Just like the rest of management Sweeney is hiding. At least Chia was on every couple of weeks in between periods talking about the team. Sweeney has maybe done 1 or 2 since he took over.
He isn't a leader standing in front of the media and taking the shots. He is hiding in the club house with Neely. Lack of any leadership from management here should have the owners fuming. I just don't understand why its so quiet.
I'm sure they will be if:
A) Fans stop showing up.
B) No playoff revenue for the third straight year.
I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall when this goes down.
It's pretty obvious his interest in the current product is minimal.
Honestly, if you gave ANY head scout a GM position what would you expect him to do?
1. Trade NHL talent looking for raises for draft picks.
2. Trade for more draft picks.
3. Make stretch picks for players he loves over consensus picks.
4. Make cheap stop-gap trades to try and ice a fringe playoff team.
5. Sit on prospects and hope they develop.
6. Do not trade any prospects for help with the current product.
7. Avoid the media for a couple years.
8. Hope his picks pay off.
My guess is if he had more guys without NTC's he'd be trading them for picks right now. And then more picks.
If I'm Bergeron and that top line I'm hating what my GM has done the last three years no matter who was at the helm.
Now it looks more and more like 2020 is the year and we'll all be HOPING that the current top line is still a top line while all the prospects drafted fill up the bottom six.
Still no second line though.
Bergy is starting to remind me of Ray Bourque, if it wasn't for the SC in 2011 I wonder if he'd be asking out this or next year?
I think there are prospects in that mix who will be top6/top4 players. Krejci didn't post monster numbers at 18/19. Pasta was 25th overall, Carlo, Chara, Krug weren't pegged as 1st line/top4 guys at 18/19... Just because we don't have a former blue-chip 17 year old doesn't mean we don't have players capable of developing into top half of the roster players.
That said, it seems unlikely everything is just going to fall into place by itself and not require some tweaking. EDM drafted 1st overall for a hundred years in a row, but it took some bold TRADES and some UFA signings, etc to turn that collection of prospects into a 1st place team. Same thing happened in Chicago, trading for Patrick Sharp, signing Hossa, Panarin, Johnny Oduya...
I'm not all-out on Sweeney yet, but it's the 11th hour for me. At some point he's going to have to make moves that help this team and sitting on his hands while the season slips away isn't exactly filling me with confidence.
I'm still waiting for them to fill the hole left by the Boychuk trade. I mean, it's been a couple seasons now and not only did they leave that hole unfilled but they allowed new ones to surface without a move that gives (me anyway) any confidence in management.
As for Neely, he should be a greeter ala Walmart.
You would think that after approximately 6 years as president he would've learned something?
Maybe take some management and public relations and public speaking courses???
No, he seems to have learned nothing in six years on the job.
"Hello, good morning, thanks for coming to our game tonight. Please feel free to buy a ridiculously priced hotdog, beer or cola. If you need anything please let me know."
He just is NOT qualified to be anything in the FO, never mind "President." Does he have nude photos of JJ wearing lingerie and dancing the watusi with a sheep or what?
On to Don Sweeney. He's educated, he's got FO experience prior to being GM, he knows how to crunch numbers and presumably what a successful hockey player looks like by playing with/against so many of them over the years.
I can't believe that a Harvard degree is so ineffectual that he can't make use of it to make personnel decisions and moves besides just getting rid of Hamilton and trade Looch (both of which I still applaud).
But since then all he's done is spend almost up to the cap again without making moves that would bring in good young talent (emphasis on good). I'm not going to go over his moves one by one because that's been done ad-nauseum, but bottom line is that this team is a shadow of what they would be, should be, could be constantly competitive.
Do you think Don is a leader? Why is he hiding? Why isn't he on TV answering hard questions? I know deals are hard to do, but speaking to the media/fans Is something he should be doing regardless. He doesn't do any of this. He is not GM of the providence Bruins, he is the GM of an NHL team. This silent war with everyone frankly is making it tough to watch this team and get behind them. You want to feel the team is in good hands, but he inspires no confidence.
I'm really astonished that Sweeney is seemingly having such a difficult time communicating with the fans and media. He acts as though he doesn't need to explain anything to anyone. I'm sure he talks with CJ and Cam but someone needs to make some moves NOW and then go on a public relations spree and get out there, give out hats, pucks and spread the word that there's a plan and hint at the plan. This business of acting coy, as though they aren't too concerned so that other GM's may be goofy enough to give up something for nothing isn't working. Is he going to pull off an eleventh hour trade or two or just let this season die a slow, agonizing death? Is he going to mercy fire Claude? Is he going to do anything at all before or after the tdl?
The biggest mystery to me is how people show up and shell out their hard earned money to watch this snooze-fest and eat that so called food?