Management Don Sweeney IV

[Lord Ahriman]

If he holds firm and doesn't add a defenseman than I can see top five. Carlo has been great and him and Chara will run out of steam just after the All-Star game. Rask will be on fumes then and if the backup can't win a game this team is ripe for a lottery pick.

Sad because we all see the problem and there doesn't seem to be anything they can do about it other than ride it out and hope the fans come back next year.

A dman will not change that much: second and third lines are a much bigger problem than a better partner for Krug.

 

[Coach Parker]

A dman will not change that much: second and third lines are a much bigger problem than a better partner for Krug.

That's the sad part. We all knew about the first problem but as it got worse a second problem has arose.

 

[Dr Quincy]

Wondering who people feel has more value between Donato and Fitzgerald? I think both of these guys are Sweeney players and both have value as add ins in a deal, personally these are two prospects I would be ok dealing along with Arnesson and O'Gara, they are all good players, but can be replaced by others in the system

Also I think the Bruins need a goal scorer and solid 3rd line C if Backes plays wing, as well as a D addition.

I don't think you are going to get anything of value by dealing the prospects that you are most comfortable dealing. Donato + O'Gara would get you a pretty "meh" NHL player.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I think Sweeney's feet are being put too the fire and as a result he won't do what is really necessary and let the team hit rock bottom for a season because he wants to keep the job. I think if Sweeney told Jacobs "the plan is to get a lottery pick because its impossible at the moment with this team to win anything of significance" Jacobs would show him the door.If he flames out without being able to see things through he will risk being remembered for strange off the board picks and bad deals based on the media criticism at the time and the fact that new regimes often clean house or make changes to the system based on their judgments. If he is canned the new GM, for good reason or not, could move Zboril, Debrusk, Synyshyn, etc. for very little and simply claim the past regime erred in drafting. If Sweeney is fired at the end of this year which looks to be inevitable, he probably will never get another GM job because he won't have a single selling point as a GM. When he takes a subsequent interview and is asked why didn't you have success in Boston blaming everything on the past regime won't cut it. Also saying "I did what I thought was right and tried to rebuild the team even though my owner wanted to win now" won't get him the job over someone who doesn't have two playoff misses on their resume when the stated organizational goal was to make the playoffs.

Its too bad that we can't just pack it in for one year and even worse that we didn't do exactly that last year. It doesn't mean you have to trade Bergy or Marchand, they would be ready to go again for the next couple of years with a potential superstar playing alongside them and a deeper team. Instead we have to deal with this shoot from the hip and try to win now with players like J-M Liles and two fourth lines its not going to work. We also have to hope that mid-first round prospects and 2nd round picks are going to come into bloom next year when other teams like the Leafs and Sabres (in our division) have bonafide top ten picks who are locks to be stars. Toronto has Mathews, Marner and Nylander while Buffalo has Eichel and Reinhart. I'm sorry but there is no one in our prospect pool on the level of these players and all of the aforementioned players are in the NHL already (Pastrnak might well be better than Reinhart but that is it). Sweeney should have tanked last year and then hit the restart button for this season with Bergy, Marchand, Tuuka and Chara (Chara isin't going anywhere with that contract) alongside a top ten pick from the 2016 draft and whoever we selected in the 2015 draft within the system.

 

[Pia8988]

Firing Sweeney after 2 years on the job would be a huge mistake by ownership. Even if his finishes 9th, Sweeney shouldn't be fired. That would be the sign of a dysfunctional organization. No competent GM will want a job where you can lose it before you can even see the fruits of your work.

Since Sweeney is getting fired after this year anyways, what would have been the use of a top 10 pick in the 2016 draft? Currently only 4/10 of the top 10 are in the NHL and bottom wasn't going bad enough to get a top 5 pick. Even then, how are you going to tank with the roster they had? Were Bergeron, Marchand, and Krejci all going to contract knee-flu and be okay with sitting out?

Short of Sweeney going out and trying to trade Bergeron for Tanner Glass or something equally absurd, he should not be fired regardless of the finish this season. Say the Bruins finish 9th. Two 9th place finishes out of two seasons is a scarlet letter?

We may not have 18-20 year old prospects with the hype of the leaf trio, who Pastrnak is out producing. They also still have Marchand who is only 28. They have another 19 year old in Carlo playing way above expectations. They have quite a few young players playing well in Providence and throughout the NCAA. Noted 3rd line bust Trent Frederic putting up over a PPG as a freshman and looking really good.

The demise Sweeney and the Boston Bruins is greatly exaggerated. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but I think the Bruins will be better sooner than most of the detractors think.

 

[DKH]

Firing Sweeney after 2 years on the job would be a huge mistake by ownership. Even if his finishes 9th, Sweeney shouldn't be fired. That would be the sign of a dysfunctional organization. No competent GM will want a job where you can lose it before you can even see the fruits of your work.

Since Sweeney is getting fired after this year anyways, what would have been the use of a top 10 pick in the 2016 draft? Currently only 4/10 of the top 10 are in the NHL and bottom wasn't going bad enough to get a top 5 pick. Even then, how are you going to tank with the roster they had? Were Bergeron, Marchand, and Krejci all going to contract knee-flu and be okay with sitting out?

Short of Sweeney going out and trying to trade Bergeron for Tanner Glass or something equally absurd, he should not be fired regardless of the finish this season. Say the Bruins finish 9th. Two 9th place finishes out of two seasons is a scarlet letter?

We may not have 18-20 year old prospects with the hype of the leaf trio, who Pastrnak is out producing. They also still have Marchand who is only 28. They have another 19 year old in Carlo playing way above expectations. They have quite a few young players playing well in Providence and throughout the NCAA. Noted 3rd line bust Trent Frederic putting up over a PPG as a freshman and looking really good.

The demise Sweeney and the Boston Bruins is greatly exaggerated. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but I think the Bruins will be better sooner than most of the detractors think.

Being GM you are going to make mistakes (real GM's not us Internet Ones)- heck, I believe John Scherholtz is in the HOF and he traded rookie David Cone to the Mets for a backup catcher Ed Hearn.

The key is the magnitude of the misses.

Matt Irwin and Zac Rinaldo are minor yet one year of Milan Lucic spun for 2 first round picks and 2 top 10 prospects -albeit closer to the back- is a major deal with long term ramifications.

Yet Bruins followers will incessantly mention the latter and when these followers do discuss components of the Lucic deal it's the Rask Zombie Haters saying we should have kept Martin Jones

I was pretty critical on Jeff Gorton but he landed Vesey, Hayes is renewed, Zibanajed was a nice young swap and JT Miller has arrived- Brady Skjei has shown promise on the backend

So GMing is a volatile position with a yo-yo fan base and team followers ready with pitch fork and vitriol just a turnover away

I think he's doing even better than expected- Carlo & Pasta look like Cote top 5-8 players and some of the precincts are showing many of the last 3 draft classes trending up

I'm going to Providence today so looking forward to seeing a half dozen players who could be full timers here

I give him a B+

 

[DKH]

I think Sweeney's feet are being put too the fire and as a result he won't do what is really necessary and let the team hit rock bottom for a season because he wants to keep the job. I think if Sweeney told Jacobs "the plan is to get a lottery pick because its impossible at the moment with this team to win anything of significance" Jacobs would show him the door.If he flames out without being able to see things through he will risk being remembered for strange off the board picks and bad deals based on the media criticism at the time and the fact that new regimes often clean house or make changes to the system based on their judgments. If he is canned the new GM, for good reason or not, could move Zboril, Debrusk, Synyshyn, etc. for very little and simply claim the past regime erred in drafting. If Sweeney is fired at the end of this year which looks to be inevitable, he probably will never get another GM job because he won't have a single selling point as a GM. When he takes a subsequent interview and is asked why didn't you have success in Boston blaming everything on the past regime won't cut it. Also saying "I did what I thought was right and tried to rebuild the team even though my owner wanted to win now" won't get him the job over someone who doesn't have two playoff misses on their resume when the stated organizational goal was to make the playoffs.

Its too bad that we can't just pack it in for one year and even worse that we didn't do exactly that last year. It doesn't mean you have to trade Bergy or Marchand, they would be ready to go again for the next couple of years with a potential superstar playing alongside them and a deeper team. Instead we have to deal with this shoot from the hip and try to win now with players like J-M Liles and two fourth lines its not going to work. We also have to hope that mid-first round prospects and 2nd round picks are going to come into bloom next year when other teams like the Leafs and Sabres (in our division) have bonafide top ten picks who are locks to be stars. Toronto has Mathews, Marner and Nylander while Buffalo has Eichel and Reinhart. I'm sorry but there is no one in our prospect pool on the level of these players and all of the aforementioned players are in the NHL already (Pastrnak might well be better than Reinhart but that is it). Sweeney should have tanked last year and then hit the restart button for this season with Bergy, Marchand, Tuuka and Chara (Chara isin't going anywhere with that contract) alongside a top ten pick from the 2016 draft and whoever we selected in the 2015 draft within the system.

In the closed Hamilton-Carlo thread you were quick point out the Flames were good with Dougie and wouldn't even know the 3 picks

Um. He is a dumpster fire and last night at the Bruins game his name came up and it was mentioned he sure misses Chara covering up his poor decisions and positional play

Ouch

Ironically I went home in time to see him play D like a matador.

This morning I perused through the Flames game thread and he is roasted pretty good even called slow to react and slow to adjust in separate posts by different posters

You need to give it up - we all make wrong assessments. I hated the Bergeron pick and picked the Canucks in 5 in 2011 in my many views

I'm wrong about Hamilton- shocked about his hockey IQ. I would have paid him and traded for him even with some perceived warts

A guy I went to Prague with in 2010 told me last night the Flames unless Hamilton gets it together will likely be shopped

I forgot to ask what his clauses are

It would be interesting if they exposed him in expansion

 

[BostonPC]

Firing Sweeney after 2 years on the job would be a huge mistake by ownership. Even if his finishes 9th, Sweeney shouldn't be fired. That would be the sign of a dysfunctional organization. No competent GM will want a job where you can lose it before you can even see the fruits of your work.

Since Sweeney is getting fired after this year anyways, what would have been the use of a top 10 pick in the 2016 draft? Currently only 4/10 of the top 10 are in the NHL and bottom wasn't going bad enough to get a top 5 pick. Even then, how are you going to tank with the roster they had? Were Bergeron, Marchand, and Krejci all going to contract knee-flu and be okay with sitting out?

Short of Sweeney going out and trying to trade Bergeron for Tanner Glass or something equally absurd, he should not be fired regardless of the finish this season. Say the Bruins finish 9th. Two 9th place finishes out of two seasons is a scarlet letter?

We may not have 18-20 year old prospects with the hype of the leaf trio, who Pastrnak is out producing. They also still have Marchand who is only 28. They have another 19 year old in Carlo playing way above expectations. They have quite a few young players playing well in Providence and throughout the NCAA. Noted 3rd line bust Trent Frederic putting up over a PPG as a freshman and looking really good.

The demise Sweeney and the Boston Bruins is greatly exaggerated. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but I think the Bruins will be better sooner than most of the detractors think.

Good post. He is not perfect but is re-stocking the prospect pool without destroying the base. Building on the fly. I don't blame them for doing that. Ownership needs to give him a couple more years to really evaluate his performance.

 

[Duguay]

"Ironically I went home in time to see him play D like a matador."



I watched last night also. He didn't look very good. Having checked with my Calgary media pal, he said he's been ok in the 2nd pair. Everybody still waiting for a break out of sorts.

He is 23, and the excuses will run out.

I think you had mentioned the Jay Bouwmeester comparison, which could turn out to be quite accurate. Bouwmeeter is a very good blueliner right now, and it turns out he's *under-rated.*

Every team could use him, especially Boston.

Jovo Cop was another Top 10 high hope, who started out slowly and after 25 became very, very solid.

This stuff is exceptionally hard to predict....but it is for *all* parties.

Don Sweeney needed a Roster Player back. A good one. That would have made a border line playoff team, a Playoff Team IMHO. Who knows in the NHL once you're in the playoffs.

Value was good for DH regardless of how it turns out for him. He was a piece. He had live value. Watch what Chevy gets for Trouba. That will be interesting. Watch, he'll gain futures and won't hurt his pro roster at the same time.

And yes I prefer Trouba over Hamilton. But at the time of this trade; values differentials were completely negligible and up to the eyes of the beholder. 50/50 probably, if not, then favoring Hamilton.

This is what I expect of any GM in the NHL.

Sweeney was new. I'll give him that. He'll never make that mistake again I'd bet.
If he does, he'll be in big trouble.

 

[Dr Quincy]

Jovo Cop was another Top 10 high hope, who started out slowly and after 25 became very, very solid.

Interesting, I always think of Jovo as a guy who came in at 19 and had a great rookie year, very fast start, team made it to the Finals.... but then he kind of stagnated and regressed for a couple years before carving out a career as a good but not great guy.

It's the danger of seeing a young kid step in right away and predicting a nonstop upward trajectory. Sometimes guys are better at 19 than they are at 21 or 22. Don't know why.

 

[Dr Quincy]

I think Sweeney's feet are being put too the fire and as a result he won't do what is really necessary and let the team hit rock bottom for a season because he wants to keep the job. I think if Sweeney told Jacobs "the plan is to get a lottery pick because its impossible at the moment with this team to win anything of significance" Jacobs would show him the door.If he flames out without being able to see things through he will risk being remembered for strange off the board picks and bad deals based on the media criticism at the time and the fact that new regimes often clean house or make changes to the system based on their judgments. If he is canned the new GM, for good reason or not, could move Zboril, Debrusk, Synyshyn, etc. for very little and simply claim the past regime erred in drafting. If Sweeney is fired at the end of this year which looks to be inevitable, he probably will never get another GM job because he won't have a single selling point as a GM. When he takes a subsequent interview and is asked why didn't you have success in Boston blaming everything on the past regime won't cut it. Also saying "I did what I thought was right and tried to rebuild the team even though my owner wanted to win now" won't get him the job over someone who doesn't have two playoff misses on their resume when the stated organizational goal was to make the playoffs.

Its too bad that we can't just pack it in for one year and even worse that we didn't do exactly that last year. It doesn't mean you have to trade Bergy or Marchand, they would be ready to go again for the next couple of years with a potential superstar playing alongside them and a deeper team. Instead we have to deal with this shoot from the hip and try to win now with players like J-M Liles and two fourth lines its not going to work. We also have to hope that mid-first round prospects and 2nd round picks are going to come into bloom next year when other teams like the Leafs and Sabres (in our division) have bonafide top ten picks who are locks to be stars. Toronto has Mathews, Marner and Nylander while Buffalo has Eichel and Reinhart. I'm sorry but there is no one in our prospect pool on the level of these players and all of the aforementioned players are in the NHL already (Pastrnak might well be better than Reinhart but that is it). Sweeney should have tanked last year and then hit the restart button for this season with Bergy, Marchand, Tuuka and Chara (Chara isin't going anywhere with that contract) alongside a top ten pick from the 2016 draft and whoever we selected in the 2015 draft within the system.

Actually, they've had lottery picks the last 2 years. And the idea that you could have finished bottom 3 last year with Bergeron, Marchand, Rask and Chara on the team is crazy. You can't have it both ways.

If you want to bottom out you have to get rid of those guys. You can't do a 1 year tank and immediate rebuild because those core guys are too good. Look at the rosters TOR, ARI, BUFF and CAR iced last year. You weren't getting beneath them.

 

[neelynugs]

good to see you around, doogs.

I think you had mentioned the Jay Bouwmeester comparison, which could turn out to be quite accurate. Bouwmeeter is a very good blueliner right now, and it turns out he's *under-rated.*

Every team could use him, especially Boston.

.

hamilton will be lucky if he turns out like J-bo. i don't really see the comparison - hamilton is way better offensively and J-bo is way better defensively. if hamilton ever puts his whole game together, he'll be a heck of a player. but as you said, he's creeping into the category of 'maybe never puts it together'.

Don Sweeney needed a Roster Player back. A good one. That would have made a border line playoff team, a Playoff Team IMHO. Who knows in the NHL once you're in the playoffs.

Value was good for DH regardless of how it turns out for him.

this i definitely agree with - but hamilton really screwed the team by saying 'all's good' at the april breakup meetings. assume he was hoping julien was fired? then he comes out and requests a deal - timing was pretty bad, and i think sweeney panicked a little bit at the threat of an offer sheet from his old buddy sneaky pete.

imagine this happened a year later though. could we have gotten taylor hall for hamilton? probably not, hard to see pete make such a risky move with his old team.

Watch what Chevy gets for Trouba. That will be interesting. Watch, he'll gain futures and won't hurt his pro roster at the same time.

And yes I prefer Trouba over Hamilton. But at the time of this trade; values differentials were completely negligible and up to the eyes of the beholder. 50/50 probably, if not, then favoring Hamilton.

This is what I expect of any GM in the NHL.

Sweeney was new. I'll give him that. He'll never make that mistake again I'd bet.
If he does, he'll be in big trouble.

i'd be surprised if chevy gets futures - at least, he's been pretty steadfast about not accepting that (unless he's spinning it over somewhere else for help now). but i do like trouba - despite question marks about his real upside - and would've loved to just swap him and hamilton. with about 3 weeks to go, am curious if trouba folds and signs a bridge deal. he can't be satisfied with playing in switzerland from december to march, only to do the same dance this summer. chevy has winnipeg owners backing him, so we'll see where it goes.

 

[Duguay]

Interesting, I always think of Jovo as a guy who came in at 19 and had a great rookie year, very fast start, team made it to the Finals.... but then he kind of stagnated and regressed for a couple years before carving out a career as a good but not great guy.

It's the danger of seeing a young kid step in right away and predicting a nonstop upward trajectory. Sometimes guys are better at 19 than they are at 21 or 22. Don't know why.

Your memory may be better than mine. But the point being, with these young guys on the Blueline, it's very tough. Quick starts are even troublesome. Fans on sites like these get too pumped and then too quickly disappointed when the adrenaline stops and they hit a plateau, or even (god forbid) regress. I have brought up Cody Ceci's name on a couple of occasions.

Fact is, a good system with a good program will insulate them, as it should.

Hey, former Asst GM Benning should now about this kind of thing first hand. He lived it as a 19 year old in Toronto. Fed to the Lions.

 

[Duguay]

good to see you around, doogs.

hamilton will be lucky if he turns out like J-bo. i don't really see the comparison - hamilton is way better offensively and J-bo is way better defensively. if hamilton ever puts his whole game together, he'll be a heck of a player. but as you said, he's creeping into the category of 'maybe never puts it together'.

this i definitely agree with - but hamilton really screwed the team by saying 'all's good' at the april breakup meetings. assume he was hoping julien was fired? then he comes out and requests a deal - timing was pretty bad, and i think sweeney panicked a little bit at the threat of an offer sheet from his old buddy sneaky pete.

imagine this happened a year later though. could we have gotten taylor hall for hamilton? probably not, hard to see pete make such a risky move with his old team.

i'd be surprised if chevy gets futures - at least, he's been pretty steadfast about not accepting that (unless he's spinning it over somewhere else for help now). but i do like trouba - despite question marks about his real upside - and would've loved to just swap him and hamilton. with about 3 weeks to go, am curious if trouba folds and signs a bridge deal. he can't be satisfied with playing in switzerland from december to march, only to do the same dance this summer. chevy has winnipeg owners backing him, so we'll see where it goes.

Always great talking Hockey with some of you guys Lawrence.

I am not hung up on Hamilton. Don't like how that deal went down. It was a pushed reach. Having Hanifan or one of the potential game changing young D-men around (Provorov, Werenski) right now would make it more difficult to find fault with.

I think what happens with Trouba will be a great 'real estate like' market comparison.

I would have like to have seen this played out in Boston. Results still to come.


Don Sweeney is a smart guy and I am sure he'll take notice of it.

BTW, looks like it's curtains for Boyes and it looks like I fell short by 7 goals on our bet for 50 from a decade ago, lol. Don't know if you ever get to Ottawa, but if you do I'll meet you at Brookside where the Bruins stay. If not, PM me and I will pay up.

 

[b in vancouver]

I think Sweeney's feet are being put too the fire and as a result he won't do what is really necessary and let the team hit rock bottom for a season because he wants to keep the job. I think if Sweeney told Jacobs "the plan is to get a lottery pick because its impossible at the moment with this team to win anything of significance" Jacobs would show him the door.If he flames out without being able to see things through he will risk being remembered for strange off the board picks and bad deals based on the media criticism at the time and the fact that new regimes often clean house or make changes to the system based on their judgments. If he is canned the new GM, for good reason or not, could move Zboril, Debrusk, Synyshyn, etc. for very little and simply claim the past regime erred in drafting. If Sweeney is fired at the end of this year which looks to be inevitable, he probably will never get another GM job because he won't have a single selling point as a GM. When he takes a subsequent interview and is asked why didn't you have success in Boston blaming everything on the past regime won't cut it. Also saying "I did what I thought was right and tried to rebuild the team even though my owner wanted to win now" won't get him the job over someone who doesn't have two playoff misses on their resume when the stated organizational goal was to make the playoffs.

Its too bad that we can't just pack it in for one year and even worse that we didn't do exactly that last year. It doesn't mean you have to trade Bergy or Marchand, they would be ready to go again for the next couple of years with a potential superstar playing alongside them and a deeper team. Instead we have to deal with this shoot from the hip and try to win now with players like J-M Liles and two fourth lines its not going to work. We also have to hope that mid-first round prospects and 2nd round picks are going to come into bloom next year when other teams like the Leafs and Sabres (in our division) have bonafide top ten picks who are locks to be stars. Toronto has Mathews, Marner and Nylander while Buffalo has Eichel and Reinhart. I'm sorry but there is no one in our prospect pool on the level of these players and all of the aforementioned players are in the NHL already (Pastrnak might well be better than Reinhart but that is it). Sweeney should have tanked last year and then hit the restart button for this season with Bergy, Marchand, Tuuka and Chara (Chara isin't going anywhere with that contract) alongside a top ten pick from the 2016 draft and whoever we selected in the 2015 draft within the system.

I just can't agree with much of this post.
Firstly - towards the bolded. How far down do you think this team would tank while having Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci, Chara, Krug, Rask in the line-up? (even if they had moved Eriksson at the deadline last year?) It's not like Sweeney gave them any extra support last year and moved Lucic, Hamilton, Smith, and the fourth line - this team still just missed the playoffs. How much less did you possibly want him to do to help out the team? No back-up goalie - check. No functional 3rd or 4th line - check. No defensive help - check. Put young 'not ready for primetime players' in the line-up on a nightly basis - check. Saddle Bergeron with a borderline NHLer - check.

Secondly - I will never agree with purposefully icing a bad team when you don't have to. It's ridiculous. One thing if you have a bad season, injuries, guys way under performing, need desperately to turn the page, cap space... but going into a season or two thinking - 'Well, let's suck to get high picks...'

Third - They have a tonne of youth in the line-up and prospects coming up. It is much more important for those players to be part of an organization that day in day out attempts to win. Pastrnak, Spooner and the like need to get some playoff experience under their belt.

Fourth - you've got a few more years of Bergeron and company playing at the level they do... no way you burn a few years of those while you tear it to the ground.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

In the closed Hamilton-Carlo thread you were quick point out the Flames were good with Dougie and wouldn't even know the 3 picks

Um. He is a dumpster fire and last night at the Bruins game his name came up and it was mentioned he sure misses Chara covering up his poor decisions and positional play

Ouch

Ironically I went home in time to see him play D like a matador.

This morning I perused through the Flames game thread and he is roasted pretty good even called slow to react and slow to adjust in separate posts by different posters

You need to give it up - we all make wrong assessments. I hated the Bergeron pick and picked the Canucks in 5 in 2011 in my many views

I'm wrong about Hamilton- shocked about his hockey IQ. I would have paid him and traded for him even with some perceived warts

A guy I went to Prague with in 2010 told me last night the Flames unless Hamilton gets it together will likely be shopped

I forgot to ask what his clauses are

It would be interesting if they exposed him in expansion

Isn't it possible that if he stayed in Boston with the protection of their defensive system, he may have gotten better instead of significantly worse with crappy Calgary?

 

[World of Wardlow]

Shattenkirk would have looked lovely on this team, huh?

...

The problem I have with Don is that since the Hamilton trade he did absolutely nothing to bring a good D to Boston. When a GM says trades are tougher to make nowadays, I call it BS.

 

[DKH]

good to see you around, doogs.



hamilton will be lucky if he turns out like J-bo. i don't really see the comparison - hamilton is way better offensively and J-bo is way better defensively. if hamilton ever puts his whole game together, he'll be a heck of a player. but as you said, he's creeping into the category of 'maybe never puts it together'.





this i definitely agree with - but hamilton really screwed the team by saying 'all's good' at the april breakup meetings. assume he was hoping julien was fired? then he comes out and requests a deal - timing was pretty bad, and i think sweeney panicked a little bit at the threat of an offer sheet from his old buddy sneaky pete.

imagine this happened a year later though. could we have gotten taylor hall for hamilton? probably not, hard to see pete make such a risky move with his old team.





i'd be surprised if chevy gets futures - at least, he's been pretty steadfast about not accepting that (unless he's spinning it over somewhere else for help now). but i do like trouba - despite question marks about his real upside - and would've loved to just swap him and hamilton. with about 3 weeks to go, am curious if trouba folds and signs a bridge deal. he can't be satisfied with playing in switzerland from december to march, only to do the same dance this summer. chevy has winnipeg owners backing him, so we'll see where it goes.

When Julien didn't get fired that was it. Dougie the story I heard was constantly calling his representative or parents every time Claude yelled at him. He couldn't take it and Claude the same person said wasn't picking on him he was trying to get him better. My guesstimate is had Julien been canned Hamilton is still here. Which may have triggered Rask to SJ. They couldn't deal 3 significant players in one fell swoop. If it went through they probably get SJ first in 2015 and who knows where that leads

Chiarelli hated Neely enough to do that sheet but he wanted to just do a deal - 17,33, and 52?

The animosity Chiarelli had for Neely was a variable Sweeney had to gauge because he knew Chiarelli could but would do the deal and get the player

Pretty wild story and there were talks inter related I get with other teams involving picks from this

Sweeney was

1. Blind sided by Hamilton camp who made worse keeping them in dark
2. Having Chiarelli talking the offersheet but clearly trying to get a deal done with current assets
3. Having another organization have an internal disagreement over a close Boston deal to move up

It changed components of another deal and the players drafted

In hindsight I'm glad Sweeney did not get Darnell Nurse

 

[DKH]

Shattenkirk would have looked lovely on this team, huh?

...

The problem I have with Don is that since the Hamilton trade he did absolutely nothing to bring a good D to Boston. When a GM says trades are tougher to make nowadays, I call it BS.

Chiarelli said it though not Sweeney

 

[DKH]

Isn't it possible that if he stayed in Boston with the protection of their defensive system, he may have gotten better instead of significantly worse with crappy Calgary?

Maybe Hamilton will realize someday Julien was good for him he just didn't know it at the time like Kessel did.

Dougie still should be 15/55

He's an A student- he's not dumb - he is a gorgeous skater: he's got elite size & range.

At worst he should be a real good 3/4 on a Cup contender

Either he doesn't listen or his hockey IQ is average

 

[EverettMike]

No one was talking about Dougie Hamilton before his ****** game last night because he's been having a good season. Great advanced numbers even though he's been drawing many d-zone starting assignments (only 38.5% offensive zone starts!).

It's pathetic we need to **** on a 23-year-old playing on a mediocre team to feel better about our GM, a GM WHO WANTED TO SIGN HIM TO THE EXACT CONTRACT HE HAS RIGHT NOW. Meaning, if the deal Calgary gave him was a mistake and he isn't worth it/that good, our GM must be held to the same criticism.

Totally absurd and totally infuriating.

 

[774EVER]

Wonder if Sweeney would have went harder after an UFA forward / or a trade, if he knew that in the end Vesey was going to sign with the Rangers? By the time JV's decision was made, all of the decent UFA players were snapped up.

I known the whole Crystal ball philosophy, but if we are to believe the reports, corroborated by a few on here, the Bruins were the frontrunners for the longest time.

Maybe it would have been better if the Bruins were informed from the get go that other teams were seriously in the mix. If they were informed of this, did Sweeney make a blunder in not making another forward a top target.

Such a glaring hole from lines 3-4 as this team stands right now. Really hope that Vatrano can take the next step when he gets back.

 

[BNHL]

Maybe Hamilton will realize someday Julien was good for him he just didn't know it at the time like Kessel did.

Dougie still should be 15/55

He's an A student- he's not dumb - he is a gorgeous skater: he's got elite size & range.

At worst he should be a real good 3/4 on a Cup contender

Either he doesn't listen or his hockey IQ is average

Made some of the dumbest plays I have ever seen from a rookie or a veteran,which I would normally explain as a panic play,but he would do it as he was unforced.

 

[Hali33]

No one was talking about Dougie Hamilton before his ****** game last night because he's been having a good season. Great advanced numbers even though he's been drawing many d-zone starting assignments (only 38.5% offensive zone starts!).

It's pathetic we need to **** on a 23-year-old playing on a mediocre team to feel better about our GM, a GM WHO WANTED TO SIGN HIM TO THE EXACT CONTRACT HE HAS RIGHT NOW. Meaning, if the deal Calgary gave him was a mistake and he isn't worth it/that good, our GM must be held to the same criticism.

Totally absurd and totally infuriating.

Well said.

 

[Blowfish]

Hanging onto clode going to do Him in.