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After years of win-now moves, Don Sweeney and the Bruins seem ready to wave white flag
"We will look at all opportunities to improve our team now, but more importantly, moving forward.”
COMMENTARY
Bruins President Cam Neely mapped out the stakes last month when asked about the precarious position the Bruins found themselves in during a rudderless campaign.
“I think right now, we’ve got to look at two paths — one that we’re buying and one that we may be just retooling a little bit,” Neely said in January at the Boston Bruins Foundation’s gala. “We still feel like we’ve got a playoff team here, and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize getting out of the playoffs because we’ve made some moves that may be good for the future, but not good for the present.”
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At that time, the Bruins were still clinging to a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with an underperforming roster still staying afloat despite springing several leaks.
Five weeks later, the situation has only grown worse for Boston.
And as the Bruins continue to take on water, it seems as though GM Don Sweeney and Boston’s top brass have finally made their decision.
As painful as it might be, it’s time to wave the white flag on the doomed voyage of the 2024-25 campaign.
“I think historically, we’ve been pretty aggressive when our team’s been in a position,” Sweeney said Sunday of Boston’s plans ahead of the March 7 trade deadline. “I think we’ll take a much more cautious approach as we approach the deadline.
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“That being said, if there are opportunities to improve our team now and certainly moving forward, whether that’s positional shifts with other teams are trying to identify that we may have a strength at — we will look at all opportunities to improve our team now, but more importantly, moving forward.”
Sacrificing present gains in hope for the future has been a foreign concept to Sweeney and his staff since taking the helm of the franchise in 2015.
Be it trying to accelerate a retool from 2015-17 or attempting to put a roster anchored by franchise stalwarts like Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, and Tuukka Rask over the top — Sweeney and Co. have relinquished draft capital in search of immediate results.
Those efforts resulted in names like Lee Stempniak, Drew Stafford, Rick Nash, Charlie Coyle, Marcus Johansson, Ondrej Kase, Taylor Hall, Hampus Lindholm, Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi, and Patrick Maroon all donning black-and-gold sweaters.
Some did little to reverse Boston’s fortunes, like Stempniak in 2016. Others, like Johansson, played key roles in getting the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019.
Several became lineup regulars like Coyle and Lindholm, while Orlov and Bertuzzi bolstered a record-setting roster in 2023.
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But those efforts did not end with Chara or Bergeron hoisting hockey’s greatest prize beyond that one fateful night in Vancouver.
And as admirable as those attempts were to push Boston toward another Stanley Cup, the bill was inevitably set to come due — with years spent cashing out on first-round picks and whiffing on what few selections they had leaving the team’s prospect pool barren.
The last time the Bruins made first-round picks in two straight NHL Drafts was 2016-17.
First-round selection Fabian Lysell — taken two spots ahead of Stars forward Wyatt Johnston in the 2021 Draft — is still mired in Providence. Johnny Beecher (2019, 30th overall) is a fourth-line skater, while Urho Vaakanainen (2017, 18th overall) was taken just ahead of a pair of talented centermen in Josh Norris and Robert Thomas.
Boston’s latest first-round pick Dean Letourneau (2024, 25th overall) was always viewed as a long-term project, but his meager stat line with Boston College this year (0 goals, three assists in 30 games) isn’t exactly the most encouraging showing against elevated competition in Hockey East.
The Bruins, as currently constituted, have a solid foundation in place with a 60-goal winger in David Pastrnak, top-pairing defenseman in Charlie McAvoy, and a promising netminder in Jeremy Swayman all in their prime and signed to long-term deals.
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But the rest of Boston’s depth chart is encumbered with so much bloat, underperforming assets, and a dearth of young talent, that whatever promise resonated with this team in September has regressed into a miserable product on the ice.
Changes need to be made, and draft capital must be recouped (and most importantly, properly utilized).
“Do we make moves that acquire and restock? Can we find players that are a little further along and identify them properly? All of the above are all parts of the equation,” Sweeney said, later adding. “It’s just about where the wheels spin. As a general manager, you’re trying to improve your hockey club overall and improve organizational depth. So, we have to do a better job, and that’s what will be tasked going forward.”
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Sweeney’s comments hold plenty of weight over a Bruins team that was once seemingly poised to build off of last year’s surprising run into the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
As of Sunday afternoon, the Bruins currently sit just one point out of the two Wild Card spots in the East.
But the writing has been on the wall for weeks that the Bruins simply don’t have the talent — or the horses — to make a sustained push toward the postseason.
After weeks of inconsistent play, the news of Hampus Lindholm’s likely season-ending knee injury and Charlie McAvoy’s uncertain status moving forward might be the knockout punch that Bruins fans have awaited amid a season spent on the ropes.
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“We took a turn late January, but more importantly, early February — we just started to play more porous than we should as a group,” Sweeney said in an early postmortem musing of a season gone awry. “We were chasing offense a little bit.
“Defensively, we started to give up some things. You can’t do that. … So we started to spring some leaks in that, and that usually shows up in your depth, and that’s probably where the shortcomings sit right now. Players didn’t get off to great starts, got their games going, and then we just didn’t maintain it after that period of time. So we’ve got some areas that we certainly need to address, and that falls on me.”
A busy summer for the Bruins should receive an early head start before March 7.
Boston’s efforts of accruing draft picks could mean that pending free agents like Morgan Geekie, Justin Brazeau, Trent Frederic, and even captain Brad Marchand could be donning new sweaters by early March. Players under contract like Charlie Coyle and Andrew Peeke might also be available.
Pursuing short-term rentals is surely out of the question. But if the Bruins are looking to acquire younger players with either term or upside in a more traditional “hockey trade” (Alex Tuch, Mattias Maccelli, Mason McTavish), lineup regulars like Brandon Carlo could be pried away as part of a larger package.
“We’re going to look at all opportunities, whether it’s to improve our club now or with an eye towards moving forward,” Sweeney said. “Our veteran players have proven they’re good players. Is everybody having a career year? No.
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“But that being said, they can help us and they can help other teams. That’s why you receive calls, and unfortunately, as part of the job, you have to make calls at this point in time of the year. So that’s just what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks.”
As painful as it might be for the Bruins to let go of the rope and give up a spring of fan banner captains and “Cochise” echoing through the TD Garden, it’s a result of Boston’s own doing.
With each win-now move struck by Boston over the last decade, the weight of whatever consequences loomed on the horizon grew heavier and heavier for this franchise.
And sure enough, those consequences are primed to sink a hockey season that was initially filled with so much hope just a few months ago.
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