Management 1 PM May 22nd - Charlie, Cam, Don and Monty address media - NESN

[Fenway]

Wednesday, May 22 at 1 p.m. (TD Garden, Boston, MA)
- End of season press conference with CEO and Alternate Governor Charlie Jacobs, President Cam Neely, General Manager Don Sweeney and Head Coach Jim Montgomery

- Media should enter through back security and proceed to Legends Club on Level 3

- Light refreshments will be provided to the media​

Click to read more...

 

[LouJersey]

Sad to see our one Cup next to the other top tier teams.

Jets are a disaster.

 

[LouJersey]

He has cap space but unfortunately so do many other teams ,I suspect the contracts are going to get greatly inflated.

They will target their guys, we will all be like WTF and then it will all work out haha

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

Not a single one of those save Swayman showed up in the playoffs.

You must of seen that.

It's pretty bad when Debrusk middling efforts is considered good but that's how had the rest of them were.

I would not call Debrusk middling. He was a force. Still a complementary piece but that is not his issue. That is a roster issue. He could not have played much better aside from a goal or two on the breakaways.

 

[BlackFrancis]

You want to build to compete for a cup, but completely tanking a couple years when there's no guarantee you ever get out of that cycle (hello Buffalo) could lose you a lot of hockey fans. Management has to balance that short term and long term.

Buffalo is also exhibit A for cheap ass ownership.

If the Bruins ever went into a season with $10M+ in cap room, this place would be a mad house. Never mind multiple seasons.

 

[GordonHowe]

Last chance for what? They have to win the cup or you fire him, that what you're saying?

Bruins have been in the playoffs every year lately. Is that failure?

It is when you can't get out of the first round, never mind the second.

Neely deserves his share of credit. Just he deserves fair critique for what's happened since. I do think the current regime has grown too comfortable, and probably a little stale. They do a lot right, but also tend to keep doing some of the same things wrong. Reality is they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

Can you tell me what Neely deserves credit for? I'm serious. I'd like to know.

 

[GordonHowe]

Of course we want to win the cup, but there's a world of difference between winning the cup and sucking. Only 1 team gets that cup, it's a hard cup to win. Making the playoffs every year is still an accomplishment. You still want to be better, but it's no reason to fire everybody and start over every time you fail to go all the way.

It's been 9 years. I think the approach, and the end result, is stale.

 

[The don godfather]

I would not call Debrusk middling. He was a force. Still a complementary piece but that is not his issue. That is a roster issue. He could not have played much better aside from a goal or two on the breakaways.

One things for sure jake torches the leafs. I would bring him back in case we play them again. He just loves feasting on them.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

It is when you can't get out of the first round, never mind second.


Can you tell me what Neely deserves credit for? I'm serious. I'd like to know.

The 2011 Cup. He was VP since 2007 and then President from June 2010 onwards. Does that mean he had much of a role in putting together what ultimately became the 2011 roster? Probably not. But he was there in senior positions, and presumably had some say, if not because of his specific role then because Cam Neely the player was one of the greats of the franchise and therefore a voice that carried some weight, as it still does.

You can't quantify that credit, nor should you overstate it. But only fair to acknowledge it all the same.

 

[GordonHowe]

The 2011 Cup. He was VP since 2007 and then President from June 2010 onwards. Does that mean he had much of a role in putting together what ultimately became the 2011 roster? Probably not. But he was there in senior positions, and presumably had some say, if not because of his specific role then because Cam Neely the player was one of the greats of the franchise and therefore a voice that carried some weight, as it still does.

You can't quantify that credit, nor should you overstate it. But only fair to acknowledge it all the same.

Fair enough. But I really would like some specifics before I die. Not from you. Just in general cuz it's baffled me all these years.

 

[BiteThisBurrows]

Can you tell me what Neely deserves credit for? I'm serious. I'd like to know.

Team culture? I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility. Chara, Bergeron, others have been credited, but a constant is Neely. If you think about Bruins culture it is a lot like how Neely played and thought in his day. I think it's possible that it comes from there or at least is supported and fostered from that point.

It's been 9 years. I think the approach, and the end result, is stale.

So what do you want to do? Fire Sweeney? Fire Neely? Hire who? Do you really think it's so bad we need a cleaned house, and if we do it clean it, who you filling it with that's going to be better?

 

[GordonHowe]

Team culture? I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility. Chara, Bergeron, others have been credited, but a constant is Neely. If you think about Bruins culture it is a lot like how Neely played and thought in his day. I think it's possible that it comes from there or at least is supported and fostered from that point.


So what do you want to do? Fire Sweeney? Fire Neely? Hire who? Do you really think it's so bad we need a cleaned house, and if we do it clean it, who you filling it with that's going to be better?

GM, I don't know. That doesn't mean there isn't a proper replacement.

Someone who knows how to build something other than a successful regular season club. Someone who understands that a team can be skilled, speedy, and physical. Imagine that.

If I have to wait 10 years, I would love it if Z became the general manager of the Boston bruins. You would see a transformation.

He's a winner. Neither Sweeney nor Neely fit that description, however unfair my opinion.

Coaching? If it were up to me and the timing was right, which it isn't, Berube, Rod Brind'Amour, Gallant, Cooper. Tocchet, Peter Laviolette. And that's just off the top of my head.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

Fair enough. But I really would like some specifics before I die. Not from you. Just in general cuz it's baffled me all these years.

If the question is what exactly does the President do, then I must confess that apart from being the GM's boss and accountable to the owners, I have no precise idea. Like a lot of senior positions of that type, you can probably be more or less hands off depending on your approach. More in the weeds, or more willing to stay above things and trust your managers to do their jobs.

Safe to say that Neely is very much the involved type and he and Don have a long and close working relationship, but how exactly that works in practice must remain largely a mystery to us folks on the outside.

 

[Bruinswillwin77]

I believe right now you can trace Trent Frederic and Andrew Peeke back to the Barry Pederson/Neely trade.

 

[Lordstanley]

It's been 9 years. I think the approach, and the end result, is stale.

Wash........Rinse.......Repeat x 9

 

[Mione134]

I just want to hear them tell us that they're finally addressing the powerplay issue.

Find a new coach. One who has experience in running one.

 

[Gordoff]

I believe right now you can trace Trent Frederic and Andrew Peeke back to the Barry Pederson/Neely trade.

Aaaaaaaand?

Wash........Rinse.......Repeat x 9

Wash......Rinse...........Repeat ..............and fold. If you don't., ooey the wrinkles!

 

[Bruinswillwin77]

Aaaaaaaand?


Wash......Rinse...........Repeat ..............and fold. If you don't., ooey the wrinkles!

Idk. Random I guess? People were talking about Neely and it reminded me.

 

[Gordoff]

I give Sweeney a lot of shit here but yeah, it's nice being [] close every year.
Last year he gave Monty a loaded, plugged head to stern with talent beast of a team to go to war with, not as physical as I'd have liked but....
A few months later:
It was like watching the meltdown of the captain of a ship,
IMHO it was that bad. At the time I don't think I said one word against
most of the moves (there was one or two that I'd have preferred) but DS
gets high grades for that. He built a strong unit into what seemed like a juggernaut. If they won the Cup, there would have been words like GOAT being thrown around. But, nothing is guaranteed when there's a weak link.
Monty WTF!?!?!
Completely standing there naked with his decisions and spiraling down, and crashing, it was a sight to see. Completely without answers for anything and making some doozey mistakes. The players looked confused, discombobulated and clueless of situational awareness.
Question for me is this, did 25ish professional, well paid, well trained athletes at the top of their game all of a sudden suck?
Or,
Was there a disconnect?
What was going on in Monty's mind, in his decision making etc.
It was easy during regular season last year. He hardly had to make many coaching
decisions or deal with any real heavy issues.
The team was on cruise control.
Bergy, DK, Marchand on down the line with the added leadership
at the TDL and they were the supposed best in the league.
Sweeney, not without mistakes over his tenure (some of them some of us
called out) but it worked, how could we complain. Shoulda Coulda Woulda won the Stanley Cup. It was inevitable, or was it MONTY and Co?
He did a good job this year but...
I would remove him from the job if a top notch bench boss with NHL HC
chops that are proven.
I'm talking about a coach with a perennial winning record.
I'm looking at Mike Sullivan if he's fired. Doubt it happens, and if it does
I would pounce on him. If he doesn't become available I'm looking at
Gallant etc.
As others have said, Monty is a Hell of a good assistant coach. He can be "good cop" to the HC's ''bad cop."
Toronto now has a bench boss who knows all of the tricks, and has stolen one Cup from us already. That 2019 loss was against Bruce Cassidy, a damn good coach (as we've learned now). Next season Toronto may even hire Marc Savard. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Do we counter with Montgomery since the proof is in the pudding?
I've seen enough and this year there will be an influx of talent IMO.
I don't want it wasted on the dubious decisions of Jim Montgomery.

 

[bobbyorr04]

Not a single one of those save Swayman showed up in the playoffs.

You must of seen that.

It's pretty bad when Debrusk middling efforts is considered good but that's how had the rest of them were.

You might not have to worry about DeBrusk much longer...

Toronto Maple Leafs reportedly will have interest in two Boston Bruins impactful players

Another Boston Bruins season came to an end Friday night in a 2-1 Game 6 loss to the Florida Panthers in the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With

causewaycrowd.com

 

[BiteThisBurrows]

GM, I don't know. That doesn't mean there isn't a proper replacement.

Someone who knows how to build something other than a successful regular season club. Someone who understands that a team can be skilled, speedy, and physical. Imagine that.

If I have to wait 10 years, I would love it if Z became the general manager of the Boston bruins. You would see a transformation.

He's a winner. Neither Sweeney nor Neely fit that description, however unfair my opinion.

Coaching? If it were up to me and the timing was right, which it isn't, Berube, Rod Brind'Amour, Gallant, Cooper. Tocchet, Peter Laviolette. And that's just off the top of my head.

I like Gallant as a coach too. The others kind of already have jobs.

Big Z? Is he smart? Would he be a good GM? I have no idea. As a rookie GM you'd be rolling the dice there. Bergeron would be interesting, but again, a rookie as GM so there might be a learning curve and that could be costly.

 

[GordonHowe]

I like Gallant as a coach too. The others kind of already have jobs.

Big Z? Is he smart? Would he be a good GM? I have no idea. As a rookie GM you'd be rolling the dice there. Bergeron would be interesting, but again, a rookie as GM so there might be a learning curve and that could be costly.

Many of the coaches I mentioned are already employed. I did so to illustrate what I would want in a coach. Defense first. Down the middle of equal importance.Great goaltending, which they have. Everything else flows from that.

Look at any of the coaches that I mentioned, and they have one thing in common. Structure. I don't think Jim Montgomery is a structure coach.

I think that he is, at least at present, an excellent assistant coach.

Offense first. (Quality shots over quantity, which worked in the regular season, but not in the playoffs); no defensive structure.

Zdeno Chara would be head and shoulders above Don Sweeney as GM.

If you know anything about him, he is a fierce competitor and voracious sponge of knowledge. (He took a course at Harvard too.)

Not like Brad, but he will do anything to win. He came to North America from Czechoslovakia, or perhaps by that time the Slovak Republic, which, in itself, was an impressive leap of faith.

He's also an extremely intelligent individual. I believe he knows something like seven languages, something crazy like that.

Beyond that, he trained with his wrestling coach father to become a technically superior fighter and physical defender in the NHL.

When he first came into the league, everyone laughed because he was a gangly giraffe.

Yet, much like Terry O'Reilly, Z *made himself an elite NHL player.* He had a chip on his shoulder. Zdeno is an extremely, extremely competitive person.

He wanted to prove the detractors wrong.

And he did. With class.

He is, to my knowledge, a fantastic human being, who remains an ultimate athletic competitor, and in every other way a striving individual who seeks excellence in all he does.

It has now been a few years since Chara retired.

Do you want to know what his diet was in the latter years of his career?

Plants and seeds.

I kid you not.

Always at the forefront of diet, nutrition, exercise. Let's run a few marathons to maintain a goal oriented perspective. And, you know, for fun.

Chara understands the value of physicality as well as speed and skill; understands what it takes to win and, as Mark Messier would say, the importance of imposing your will on the opponent.

Again, Z has a burning desire to win, and to be the best.

He is relentless.

As captain of the Bruins, he mandated that teammates would be teammates. No cliques, no rookies.

Peter Chiarell, Claude Julien, Patrice Bergeron, and many others on those BBB redux teams came together to create something special.

But no mistake. As Captain, Zdeno Chara was the man who, after initial missteps, created the "Bruins culture" we know today.

He would be a fabulous general manager.

His intelligence, passion, humility, and will to win - to say nothing of the universal regard he has earned around the NHL - speak volumes.

I hope this happens someday.

 

[Carl Hungus]

If debrusk goes to leafs it'll come back to bite us

 

[Fenway]

The way the Jacobs Family has things set up can make your head spin.

The Bruins are owned by the Jacobs Family as is Delaware North but TD Garden is considered a seperate business than the team.

In 2015 Papa Jacobs transferred ownership of the Bruins to his 6 children.

Nothing will change as long as Papa Jacobs is still with us but I have talked to media friends in Buffalo that believe the siblings want to cash out in Boston and use that money to get Terry Pegula out of Western New York. The family believes they can redevelop downtown Buffalo if they take control of the Sabres.

Pegula might be open to swapping the Sabres for the Penguins and Fenway Sports Group winds up with the Bruins and also buys TD Garden.

Pegula and the Jacobs Family don't get along and what the Jacobs want most is ownership of the Buffalo Bills.

I have NO IDEA on Papa Jacobs health but he was not seen at any Bruins playoff games in Sunrise the past 2 years - He is 84 years old.

 

[BiteThisBurrows]

Many of the coaches I mentioned are already employed. I did so to illustrate what I would want in a coach. Defense first. Down the middle of equal importance.Great goaltending, which they have. Everything else flows from that.

Look at any of the coaches that I mentioned, and they have one thing in common. Structure. I don't think Jim Montgomery is a structure coach.

I think that he is, at least at present, an excellent assistant coach.

Offense first. (Quality shots over quantity, which worked in the regular season, but not in the playoffs); no defensive structure.

Zdeno Chara would be head and shoulders above Don Sweeney as GM.

If you know anything about him, he is a fierce competitor and voracious sponge of knowledge. (He took a course at Harvard too.)

Not like Brad, but he will do anything to win. He came to North America from Czechoslovakia, or perhaps by that time the Slovak Republic, which, in itself, was an impressive leap of faith.

He's also an extremely intelligent individual. I believe he knows something like seven languages, something crazy like that.

Beyond that, he trained with his wrestling coach father to become a technically superior fighter and physical defender in the NHL.

When he first came into the league, everyone laughed because he was a gangly giraffe.

Yet, much like Terry O'Reilly, Z *made himself an elite NHL player.* He had a chip on his shoulder. Zdeno is an extremely, extremely competitive person.

He wanted to prove the detractors wrong.

And he did. With class.

He is, to my knowledge, a fantastic human being, who remains an ultimate athletic competitor, and in every other way a striving individual who seeks excellence in all he does.

It has now been a few years since Chara retired.

Do you want to know what his diet was in the latter years of his career?

Plants and seeds.

I kid you not.

Always at the forefront of diet, nutrition, exercise. Let's run a few marathons to maintain a goal oriented perspective. And, you know, for fun.

Chara understands the value of physicality as well as speed and skill; understands what it takes to win and, as Mark Messier would say, the importance of imposing your will on the opponent.

Again, Z has a burning desire to win, and to be the best.

He is relentless.

As captain of the Bruins, he mandated that teammates would be teammates. No cliques, no rookies.

Peter Chiarell, Claude Julien, Patrice Bergeron, and many others on those BBB redux teams came together to create something special.

But no mistake. As Captain, Zdeno Chara was the man who, after initial missteps, created the "Bruins culture" we know today.

He would be a fabulous general manager.

His intelligence, passion, humility, and will to win - to say nothing of the universal regard he has earned around the NHL - speak volumes.

I hope this happens someday.

Love Chara. Great guy. I'm not going to get into it but my daughter knows him and gave him advice on that vegan dietary plan. I know all about it.

Doesn't change the fact he's never been a GM and has so far shown no interest in management. He'd be a rookie GM if he ever went there and rookies make mistakes. Great player does not automatically equate to great GM. So MAYBE he would be, but MAYBE not.

Sweeney has made mistakes, but the way he cobbled together a very competitive team with no money has earned him the right to keep going imo. If he blows this off season that'll change.

Now as for Monty and structure, I don't know what you are watching but Bruins hockey is pretty much a synonym for structure. Watch a few Buffalo Sabres games and you will see what no structure actually looks like.

 

[GordonHowe]

Love Chara. Great guy. I'm not going to get into it but my daughter knows him and gave him advice on that vegan dietary plan. I know all about it.

Doesn't change the fact he's never been a GM and has so far shown no interest in management. He'd be a rookie GM if he ever went there and rookies make mistakes. Great player does not automatically equate to great GM. So MAYBE he would be, but MAYBE not.

Sweeney has made mistakes, but the way he cobbled together a very competitive team with no money has earned him the right to keep going imo. If he blows this off season that'll change.

Now as for Monty and structure, I don't know what you are watching but Bruins hockey is pretty much a synonym for structure. Watch a few Buffalo Sabres games and you will see what no structure actually looks like.

Don Sweeney was a rookie GM too. 9 years ago. With a stellar 2015 draft. Let's not go into that because I can quote chapter and verse.

My understanding is that all rookie GMS make their mistakes. This would be true of Z as well. I'll take my chances.

It's true that's great players do not necessarily make great managers or coaches. But I would bet on Zdeno, if and when he wants it and is ready, any day of the week compared to Don Sweeney.

You can say Sweeney cobbled together a decent team that did well in the regular season after going all in the previous year.

Fine.

Even so, I direct you to a previous post relative to Sweeney and his shortcomings, which are pronounced, that led to that circumstance.

Let me know if you can't find it.