For sure. And as I did acknowledge, it's hard. There are lots of teams making offers. But I do also believe, to put it in the bluntest terms, 'excuses are for losers'. You need to get something done, you find a way, whatever it takes. Vegas are I think undeniably the best at this in the current NHL. Yeah their situation remains unique on account of being a still-recent expansion team who initially cashed in on some dim-witted GMs, but they're absolute sharks in the market - Stone, Pietrangelo, Eichel, Hanifin - they target big names and then go get them. Are there targets they don't get? Undoubtedly. But their strike rate is impressive.
I don't mean to overstate the case. For every Vegas, every successful deal that a GM makes, there are multiple teams who far more often miss out, desired moves that just don't land. Sometimes, with the best will and offer in the world, you're not going to get what you want. But when the window is open, and you're right at the pointy end, I really want to see the GM go as hard as possible, because those opportunities don't come around all that often, not even for the Bruins. In that sense, I felt that Sweeney through 2019-21 just didn't, or couldn't, quite do enough. I can understand the difficulties while still thinking he came up that little bit short.
But that's the past and for better or worse he's still in charge. This is going to be his most critical offseason as GM perhaps of his entire tenure, with the possible exception of his very first one. Let's see what he can do.