But bridge years aren’t as bad as they sound. They’re better than rebuilds and this year doesn’t have to be a disaster. Sweeney didn’t commit a lot of money to anybody and more importantly, he didn’t commit years to Milan Lucic, James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Shattenkirk. All three will be free agents after a year from now.

There’s a few ways this could go.

In the best case scenario, the three newly arriving veterans are energized by new surroundings — and Lucic already seems to be — and motivated by trying to prove they deserve a contract somewhere in 2024-25 and emerge as useful pieces at reasonable prices. They mesh well with the talented returning core led by David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Brad Marchand, etc. Sweeney makes a move or two at the deadline and the Bruins are a tough out in the playoffs.

Or Lucic and van Riemsdyk become the latest aging power forwards that Sweeney signs well after their sell-by date has passed and the Bruins struggle up front, while Shattenkirk looks like a shell of his former self and becomes a regular healthy scratch and the Bruins miss the playoffs.

But even in that case, if they deal Derek Forbort, Matt Grzelcyk and maybe even Jake DeBrusk or Linus Ullmark at the trade deadline and get some younger pieces or draft capital to augment the returning players down the road, there’s still something to be gained.

That’d be tough to go through for Marchand, the likely captain if Bergeron doesn’t come back. At 35, he doesn’t have many years left, but for the rest of the franchise, it’s not bad.

In either scenario, the Bruins are still well-positioned to make moves going into 2024-25 when DeBrusk (who they might choose to keep), Forbort, Grzelcyk, Jason Megna, Jakub Zboril and A.J. Greer as well as Lucic, van Riemsdyk and Shattenkirk all come off the books.

For now, Sweeney took a shot at staying respectable in the present. The franchise’s core of Pastrnak, McAvoy, Marchand, DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle, Hampus Lindholm and maybe Pavel Zacha, are too good not to make a good faith try to be a playoff team. He created a roster that if Bergeron and Krejci are leaning toward returning, they won’t feel like they wasting their time in a rebuild. At the same time, Sweeney did it without limiting the future. He said Saturday he dearly wished he could have extended Tyler Bertuzzi. He could get another chance next year when Bertuzzi, who just signed a one-year deal becomes a free agent again.

“We know we’re a competitive group and we want to remain a competitive group and with an eye towards the future,” Sweeney said. “We didn’t really encumber ourselves too badly from a standpoint of contracts. ... As we pointed out, we feel good about the competitiveness of our group.”

On top of that, if the Bruins give Fabien Lysell, Mason Lohri, Georgi Merkulov or Johnny Beecher a chance to make their NHL debuts next year, they’ll be playing alongside reliable NHL veterans and leaders worth emulating.

“You put March and Pasta, Coyle and Zacha and Lindholm, McAvoy and the goaltending situation and the other guys,” Sweeney said. “That’s the next core for the Boston Bruins and we’re excited about that.”