Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs offers up support for Cam Neely, Don Sweeney
"Our team, in my opinion, has yet to play its best game."
The 2024-25 season has not exactly gone according to plan for the Boston Bruins.
Once expected to be legitimate Cup contenders in a crowded Eastern-Conference field, the Bruins have trudged through several sluggish stretches, endured the firing of head coach Jim Montgomery, and currently sit just a few points away from falling out of the playoff field entirely.
It’s a spot that few expected the Bruins to be in this season, with team president Cam Neely acknowledging at Wednesday’s Boston Bruins Foundation gala that the team must brace for a tangible scenario where the team opts to retool if they don’t right the ship in the coming months.
Like most Bruins fans, team CEO Charlie Jacobs has been at a loss as to what has plagued a team that was seemingly poised to build off what is looking more and more like an overachieving roster in 2024.
“I feel everyone’s frustration and I hear it, too,” Jacobs said. “But I feel it because, like our fan base, I am also a fan and I support this team. … Our team, in my opinion, has yet to play its best game. I feel like we’ve got it in our system, we’ve got it in our room and I hope we can find it. … To watch this team play and know what it’s capable of and see it perform and then come out the next night and not do it again, it’s been a head-scratcher, for sure.”
While the play on the ice has left a lot to be desired so far this season, plenty of criticism from the fan base has also been directed toward both Neely and general manager Don Sweeney for the team’s roster construction.
Years of trying to put Boston over the top with deadline trades has depleted the Bruins’ prospect pipeline, while free-agent pickups like Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov have not moved the needle for a roster still short at least two top-six forwards.
But even with chants at TD Garden calling for the firing of Sweeney last week, Jacobs did offer up his support of Boston’s front-office personnel in the midst of a trying season.
“I believe in our leadership. I know that’s been called into question quite a bit recently. … If we look at Don Sweeney’s stewardship and Cam Neely’s stewardship since Don took over in 2015, we made the playoffs eight of 10 years. … I’m not going to measure success by making the Stanley Cup playoffs,” Jacobs said. “Let’s be very clear about that.
“Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup. But you can’t win the Stanley Cup if you don’t make it to the playoffs and he’s done it for the past eight years and I hope we do it for the ninth.”
While Neely noted that he “certainly appreciates” Jacobs’ vote of confidence, he bemoaned the fact that his 15-year tenure as team president has only resulted in one Stanley Cup so far.
“I look at the body of work the past 10 years. It would be nice if we sprinkled in a Cup in ‘19 and again in ‘23 but that never happened,” Neely said. “We felt like we’ve given our team a chance to win in every year and it just hasn’t materialized.
“It’s frustrating for us, we know it’s frustrating for our fan base. Our fans deserve championships. They come out and support like none other. We’re aware of the expectations and we try to meet and exceed those every year. Right now, it’s a year we’re not really accustomed to.”
As the Bruins’ top brass mull over the path moving forward, Jacobs expressed confidence in this current leadership group when it comes to making the right move to get the Bruins back toward contender status.
“I have faith that they’ll make the right decisions,” Jacobs said Wednesday. “I don’t have the playbook for that. I have faith that they will make those decisions, though … Every time I call [Sweeney], and we speak quite a bit, he’s always looking and always shopping. So, I have faith.”
But would Boston’s ownership have an appetite for a retool if such a scenario becomes a reality in March?
“I mean, I don’t know what that looks like,” Jacobs added. “Right now, we’re in a playoff position. It’s difficult for me to say, ‘If we fall out, what if?’ You start playing that game, it gets in the muck and it might get misinterpreted. I feel like we should have faith in the group that’s there.”
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