Good read:
For all our disagreements and contentious back-and-forths at press conferences over the years, I actually do think Don Sweeney is a pretty solid general manager and have thought that for a while now. We’re all entirely too dug in on our opinions to truly sway one another so I won’t bother trying here, but he’s simply not as good nor as bad as his supporters and critics scream on the internet and on the airwaves. He’s truly somewhere in the middle, with, again, ‘pretty solid’ being the best way to describe his body of work throughout his tenure.
But barring something downright catastrophic or unpredictable from a conduct standpoint involving the next permanent head coach, Montgomery has to be the last coach that Sweeney (and Neely) are allowed to fire.
It’s now been 13 years and counting since the Bruins last won a Cup. It’s now been over five years since they made it to the fourth round, and in Sweeney’s nine seasons on the job to date they’ve won multiple playoff rounds just once (2019). And at a certain point, as coaches continue to be dismissed for not meeting the front office’s bar for one reason or another, the bar for the GM to keep his job has to be set higher than “just make the playoffs.”
As an organization (and when I say that I mean at the top), the Bruins have essentially scoffed at the idea of ever committing themselves to a Chicago-style — tomato slices and gigantic pickle slices at LW1 and RD1 — rebuild. Their thinking behind that is that their fans would not accept that kind of arduous process that’s defined by overwhelming stretches of team-engineered futility for the hopes of dynasty potential five years down the road. Their last experience with that came all the way back in 2005, and by spring 2007 they were officially done with it.
So, when you factor that philosophy into the equation, Sweeney is their perfect general manager. He’s never once operated from a rebuilding mindset, and he’s build a playoff club in every year but his first, and even that year they were a Tuukka Rask sickness in Game 82 away from sneaking into the postseason.
But there’s not another GM in hockey who’s been allowed to fire three coaches before meeting the executioner’s blade himself. And there’s no denying that Sweeney’s moves are a significant reason why Montgomery is beginning his Wednesday morning with emails from Indeed, Zillow, and an ‘Open to Work’ banner on his LinkedIn.
It was Sweeney, not Montgomery, who made Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov his July 1 priorities less than two months after saying that the Bruins needed to get faster and add secondary scoring. And it was Sweeney, not Montgomery, who decided to commit $11.25 million in goal after by all means acknowledging that it wasn’t feasible to pay Swayman his money and keep Linus Ullmark around at $5 million per season for another year.
And it was Sweeney and Neely, not Montgomery, who’ve apparently had their brains broken so badly by what the Panthers have done to them in back-to-back postseasons that they’ve decided to send the Bruins back in time with size and grit in a game that’s only getting more skilled and faster every single season.
It’s on the Black and Gold’s next coach to maximize what they do have courtesy of Sweeney, of course, but if they can’t, there’s truly nobody to blame but the guys who built the roster in the first place. Especially as the current banners in the TD Garden rafters only get older and become more and more of a distant memory.
For all our disagreements and contentious back-and-forths at press conferences over the years, I actually do think Don Sweeney is a pretty solid general manager and have thought that for a while now. We’re all entirely too dug in on our opinions to truly sway one another so I won’t bother trying here, but he’s simply not as good nor as bad as his supporters and critics scream on the internet and on the airwaves. He’s truly somewhere in the middle, with, again, ‘pretty solid’ being the best way to describe his body of work throughout his tenure.
But barring something downright catastrophic or unpredictable from a conduct standpoint involving the next permanent head coach, Montgomery has to be the last coach that Sweeney (and Neely) are allowed to fire.
It’s now been 13 years and counting since the Bruins last won a Cup. It’s now been over five years since they made it to the fourth round, and in Sweeney’s nine seasons on the job to date they’ve won multiple playoff rounds just once (2019). And at a certain point, as coaches continue to be dismissed for not meeting the front office’s bar for one reason or another, the bar for the GM to keep his job has to be set higher than “just make the playoffs.”
As an organization (and when I say that I mean at the top), the Bruins have essentially scoffed at the idea of ever committing themselves to a Chicago-style — tomato slices and gigantic pickle slices at LW1 and RD1 — rebuild. Their thinking behind that is that their fans would not accept that kind of arduous process that’s defined by overwhelming stretches of team-engineered futility for the hopes of dynasty potential five years down the road. Their last experience with that came all the way back in 2005, and by spring 2007 they were officially done with it.
So, when you factor that philosophy into the equation, Sweeney is their perfect general manager. He’s never once operated from a rebuilding mindset, and he’s build a playoff club in every year but his first, and even that year they were a Tuukka Rask sickness in Game 82 away from sneaking into the postseason.
But there’s not another GM in hockey who’s been allowed to fire three coaches before meeting the executioner’s blade himself. And there’s no denying that Sweeney’s moves are a significant reason why Montgomery is beginning his Wednesday morning with emails from Indeed, Zillow, and an ‘Open to Work’ banner on his LinkedIn.
It was Sweeney, not Montgomery, who made Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov his July 1 priorities less than two months after saying that the Bruins needed to get faster and add secondary scoring. And it was Sweeney, not Montgomery, who decided to commit $11.25 million in goal after by all means acknowledging that it wasn’t feasible to pay Swayman his money and keep Linus Ullmark around at $5 million per season for another year.
And it was Sweeney and Neely, not Montgomery, who’ve apparently had their brains broken so badly by what the Panthers have done to them in back-to-back postseasons that they’ve decided to send the Bruins back in time with size and grit in a game that’s only getting more skilled and faster every single season.
It’s on the Black and Gold’s next coach to maximize what they do have courtesy of Sweeney, of course, but if they can’t, there’s truly nobody to blame but the guys who built the roster in the first place. Especially as the current banners in the TD Garden rafters only get older and become more and more of a distant memory.
