Neely on
98.5 in 25 minutes
Good start by Felger calling him the Yeti.
Felger: Tough times for the team, you've got a lot of criticism, a lot of it justified, for holding it during the Pats' victory parade
Neely:
- Saw Shaughnessy's article calling us a coward, which is easy from behind a keyboard...
- Points to Sweeney saying they wanted two full days of practice
- Sweeney was asking himself, "am I gonna extend Claude?" / fish or cut bait
- Sweeney deciding if they're going to ride it out or get rid of Claude
- Scheduled day off Monday for the players, which was when Sweeney wanted to address the players instead of firing Claude on Monday and waiting a day to meet with them.
Felger: More about the timing / doing so the day of the parade
Neely: We knew we were going to get hammered about this. Don't understand the accusations of "hiding" as they can't hide anything in this day and age.
Felger: OK, why'd you do it?
Neely: Not giving up on playoffs, that's our goal with this season. We've lost 4 games with 90 seconds or less where we've got 0 points out of it. We know this isn't on Claude, we weren't in a position to blow up the core of this team.
Massarotti: Do you feel you waited too long?
Neely: Don had talked about it earlier, PP picking up, picked up a few wins, you can say we were better than anyone expected us to be defensively (?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!)
Felger: How do you think Claude handled young players? Did he still have 'the room'?
Neely: Claude was the ultimate professional, we wanted to implement some younger players... there are some times where Claude feels the players aren't ready, where we believe the players were going to make some mistakes and we were willing to live with that. That's one of the areas where Claude and Donnie disagreed a bit
Felger: Why weren't you there the other day?
Neely: Don's the GM, I supported his decision
Felger: Don't you have final say?
Neely: Yes, I supported his decision to let Claude go... how many Presidents are there when coaches get fired? It's not on me to be there and address the media when the GM has fired the coach.
...
Neely: Our home record is an issue for me, and it has been
Massarotti: Do you have a theory there? Why can't you win in this building?
Neely: On the road, we just put our lines out and play. At home, some matchup and strategy concerns may handcuff you so to speak. We're talking about this happening for a season and a half at this point.
Felger: Do you feel that you're next?
Neely: Yeah, if we don't do our jobs well enough, I feel we are next.
Felger: (i missed this)
Neely: Need backup goalie, need another left-shot D that can log minutes and chip in offensively
Felger: If you don't make it again this year, do you think you're next?
Neely: Hard to say, I haven't had that conversation, I would never have that conversation
Felger: What is the plan around here? Confusing, youth but sign Backes, youth and draft picks but you give up picks for Stempniak and LIles
Neely: Last year, we were in the playoffs and we felt we needed to add. Didn't happen, tanked down the stretch. Should have been in the playoffs. We are trying to add some youth... Backes is a guy we feel could help our top 6 today and moving forward, bring some leadership, etc. We felt he would help us today, tomorrow, next year while these younger players are still getting integrated.
Felger: Do you think he has?
Neely: He has not played up to expectations, he will tell you himself, he knows he needs to do more. Krejci the same way, nowhere near where he's capable of playing in my opinion
Massarotti: Krug, Krejci, Backes, Beleskey not playing up to their contracts
Neely: I don't agree with Krug
Massarotti: Ok with the rest, do you feel you're handcuffed with contracts?
Neely: No, I don't think so. We've gotta deal with Pastrnak's contract (thanks Stripes & BMHH), thought Sweeney did a great job with the Marchand contract. We have to continue improving our club, didn't expect Carlo to make this contribution, hopefully some other younger players can help, we have to do a better job of supplementing core players we have now.
Felger: Rebuilding from the middle - better to do this or to tear it down?
Neely: Maybe it is, but are we going to trade away Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci (Felger: "Maybe"), Rask (Felger: "Maybe")... when Don put this plan together, we didn't think we'd be competing for the championship this year, but we thought we would be a playoff team. Do we need to get better? 100%
(missed a bit - talk about Sacco and Cassidy)
Massarotti: Cassidy's stint with Washington - does that concern you?
Neely: I think he's grown a lot in the past dozen years, we'll have to see, gives Sweeney and opportunity to evaluate, will he continue to be a candidate, etc
Felger: Trade deadline in 3 weeks. If you fall out of it and it's clear you fall out of it, would you be more open to trading veterans for future pieces than we've been in the past?
Neely: We'll look at what's the best way to improve our club. Is it going to be harder decisions? Yes... etc... Cassidy's current stint is an audition (Massarotti's words)
