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The Boston Bruins, who were in the clear and
actually in first place in the Atlantic Division at one point this past March (mainly through games played, but still), should be in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But for the second year in a row, the Bruins collapsed their way out of the postseason picture, and now the pressure seems to be on the team president,
Cam Neely, to deliver.
“Not quite a year ago Don [Sweeney] presented a plan, which he thought would get us back to being Stanley Cup contenders. That plan included giving us some cap flexibility, stockpiling prospects and putting a playoff team on the ice,” Neely said at his year-end conference, with Charlie and Jeremy Jacobs by his side, at TD Garden on Wednesday. “And quite frankly, with 86 points and 13 games to go, we should’ve been a playoff team.We should be playing right now. We should’ve locked up the third seed and who knows? But that didn’t happen, and we’re all extremely disappointed the way the season ended. But having said that, that plan was not a one-offseason fix. We know what our goals are, we know what we need to improve, and we’re taking the necessary steps to continue to do that.”
But the on-ice product for the last two years has left something to be desired (that something is playoff games), and when asked who that is a reflection of, B’s CEO Charlie Jacobs was honest as could be.
“I say without question this is Cam [Neely]. If people were to ask who is head of hockey operations, it’s a collaborative effort between a number of people. But if you ask for one sort of name I would say it’s Cam Neely,” Charlie Jacobs noted. “I’m fairly certain my father would share that sentiment.”
The club’s CEO also noted the rather barren cupboard the Bruins have dealt with of late in terms of prospects and impactful youth, but added that it’s not an excuse moving forward.
“We had leveraged our future to the point where something had to change last summer. We made the change and we’re writing the ledger, if you will, by stocking our team back up with prospects with the ability for cap flexibility to make the proper moves moving forward. We will always invest in this team. I think now we’re back on the right side of the ledger, we have an opportunity in front of us to move forward,” Charlie Jacobs noted. “We are a cap team and there should be expectations in an Original Six market that we continue to be a playoff contender, and frankly a Stanley Cup contender.
“Given the mix of talent that we currently have on the roster and the youth that’s coming in, Cam’s aware of those expectations, as is Don.”
Neely has outlasted ex-GM
Peter Chiarelli, and reading between the lines, the excuses are essentially out the window as the Bruins remain a club seemingly unable to make it work with high-end young stars. It goes beyond the Blake Wheelers, Phil Kessels, and Tyler Seguins, and has recently extended to Dougie Hamilton and Reilly Smith, something that Chiarelli was not involved in, but Neely.
But Neely, who has gone on the record as saying he’s never wanted to be a micromanager, noted that he still doesn’t want to overstep his bounds and prevent his general manager from doing his job.
“You have to allow your GM to do his job. If I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing I will let him know,” Neely noted. “But you have to allow your GM to be able to do his job and what he thinks fits. When we interviewed Don and he laid out a plan that he thought would get us to where we want to be I certainly agreed, both Mr. Jacobs and Charlie agreed with it. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t be the GM.”
One of the biggest issues Neely has allegedly had with the Bruins has been the man behind the bench,
Claude Julien, and their believed-to-be major differences in how the game should be played. Neely has previously and subtly hinted that you can’t win games 0-0, and it’s been believed that Neely would have been the one to make a coaching change had it been his decision alone.
“It was a big transition year for him, different player personnel than he’s accustomed to. He tried to integrate a lot of younger players and I think he did a good job with the roster,” Neely admitted of Julien’s 2015-16 season. “There’s areas where we can all still evolve and I think Claude is looking at that. I think he did a great job with some of the circumstances we had throughout the year. So I really…when Don said he wanted to keep Claude I had no problem with that at all.
“We [Neely and Sweeney] have conversations throughout the year and there wasn’t really a point where we said, ‘I want to bring [Julien] back.’ It was, he wasn’t doing anything differently. So ultimately that’s Don’s decision. If he comes to me and says, “Listen I think we need to make a change here,” I have to go on his recommendation because he’s the one that deals with the coach on a daily basis.”
Julien could have been the easy scapegoat for a second straight collapse, and everybody knows it. But when Neely’s biggest concern was put to rest, it made all the sense for Julien to return for a 10th year.
“One of the things I can tell you that I’ve learned recently is that our coach has not lost the room,” said Neely. “That’s one of the first questions you’ve asked, especially of someone that’s been around as long as Claude and some of the players have been around as long as Claude.
“That has not happened and if it did we’d have different discussions.”
A discussion that Cam himself might not want to be part of if things go south for a third year in a row.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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