Smells like TD Garden on an average day.
Warmed over "food" and ass.
I'll make it simple for you:
I want them to lose, keep losing, and lose yet more. I want them to crater. Finish dead last in the league.
I want there to be no question -- none -- that Don Sweeney and Cam Neely must go. In season? Of course not.
A week after they DNQ or get booted in the first round?
Yes please.
There is no question in my mind what this team is, and who needs to go:
*Anyone on this roster, including Brad, Swayman, McAvoy & Pastrnak.*
Will this happen?
No.
Sweeney will "evaluate" until evaluation is no longer tenable.
If there is the slightest iota of mathematical possibility Boston can make the playoffs to match his witless wishful thinking, he will seek to slip into the second season.
The Smartest Guy in the Room will unload Frederic and some minor actors who won't be here next year anyway.
Then, to paraphrase Evan Marinofsky, he will "rent mid."
A spare part here, a spare part there.
Will Don bring up Merkulov or Lysell?
Probably not.
Why?
I don't know why. You'd have to ask him. As soon as he emerges from hiding under his desk or exposes himself to soft balls lobbed his way by the crew @ TNT.
(Did you see that? A collective groan & sigh from my wing of The lunatic fringe.)
I'm sure Don, Cam and Charlie want and sincerely work toward a Stanley Cup.
Don Sweeney deserves great credit for becoming a damn good manager over time, for giving Jim Montgomery a second chance, and pushing all his chips forward in 2022-2023.
But the bottom line remains the bottom line.
"Just win, baby"?
Non.
"Just make the playoffs" ($).
That is the ultimate mandate from Buffalo.
Which leads, largely, to nibbling around the edges and refusing to see what everyone else sees: a roster deficient in nearly every category that must change, dramatically.
Unfortunately, SweeNeely are Sinden Lite.
"Harry doesn't play to win," a fellow GM once remarked.
"He plays not to lose."
*That* is the mentality.
Until they lose money, nothing of import will occur.
Big Z, stand back and stand by.