Your Boston Bruins did what was widely expected this week and turfed Head Coach Jim Montgomery. To say that this season has been underwhelming so far is an understatement and to say that Monty deserved his walking papers is not completely shedding light on the entire situation. I will say this: For the last 5-6 weeks, this team has been ugly to watch and one thing all of us fans can agree upon: We need to blame someone!
Let’s dive in, shall we?
There’s plenty of blame to go around with where the Bruins find themselves the week before American Thanksgiving. Sitting at 9-9-3 with a paltry 21 points and looking up in the standings at TOR FLA TBL and BUF, (yes the Sabres, not a typo) is not what we’ve all come to expect from the Black and Gold. Your Hometown Heroes find themselves on the outside of the playoff format fogging up the glass and wondering how to punch their ticket to get back inside.
The players did Montgomery no favors when they lost to CBJ earlier this week. This was only the 2nd win on the road for the Blue Jackets this season and they are actually statistically worse than the Bruins. Add to the fact that the team as a whole didn’t come out with their hair on fire and then your number one offensive threat goes the entire 60 without a shot on net? I’d say that’s pretty telling. To give Montgomery credit, he did what he could do. The shouting matches with Marchand, benching Pastrnak for a period and moving McAvoy off the top power play unit; the coach’s best tool is playing time and Montgomery was pulling all the levers at his disposal.
And before we go any further, can we stow the “trade them all” type of yelling please? The players aren’t going anywhere, and for the most part, you wouldn’t want them to either. So for all of you saying trade Pastrnak, cut Swayman, bench Marchand, send McAvoy to Providence (all real comments on different Bruins’ sites) please, for the love of all that is hockey, shut the fuck up and watch something else. I feel dumber for having read your comments and posts.
But all that is surface stuff. When management let’s a coach go into the season riding out his contract, is that a sign of commitment from the executive suite? If that coach goes into the season as a lame duck is he going to take the time to develop the younger players in the system when his job/contract is literally on the line? Or is he going to ride his horses and try to secure as many W’s as possible? I’m not saying Montgomery let his contract status dictate his decision making, but it sure makes you go hmmm.
Let’s talk about the aforementioned executive suite. And let’s start with everyone’s favorite thespian, Seabass himself: Cam Neely. Look, I’m as big of a Neely fan as anyone, but there’s a difference between being a fan of Neely the player, and Neely the VP or President. You have to be able to separate the art from the artist as it is, and take off your footie Bruins pajamas and have a frank convo about #8. In Neely’s tenure he’s gotten rid of 3 Jack Adam award winning coaches in Claude Julien, Bruce Cassidy and now Montgomery. That’s not the type of stability and tenure you’d expect from an Original 6 Franchise. And all the shit that Don Sweeney gets for his drafting? Neely signs off on those and is in the room. Somehow he’s avoided a lot of blame here and remember that he was the one with the “I’d have 8 million reasons to be in camp” line that put all of Jeremy Swayman’s negotiations on the public stage. And if you believe Swayman’s agent, that offer was never put to Swayman or his camp. You can find the article here. I’m just saying, whatever blame you lay on Sweeney, save a slice of that pie for Neely.
Which brings us to Don Sweeney. The Harvard educated GM of the Boston Bruins currently in the 10th year of his tenure. I mention Harvard because it’s mind-boggling how someone that fucking smart had such of a gong show of an off-season.
Let’s see how it breaks down over the last 10 seasons with Sweeney guiding the ship:
- 2x – not qualifying for the playoffs
- 3x – exit in the 1st round
- 4x – exit in the 2nd round
- 1x – loss in the Stanley Cup Finals
If we were in Toronto, they’d have a statue of Sweeney outside the arena and there would be a whole generation of children and dogs named after him. Luckily, we live here in the Hub of Hockey and frankly, that’s not good enough. The fact that Patrice Bergeron retired with just one Stanley Cup ring is a shame that looms large over the House of Bruins.
The other thing Sweeney gets killed for is his draft (or lack of) success. But is it really that bad? I broke it down and over his time, the Bruins have had 59 picks and so far 12 of those players (13 if you count Matt Poitras – currently in Providence with the Baby B’s), are contributing NHL players. That’s a 20.3% success rate. GM’s in the NHL are considered excellent if they hit at a 20%-25% of draft picks becoming impact players. And the players that he’s “hit on” that are currently on the roster? Brandon Carlo, Charlie McAvoy, Trent Frederic, Jeremy Swayman, Johnny Beecher and Mason Lohrei. I’d say that’s pretty good and those are fairly impactful players from top to bottom.
Now, trading away picks and young players for the WIN NOW mentality? I don’t think anyone was complaining at the time when Sweeney stripped the cupboards bare trying to win another Cup. Sure, in hindsight some of his moves look horrible (and none worse in my opinion than the haul to the Rangers for 23GP of Rick Nash), but at the time they made sense, right? Sweeney also got his hands dirty (along with Neely) in the Mitchell Miller fiasco. I don’t think that one’s going to age like a fine wine for either of them.
But this last off-season was next level. First knowing that Swayman had a bad taste left in his mouth from his time previously in the arbitration process; Sweeney “allegedly” low-balled an offer to his young franchise netminder. Swayman then balked (as was his right and for any of you saying it’s still millions of dollars – please let me know the next time you decide to take less $$ at a job), and while that was ongoing, they traded Linus Ullmark away (within the division), thus giving all leverage to Swayman. After missing training camp, Swayman signed and looked rusty to start the season. He’s battled back to form, but the defensive breakdowns in front of him, combined with the scoring drought up front have been brutal to watch. I broke this all down on the podcast last night, but I got worked up and probably missed some key points, so I thought I’d put it out on the blog too. You can find the podcast here:
While the goalie saga was ongoing, Sweeney and Co. were saying all the right things: We need secondary scoring and we need to get faster overall. So what did they do? Signed Elias Lindholm (always been a setup guy, had one season over 40G average for his career is 18G/season) and Nikita Zadorov who, you can call a lot of things, but speedy ‘aint one of them. And in terms of secondary scoring: Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Shattenkirk all moved on for greener pastures. I’m sure part of the equation was the hope that Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie would improve upon their career numbers from last year?? I believe that’s called wishful hoping. Not sure if that’s taught at the Business School in Cambridge or it’s a continuing education course.
And that leads me to the Jacobs’ family. For those a little longer in the tooth, they will remember the Jacobs tossing around nickels like man-hole covers when it came to player’s salaries. Harry Sinden completely bought into this line of team building and was a great hammer for the owners. And what did that get the Jacobs? A Stanley Cup in 2011 (after they finally started spending money) and nothing else since they bought the team in 1975. Jacobs bought the team for $10M at that time and it’s current worth is (checks notes) $2.75B. I’d say that’s a tidy return on your initial investment.
And that’s what it all comes down to. As long as the team continues to make the Jacobs’ family money and the ledger is in the black, nothing at the executive level will change. The Jacobs’ have never been fans of the game, it’s an investment for them. They’re more like John Henry and the Red Sox than they are Robert Kraft and the Patriots. Kraft bought the team as a fan, and treated it as such (at least while his ego was still at human size). Henry is loathed locally as he treats the Red Sox as another line item in his portfolio, and that’s what the Jacobs have done since they bought the team.
Hopefully local hero Joe Sacco will get things going in the right direction. I saw some positive signs in their last game vs. Utah. The team looked engaged, players were hard on the fore-check and finishing their checks. The D corp seemed to get the memo to get the pucks up and out at a faster pace and Zadorov was playing 3rd pair where I think he belongs. The Bruins play 8 more games against opponents that are out of the playoff bracket right now before taking on Winnipeg on Dec 10th. That’s a nice stretch to get-right, pile up some points and see where the team is at. Anything above 6-3 on this swing has to be a good sign.
What say you Black and Gold Nation? Who do you have at the center of The Blame Game?
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