered coaching staff, but the moves are at the very least an intriguing attempt to regain some of the B’s lost identity with the departures of Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara over the last handful of years.

Defenseman Brandon Carlo – the third-longest tenured Bruin behind Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak as well as the last man standing from the famous/infamous 2015 draft – has grown into one of the team’s unlettered leaders who is in the midst of his prime years at age 27. When we caught up with him after an informal workout at Warrior Ice Arena earlier this week, he was bullish on the revamped lineup, starting with the 6-foot-6, 250-pound Zadorov.

“Boston, first and foremost, is going to love this guy, for sure,” said Carlo. “His physicality and his presence, I’ve even felt it as a defenseman playing against him. He does bring a presence on the ice. He has an intimidating factor, just getting in guys’ faces and playing the game hard. That’s great. But watching him a little bit throughout the playoffs and last season, he brings a confidence level, too. You can tell he’s got that within his game. I’ve seen that with Hampus Lindholm as well, which is great, because I’ve been able to learn off of that and been able to feed off of that. I love our D corps right now.”

It sounds as if the initial pairs in training camp will have Zadorov teamed with Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm with Carlo while Mason Lohrei and Andrew Peeke are the third pair. But things tend to change through the course of the season.

“I love playing with everybody. I think each season it’s always been that way, except maybe my first season with (Zdeno Chara) when I was sheltered by him a little bit,” said Carlo. “Aside from that, I’ve gotten to play with pretty much everyone. I enjoy that and I feel like my game translates well in adjusting to other guys’ games, whether they’re offensive or defensive. I feel like I’m a good guy to be a partner rather than trying to be the whole show.”

There’s also the hope that the addition of Elias Lindholm will lift some of the burden on the blueliners in the D-zone, much like Bergeron did for almost two decades.

“Having a guy who plays both sides of the puck is very important,” said Carlo. “Playing with Bergy, it was so easy on the ice. As a centerman he was so good at his position like on the breakouts and certain things. I think that will help us with Elias. He makes really good reads and good defensive plays. And obviously he has that finish around the net (a career high 42 goals in 2021-22). He’s one of those guys who makes the game easier for everyone around him, including the defensemen because he is a center. I’m excited to play with him, find him in the middle of the ice and watch him do what he can do.”

There was a reshuffling of the coaching staff as well. Jay Leach, the former Providence Bruins coach who spent the last three seasons with the Seattle Kraken, has returned to the organization and will handle the defense corps while Joe Sacco has been bumped up to associate coach under Montgomery.

Carlo has never played in-season under Leach, but did interact with him for several years in training camp when the Providence coaches regularly participate.

“Every time I’ve been around Leachie, he’s been awesome,” said Carlo. “I love his demeanor. His positivity has been fantastic. He’s not nit-picky with stuff when he’s coaching, he’s more of a teacher obviously. He picks and chooses where he feels he can help you a lot. I like that, where you’re not getting over-coached by any means but a guy who knows what he’s talking about. I feel like his voice carries a lot with this group because of his positivity.”

In the immediate post-mortem of the playoff series loss to the Florida Panthers, Montgomery lamented his team’s lack of scoring, saying “You can’t win every game 2-1.” But after he made his moves on July 1, Sweeney retorted that, yeah, some of these games in the playoffs must be won, 2-1.

Now, with the additions of Zadorov and Lindholm – and despite the as-yet-unfilled vacancy at second-line right wing created by DeBrusk’s departure – they should be in better position to grind out wins, hopefully in the spring.

“Closing those games out in the third period, holding that 2-1 lead, I feel like we’ll have a good opportunity of doing that this year, just with the overall makeup of our group,” said Carlo. “I feel like last year we did a really good job identifying the group that we had as opposed to the year before because we were missing some different guys. So we’re going to have to re-do that this year. Go about it, look at the group that we have and adjust based off of that. Last year we recognized we weren’t a skilled team that would make plays coming across the blue line, 3-on-2s, trying to make a lot of those plays. It was more about playing behind them and getting in our forecheck, use our speed to our advantage. Now we’ve added a little more skill and size, so maybe we can start to integrate a little bit more of that.”

The Bruins won’t have to wait long to see how they match up against the best. They open on Oct. 8, in Florida against the Stanley Cup champion Panthers. The hardware for which they hope to be playing next spring will be in the building.