Management Montgomery fired - Sacco named interim coach Sacco and Sweeney Address Media

[Alan Ryan]

Sweeney hinted at a possible addition to the coaching staff since now they're down a man.

Sacco suggested he might change up the responsibilities. "Not today" but it's something they are looking at.

Might I suggest taking Chris Kelly off the PP and putting him on the PK and then hiring someone new to run the PP?

Definitely falls in the no brainer category. Kelly was an outstanding defensive forward—not much on the offensive side of the ice.

 

[Gee Wally]

Don Sweeney has fired three coaches. If the Bruins GM can’t figure out how to improve this team, he might be next. - The Boston Globe

As the architect of a roster that is missing key pieces and struggling to jell with the ones that are here, Sweeney is as much on the hook as the man he fired.

www.bostonglobe.com

Don Sweeney has been the Bruins’ general manager since 2015. On Tuesday, he fired his third head coach since taking the job, again looking for a spark to awaken a slumbering, stumbling team.

No argument here after a 20-game sample of hideous hockey.

But here’s the hard truth Sweeney also faces: If this move doesn’t work, the next ax that falls has to be on him. There’s no fourth strike in baseball, nor should there be for coaching changes.

As Sweeney took his place in front of the media Wednesday, he took on all questions with candor and calmness. He was absolutely right in calling out his players, challenging them to play better, whether by a standard they set in Boston in previous years or whether by the standard they set elsewhere to earn big free agent deals to join the team. But as the architect of a roster that is missing key pieces and struggling to jell with the ones that are here, as the man behind too many unproductive drafts and not enough trade or draft capital left to work with, Sweeney is just as much on the hook for this mess as the man he fired.

This time it was Jim Montgomery taking the fall in favor of Joe Sacco, just as Bruce Cassidy once took the fall in favor of Montgomery, just as Claude Julien had been replaced by Cassidy. No surprise Sweeney went back to the same playbook, given its history of immediate payoff: Cassidy getting the Bruins to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final within two years, Montgomery winning a Presidents’ Trophy in his first season behind the bench.

Twenty games into this season, it’s obvious something had to change. The Bruins’ ugly stew of inconsistency (from period to period and from game to game), penchant for penalties, lack of execution, and overall malaise sealed Montgomery’s fate.

Now, we see if firing the coach works again.

“You hope you’re going to get a bounce of some kind. That’s what you expect. I certainly expect it,” Sweeney said. “I know what the pride level of our players is. I expect them to take ownership of where they are now and improve.

“If it doesn’t and we need to make personnel changes, that’s going to fall on me. Organizationally, it’ll be the same way.”

In other words, he knows who’s next in line for the chopping block.

“We’re always on notice,” Sweeney said. “The results are in this business, that’s just what you accept, when you take the job you know that you’re on notice. When you make recommended changes they could say no and you might be the change. You face that.

“You make decisions based on your experience level and what you need to do for your hockey club. That’s how I do the job. I’m appreciative they still let me make those decisions. I’m disappointed that that wasn’t moving forward with Monty.”

Sweeney could have done so much more to help the now-former coach, not the least of which avoiding the protracted and painful offseason negotiation with Jeremy Swayman. As the GM pinpointed training camp as showing the first signs of trouble, describing it as “flatlined,” the absence of Swayman was a huge part of the problem. If the Bruins were eventually going to capitulate and reset the NHL’s goalie salary market, why wait so long?

And even before spending the money on Swayman, who has yet to rediscover the shutdown form we saw in last season’s playoffs, it sure seems Sweeney could have made better use of the cash he freed up by trading Montgomery’s best security blanket, fellow goalie Linus Ullmark. Neither Elias Lindholm nor Nikita Zadorov are living up to their combined $84.25 million in free agent contracts, with very little hope they might duplicate the best free agent addition in this team’s recent memory, Zdeno Chara.

With the towering defenseman and former captain in mind, it’s hard not to see how unable Sweeney has been to re-create the core that established the Bruins’ identity for grit and toughness — Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Tuukka Rask. Some decent attempts have come and gone, from Rick Nash to Tyler Bertuzzi to Dmitry Orlov to Taylor Hall, but these latest swings on Lindholm and Zadorov so far look like major misses, though the GM isn’t ready to admit it.

“I don’t think there’s a concern they’re not a good fit, they have not played to the level we expected them to,” Sweeney said. “From a fit standpoint, the identification that those are players that will help us, I’m not second-guessing where they are right now, I’m second-guessing the performance of them and their group.”

Again, absolutely right to insist they are not alone.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that you’ve got upwards of 10 players off of what their norms would be, not even their high sides from a year ago. That’s concerning,” Sweeney said. “We’re not executing. And that again falls back on the players in a lot of ways.”

But it also falls back on him. Historically, the Bruins have fired only two GMs in the half-century of Jacobs family ownership, Mike O’Connell and Peter Chiarelli, the latter getting replaced by his then-assistant, Sweeney. Team president Cam Neely, a former Bruins teammate of Sweeney’s, might not relish the idea of firing his friend. But if not him, then who? You can’t fire an entire roster.

“These guys are more than capable of playing and executing and performing,” Sweeney said. ”That’s what we want to find. We want to find out what this team is capable of. Sixty games to go, that’s a lot of season. But you can’t stay in neutral.”

And you can’t wait forever. Not for a coach, and maybe for these Bruins, not for the GM.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

I agree Dan. I didn’t start out as a big Sweeney guy, and still wouldn’t say I’m a fanboy, but I have to admit the guy has done his job. Best record in the league since he was hired. G7 of the Cup Final, GM of the Year… There was going to be a price to pay for going all in for 15 years and that’s the thin prospect pool. Yes, his off season acquisitions have struggled thru 20 games and that could be really bad, but it’s a little early in the game for me to make that determination.

Even if this team misses the playoffs. I think his track record of icing consistently strong teams for 9 years should buy him the opportunity to right the ship. For me to think it's time for Sweeney to go... it would probably take back to back DNQ’s and a team that looks like it can’t climb out of the hole. That’s what Chiarelli’s teams looked like when he was let go.

Sure, Sweeney's done a good job, a very good one in some ways. But that's not a definitive argument in itself for keeping him. Even had the Bruins landed a Cup in 2019, or even in 2023, it still wouldn't be. People in senior, high pressure positions wear out and grow stale. Every GM has weaknesses. Don's had a pretty long run, and now he's put together a roster that is looking very problematic. How much rope does he get to sort that out and fix it?

The arguments to keep him because he's generally competent, or because there's no obvious replacement, or because the new guy might be worse, are all hyper-conservative. Very Bruins, but not really a good thing. Sometimes you need to take a risk and aim higher. I'm not saying Sweeney should definitely be shown the door. We have to see how the rest of this season plays out. If this roster really ends up being a bust, then I think serious questions have to be asked about whether he's still the right person to start the repair job, whatever that looks like. Keeping him purely on his past record isn't sufficient justification IMO.

 

[GordonHowe]

On a team where team friendly to fair market deals have long been part of the culture, I can understand that a player who asks for an exorbitant "protect the market for goalies" amount as an RFA who never held the #1 job before might rub some the wrong way.

So can I.

 

[GordonHowe]

Kasper tried Bourque on LW? I never knew that. No wonder he's never coached in the NHL afterwards. He ended up director of Leafs pro scouting during their terrible years coming out of the lockout. Guess he was just as bad as a scout as he was as a coach.

God he was awful.

Sinden loved him.

 

[GordonHowe]

...ok?

Not to cast asparagus in any direction, but I got a chuckle out of that response.

 

[PlayMakers]

Sure, Sweeney's done a good job, a very good one in some ways. But that's not a definitive argument in itself for keeping him. Even had the Bruins landed a Cup in 2019, or even in 2023, it still wouldn't be. People in senior, high pressure positions wear out and grow stale. Every GM has weaknesses. Don's had a pretty long run, and now he's put together a roster that is looking very problematic. How much rope does he get to sort that out and fix it?

The arguments to keep him because he's generally competent, or because there's no obvious replacement, or because the new guy might be worse, are all hyper-conservative. Very Bruins, but not really a good thing. Sometimes you need to take a risk and aim higher. I'm not saying Sweeney should definitely be shown the door. We have to see how the rest of this season plays out. If this roster really ends up being a bust, then I think serious questions have to be asked about whether he's still the right person to start the repair job, whatever that looks like. Keeping him purely on his past record isn't sufficient justification IMO.

The argument to keep him isn't that he's "generally competent." The argument to keep him is that he's done a really good job. Not an okay job. First in points since he was hired nine years ago. Not top5, or top10, first. Built a team that got to G7 of the Cup Finals. Built the best regular season team in NHL history. GM of the Year. Highly regarded around the league and considered one of the best in the league.

No GM is perfect and you can list mistakes for any GM but at the end of the day, does he win? Does he ice teams that can contend? Do people want to sign here? Do players want to stay here? By any reasonable metric he has done a very good job.

This year's team may stink. They might miss the playoffs, or get swept in the first round, but I still don't toss out 9 good years and a proven track record because of 1 bad one. Everybody swings and misses occasionally. I'd need to see 2 bad years, a trend of things going south, to think that he's no longer good at his job.

 

[GordonHowe]

They simply have to get over their aversion to driving to the net (Brazeau and the 4th line are about the only ones who do it on a regular basis) and to shooting the puck because this is the only way they're going to be able to score and win games.

They were also instructed by you know who to prioritize shot "quality over quantity."

Genius.

The predictable result:

Far fewer shots on goal in the 2024 playoffs. Or, recently, none at all in the third period; overthinking rather than reacting automatically, intuitively in developing plays and shooting lanes; comical over passing in the offensive zone, particularly on the power play; therefore, a tentative, passive, risk averse offensive attack.

A recipe for success.

Put the puck on the net and good things will happen.