I’ve always been a contrarian when it comes to the Boston Bruins. I think most of it is that broken down Boston fan in me that refuses to ever look at something mildly positive. You all know the heartbreaking stories of the Boston Bruins. 2004 loss to the 7th seed Canadiens, 2009 loss to the Hurricanes, 2010 loss to the Flyers and so on and so forth.
Make no mistake about it, I wanted Peter Chiarelli fired. Despite his previous success, I felt he didn’t put together a Stanley Cup contending roster and couldn’t manage a salary cap that he mismanaged. Many will call that statement stupid and bring up the President’s Trophy, but could it be that the team we saw last year didn’t underachieve? Could it be that the 2013-14 team overachieved in the regular season?
Regardless, I believe Chiarelli made contractual, trading and roster movement mistakes the the past few years that didn’t warrant him returning. I’ll list them but feel free to skip over this next part. I wouldn’t want to write “I don’t believe I should list that because you know the reasons” and then you tell me you don’t know the reasons. In no particular order:
- Tyler Seguin/Rich Peverley trade
- Johnny Boychuk trade
- 2007-2009 draft classes
- Matt Fraser waiver claim
- Craig Cunningham waiver claim
- Chris Kelly contract extension
- Reilly Smith contract extension
- 9 no trade/no movement clauses
Those are the ones that are quickly off of the top of my head. I’m sure there’s more. Some of those you may agree with and some you may not but these, again, are my reasons. Yours may differ if you have any at all.
Here’s the thing: the thought of Don Sweeney as the next Bruins GM fucking terrifies me.
I see the hiring of Don Sweeney as a lateral move as the replacement of Peter Chiarelli. Don Sweeney spent his entire assistant general manager career under the tutelage of Chiarelli. Some believe that Sweeney would be a breath of fresh air in an organization that has gone stale but are we led to believe that Sweeney had no say in the moves Chiarelli made? I find that extremely hard to believe.
So if we are led to believe that Sweeney did have input in the moves Chiarelli made, why are we going to think anything is going to change? From Cam Neely’s press conference announcing the firing of Peter Chiarelli he mentioned that the Bruins want to get back to their style of hockey. This, my friends, is what terrifies me. Instead of looking at the evolution of the NHL to a quicker paced game – please note I never said a smaller game – the Bruins want to employ hulking, slow, tough players because that’s what won them a Stanley Cup in 2011. However, everyone fails to mention that the same type of roster also got them eliminated in the first round in 2012, choked away a potential Stanley Cup Finals Game 7 in 2013 and an embarrassment of a second round elimination in 2013.
I am worried that Sweeney is going to be a puppet for Cam Neely.
Neely had virtually no roster control when Chiarelli was in power and my source (yes, I have sources) has told me that it is a very loud secret that Cam and Peter and Claude have never gotten along. So Cam gets to pick his guy, a guy who will live in the 1980’s and build a team to play a game that is slowly getting phased out.
Again, this is all conjecture. Nothing is set in stone but can you see the Boston Bruins getting away from the narrative that they’re the “Big, Bad Bruins” because I can’t. In a sea of assistant general managers who have had more responsibilities than Don Sweeney (see: Jeff Gorton, Julien BriseBois to name a few), the Bruins are going to go with the safe option because it fits their hivemind.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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