Bruins Fire GM Peter Chiarelli
The Boston Bruins announced on Wednesday that they have relieved Peter Chiarelli of his duties as general manager. The team says that no interim GM has been named at this time.
“We are grateful for Peter’s service to the Bruins organization over the last nine seasons,’’ team president Cam Neely said in a statement. “His efforts undoubtedly helped the team achieve great success during his tenure and he helped restore the proud tradition of Boston Bruins hockey. We ultimately feel that this change is necessary in order to ensure sustainable success for the club both in the short term and the long term. Our search for a new General Manager will begin immediately.’’
In addition to Chiarelli’s firing, the Bruins also announced that amateur scouts Mike Chiarelli and Denis Leblanc and European head scout Jukka Holtari have been relieved of their duties with the team.
Peter Chiarelli was hired by the Bruins on May 26, 2006, becoming the seventh general manager in team history. The Bruins earned just 76 points in Chiarelli’s first season, but quickly became one of the best teams in the NHL after the hiring of head coach Claude Julien prior to the 2007-08 season. From 2007-08 through 2013-14, the Bruins made the playoffs every season, won four division titles, a Presidents’ Trophy, two Eastern Conference titles, and the team’s first Stanley Cup championship since 1972.
Chiarelli was responsible for the September 2009 trade that sent star forward Phil Kessel to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for three draft picks. The Bruins went on to use two of those picks to draft Tyler Seguin in 2010 and Dougie Hamilton in 2011.
Other notable players Chiarelli acquired during his early tenure in Boston include Andrew Ference, Daniel Paille, Dennis Seidenberg, Nathan Horton, Gregory Campbell, Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley, all of whom were key contributors to the Bruins’ 2011 Stanley Cup title.
Chiarelli did have his fair share of controversial moves as GM, however, perhaps none more second-guessed than his decision to ship Seguin to Dallas on July 4, 2013 in a deal that brought Loui Eriksson and Reilly Smith to Boston. Seguin has since become one of the elite scorers in the NHL, while Eriksson and Smith have had up-and-down Bruins careers.
Another move that has come under fire was Chiarelli’s decicsion to trade Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders on the eve of this past season. Boychuk became a key piece of an Islanders team that battled for the best record in the Eastern Conference for most of the season, while the Bruins’ blue line was hampered by injuries and inconsistency all year.
With Chiarelli now gone, the fate of Julien — who is also on the hot seat after the team missed the postseason — has not yet been determined. The Bruins had signed Julien to a multi-year extension during the first month of this past season.
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