Even with cap crunch and little draft capital, Don Sweeney and Cam Neely have no regrets over Bruins’ all-in moves

"We certainly pushed a lot to the middle of the table in terms of trying to accomplish an ultimate goal."

Don Sweeney and Cam Neely have their work cut out for them this offseason. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

June 28, 2023

3 minutes to read

There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to examining the Bruins’ crushing first-round exit against the Florida Panthers.

One area that shouldn’t be dissected, however, is the willingness of Boston’s front-office personnel to try and put a “win-now” roster over the top in pursuit of a Stanley Cup.

Be it orchestrating Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci’s return on cheap deals, swinging a trade for Pavel Zacha, or eventually bolstering an already strong roster by acquiring Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov, and Garnet Hathaway, Don Sweeney pulled out multiple stops in search of a title.

It came at a steep cost, of course.

Boston relinquished six total draft picks, including two first-rounders, in their deals for Orlov, Bertuzzi, and Hathaway. As of now, they will not pick in the first round until 2025, and their next second-round pick isn’t until 2026.

Both Bergeron and Krejci only accounted for a combined $3.5 million cap hit last season, but $4.5 million in bonus overages are severely limiting Boston’s spending capabilities this summer.

Of course, all of these hard truths and cap-related headaches would be far more palatable if Sweeney’s all-in maneuvers resulted in a championship this spring.

But with a record-setting Bruins club imploding in April, Sweeney and his staff now have to face the music and retool a roster with limited resources.

“We’ve always said that there is going to be some turnover associated with that,” Sweeney told reporters in Nashville on Tuesday ahead of the 2023 NHL Draft. “I was pretty honest at the end of the year, realizing that might include some of our younger guys getting an opportunity or bringing in some players that might be looking for that platform or second opportunities.

“That is just the nature of where we’re at right now. We certainly pushed a lot to the middle of the table in terms of trying to accomplish an ultimate goal and we fell short. We have to regroup as a result.”

However, Bruins president Cam Neely was candid when asked if he regrets Boston’s aggressive moves over the last calendar year given the current state of the organization.

“It was worth it,” Neely said. “I mean the regular season record speaks for itself. I mean, I think we all looked at that roster and thought this was as good of a chance as any that we’re going to go deep and get to the Finals at a minimum.

“So, it is extremely disappointing because of what we knew this season was going to bring us, regardless of if we won or not, but we thought we were going to give us the best chance to go deep and win. So, it did sting a lot for all of us, but it’s something that, like I said at the end of the year press conference… If we don’t learn something from it, then shame on us.”

Sweeney and his staff have multiple hurdles to clear this offseason, be it the uncertain futures of Bergeron and Krejci, clearing cap space, and retaining other talent on Boston’s roster.

There is hope on the horizon in 2024-25, given an expected surge in the NHL’s cap ceiling and $35 million in projected cap space for Boston.

But Sweeney can’t be fixated on the future, not with Boston still stuck in neutral this offseason with their limited cap space.

“I think I tried to acknowledge that right from the end of year, realizing that turnover was really likely to be coming,” Sweeney said. “That’s just sometimes the cycle you get into, but it’s also indicative of what we were trying to do last year, and I don’t have any regrets for trying to be the best team we possibly could.

“The pieces that came together last year, we were fortunate that David and Patrice were flexible, the [Zacha] trade worked out for both teams. … But it is different in the sense of charting a course and realizing that younger players should be excited, but they have a lot of work to do in order to become incumbents and we’re going to bring in some external competition. So, we have a good core group of players and we’re going to build around it.”