Preaching Patience in Fixing This Bruins’ Mess Is a Fool’s Errand

It’s understandable — admirable even — to play a “wait-and-see” game with the dysfunctional leadership of the Boston Bruins in deference to all the good this administration has delivered since arriving in 2006.

It’s consummately wrong, but still admirable. I suppose.

We’re now almost 72 hours removed from the franchise’s biggest collapse since the 2010 playoff gaffe against the Philadelphia Flyers, and the team has done little to hold people accountable other than tell Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille that they won’t be back next season.

Sorry. That’s not enough.

Look, the fact that the Bruins — last year’s Presidents’ Trophy winners (T-shirts still available) — missed the playoffs by two points shouldn’t necessarily be instantaneous cause to demand everybody lose their jobs. Hell, the failure in Los Angeles, where the defending Stanley Cup champion Kings missed the postseason by four points, is a far greater embarrassment. Despite rumors of locker room infighting, they don’t figure to have as much work to do in order to watch Jonathan Quick stand on his head yet again this time next spring.

But these 2014-15 Boston Bruins were a working disaster since the puck dropped on Opening Night back in October, and everybody knew it.

“You have such high hopes coming into the year and obviously with this team we’re expected to not just make the playoffs but win the whole thing,” forward Brad Marchand said during Monday’s breakup day at the TD Garden. “To not be there is different.”

Maybe the team’s championship window is closed, or maybe it simply got stuck this season. Maybe general manager Peter Chiarelli and coach Claude Julien are the right men in the right positions. Maybe Cam Neely, who nobody dares to say a negative word about based on his pedigree in this town, can remain a competent team president. Maybe the Bruins will even eke out a few more Game 7 wins next postseason and make another run at a Stanley Cup title.

But how can team CEO Charlie Jacobs keep a straight face these days after he called for accountability in January, only to watch his Jekyll-and-Hyde squad display no real sense of cohesion?

“For us to be a team that’s out of the playoffs is absolutely unacceptable,” Jacobs said on Jan. 6. “Everybody in the executive offices is fully aware of how I feel.”

Well, that’s a great thing to say in early January, but what does it mean now?

If we’re going to hold people accountable, let’s not forget that one of Chiarelli’s first moves upon arriving here in 2006 was to hire Dave Lewis as coach, a blunder that lasted all of one season on the ice, four more years in the payroll department. That should have been a sign that the GM had a propensity for handing out long-term deals for the hell of it, something that has gotten the Bruins into a cap hell that they can’t easily escape by merely cutting dead weight like Campbell and Paille. That financial situation meant having to trade a top-four defenseman in Johnny Boychuk before the season, even with the likelihood that the team could have received a king’s ransom for him at the trading deadline if they’d only hung onto to him for a few more months.

In comparison to the front office, Claude’s bench looks like a bastion of functionality, reminiscent of old friend Joe Morgan (“These guys aren’t as good as you think”) in recent days. You have to wonder if Julien’s complaints of “issues with the roster” was a precursor to what can happen with sub-par talent without the right game-evaluator making the decisions. Butch Hobson led Morgan’s Red Sox team to a last-place finish. What’s to say Julien’s successor wouldn’t do the same with these pieces?

If Chiarelli and Julien are a package deal, then it’s time to say sayonara to both. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the results can largely be blamed on a confluence of hasty decisions by the front office. As long as Neely is pulling the strings, will the Jacobs family dare to stand up to him?

“I can’t say that any moment we have a final decision, other than to say it’s been an utter disappointment and a failure,” Jacobs said in January. “A complete failure.”

The Bruins were fifth in the Atlantic at that time, one point out of the second wild card spot. What’s Charlie thinking now? I’m going to bet it’s not just about sending Ottawa a congratulations card.

The Bruins fix isn’t necessarily a top-to-bottom overhaul, but it begins at the top. Yet, so far it’s “business as usual” on Causeway Street, according to Chiarelli, who has yet to hear about his future.

“We’re going to go about our business and make the right decisions to make this team and organization better,” Chiarelli said.

Maybe. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.