Chia weas great until he got fired. Ullmark was until he got traded.
Amazing the cache this GM has built up among a fanbase for no Cups, just putting together very good regular season teams. I hate knocking him, because I really do like him, but championships all of a sudden don't matter to some fans with this guy when that's the standard the Bruins fans used to have. Harry Sinden was killed for it, but always made the play-offs. Shit, Chiarelli won one and lost one and has my series wins in his time but somehow is not as good. Crazy town,
He got us a Cup worthy team 2 years ago, rookie coach maybe, hurt #1 goalie, probably(stuck with him too long), Bergy hurt going into the playoffs. But they had the best regular season team, ever.
I'm not satisfied with the fact that the Chara/Bergs/March/Rask core never won more than one. They had their chances and Sweeney for all his warts, sold the teams future in the years that warranted a full chase.
They just did not deliver. That chase came with a futures cost that we are dealing with now. So either you suck for a while, get lucky with better teams having bad luck, or you build up a new core.
That core has warts as well. What is MacAvoy, but a 1B, not a 1A(Makar, Hughes, kid on Dallas)
Pasta is Mike Bossy, he needs a Trottier. He's not a complete player and honestly I don't think he will be. But give him a very center and its 50+G every year. He's not the spoon that stirs the drink. not to mention the one timer from the elbow is over with, teams are queuing on it. He's the only threat.
Swayman could be a 1A if he can carry a team 50-60G/year... TBD