Bruins Fire Cassidy

Myt1

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The shortcomings of the Sweeney era to date are an accumulation of paper cuts (to my eyes), especially more recently. Sorry for the re-litigation of some of these moves as I had another post earlier this summer going through his record to date, but I've been a fan of Sweeney on the whole until this past calendar year.

He started off about as well as one could hope for with the Lucic, Hamilton, and Jones trades in context - taking advantage of a team that was enamored with a player (Jones) but who couldn't pry him from a rival, and leveraging this to extract an extra 1st rounder out of the equation, is his signature trade IMO (up there with the mid-season acquisitions of Coyle and Lindholm). If Hamilton wasn't going to sign, IDK how much more Sweeney could have gotten or done. Got good assets back when dealt a bad hand.

In fact, the only blemishes I can see in the first handful of years were:
  • Rinaldo for a 3rd (reeks of Neely)
  • Backes as UFA for 5/$30m (reeks of Neely)
  • Stempniak deadline acquisition for 2nd and 4th despite having him on a PTO in training camp
  • The big kahuna: passing on Barzal and Connor in selecting Zboril, DeBrusk, and Senyshyn
    • The rumor around draft day was that a trade for Noah Hanifin was lined up, but fell through. We'll never know for sure, but it's clear they did not get the talent out of that draft that they should have

Through the end of the 2020-21 season, I'd still argue that Sweeney had one of the best GMing records to date league-wide since he took over, even including the fallout of the 2015 draft, by virtue of how strong his in-season trades were, and how well he fared at retaining elite talent at below-market contracts. Sure, some of the latter is due to the culture organizationally instilled by Chara, Bergeron, Krejci etc, but good management identifies that and fosters it. Additionally, the Bruins don't make the 2019 Cup run without the in-season acquisitions of Coyle, Johansson, the emergence of Clifton as an unsigned senior FA acquisition, etc.

Yes, by this point, he'd added to some bad UFA signings by securing John Moore for 5 years at $2.75m AAV, re-upping Wagner for 3 years unprompted, trading Heinen for Ritchie... but again, paper cuts that didn't hamstring the team long-term, and got them to July 1 with loads of cap space, admittedly with question marks looming around Krejci's return. Last summer was when things started to take a turn (for me) from "very positive" to "boy I hope they know what they're doing".

First, giving credit for the good:
  • He again retained two players in Hall (4 years, $6m AAV) and Reilly (3 years, $3m AAV) that represented less than either player would get on the open market, and at that point reflected good business, deference to Forbort over Reilly notwithstanding
    • Reilly ending up in the press box speaks to a misalignment (to me) between the FO and coach - there's no $3m player signed the same year that should be in the press box, full stop.
  • The signings of Haula and Nosek were also at or below market rates, with Haula's remaining year at $2.375m AAV arguably the B's most attractive trade chip not named Pastrnak.
    • If they're out of it this year, I bet Nosek returns a 3rd+5th or some such combo from a contender
  • He followed this up by retaining McAvoy mid-season for an 8 year, $9.5m AAV
Outnumbering the good, however, was the volume and cap commitment of the bad:
  • Re-signing Carlo fresh off of 2-3 concussions in a 3 month span - 6 year, $4.1m AAV deal that to me represents the big boy version of the Moore signing. Paying market rate (at best) at a long term for a known quantity is not the way to operate in the cap world.
  • Foligno - 2 years, $3.8m AAV. He has signed two respected veteran forwards in his tenure to outsized AAVs relative to their contribution. They have both been pissed when Cassidy rightly played them in a reduced role (they suck).
    • Getting this wrong twice represents either a misalignment between the FO and the coach in terms of what the team needs, or a misjudgment on the character of these players. Either way, both the Foligno and Backes signings get a gigantic F from me, with the added bonus of Backes costing a 1st round pick just to get out form under him
  • Forbort - 3 years, $3m AAV. Who was he bidding against? Forbort owes his agent ~25% minimum from this
  • Ullmark - 4 years, $5m AAV. I get the idea here in that you needed Swayman insurance, but this is a lot of term and AAV commitment to a guy that isn't much beyond an average goalie. There's value in that, but not at this term IMO.

The above four players represent $15.9m in AAV. That's acceptable if you're getting two top-four D, a middle-six winger, and a tandem starter in net. For a guy who's stretched on the second pair these days, a 6/7 D, a 4LW, and a backup G, that is a criminal usage of cap space, and should (IMO) have sealed the deal for Sweeney.
You guys should listen to your friend @PedroSpecialK He’s a cool dude.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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For better or worse, Sweeney will always be known for the DeBrusk draft until/unless he wins a Cup. It’s unfair but that will be his enduring legacy. You take three guys in a row and only one of them is any good and that guy wants to be traded.

Not ideal.

Maybe it’s unfair but Mike O’Connell will always be the guy who traded Thornton for a bag of magic beans.It’s a tough business.
 

RedOctober3829

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For better or worse, Sweeney will always be known for the DeBrusk draft until/unless he wins a Cup. It’s unfair but that will be his enduring legacy. You take three guys in a row and only one of them is any good and that guy wants to be traded.

Not ideal.

Maybe it’s unfair but Mike O’Connell will always be the guy who traded Thornton for a bag of magic beans.It’s a tough business.
That draft is the central issue to his tenure. If he came out of 2015 with 3 cornerstones we’d have a very different outcome of these past 6 years.
 

burstnbloom

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I did not say Sweeney doesn't deserve any credit for them being good. Of course he does. I just think Butch did a great job of making the necessary adjustments and tinkering with lines at times during his time to get the most out of a flawed roster.
I think Sweeney does deserve some credit for 2019 He added Coyle, Debrusk, Mojo, Kuraly, Nordstrom, McAvoy, Backes, Carlo, and Kuhlman to that roster and they all added points in the playoffs run.
 

mcpickl

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I agree with this wholeheartedly. There have been some amazingly embarrassing takes in this thread.

I am biased re: Don Sweeney. I loved working with him, and have the ultimate respect for him. Did I agree with everything he did? No. Was he perfect? Hell no. But he did take over a team that missed the playoffs 2 seasons in a row and was in salary cap hell, and within a few short years had one team 60 minutes away from a Stanley Cup, and he led another team to the President's Trophy for the best record in the NHL.
I've seen this a bunch through the years, but is it true? Salary cap hell?

The Seidenberg contract was underwater, and they still had two years of Savard left, but was anything else really bad? Am I forgetting something else bad? One year of Chris Kelly?

The team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players, not terrible contracts.

Being able to get out of "salary cap hell" by trading a couple of your good expensive guys for a handful of first and second round picks, having your mostly young core players signed to fantastic deals by your predecessor, and still having enough salary cap space to slather what turned out to be awful contracts on Matt Beleskey and Jimmy Hayes(and to a lesser extent McQuaid) doesn't sound very hellish to me.

Sounds kinda heavenly.
 

PedroSpecialK

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I'm not sure he'll want me to share this, but he helped me with a project on the aging curve of truculent forwards that impressed the hell out of Donnie. He knows hockey.

The team still signed Backes though...:rolleyes:
That was a lot of fun to help out with - heart sank when I saw the Backes signing come across alas
 

lexrageorge

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Exactly, he only needed to hit on one of those and it's crazy that they didn't just out of dumb luck.
That draft will vex us fans for like forever.

Sweeney took 2 forwards and a defenseman, which is reasonable. Zboril is either a late blooming defenseman (who got hurt after a promising start to the year) or simply a bust. However, he was probably the best blue liner prospect remaining at the time, and it did seem as if Sweeney may have partially redeemed himself there by drafting Carlo in the 2nd. DeBrusk is probably the median outcome for the 14th pick. The Senyshyn pick was simply inexcusably bad.
 

Frisbetarian

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I've seen this a bunch through the years, but is it true? Salary cap hell?

The Seidenberg contract was underwater, and they still had two years of Savard left, but was anything else really bad? Am I forgetting something else bad? One year of Chris Kelly?

The team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players, not terrible contracts.

Being able to get out of "salary cap hell" by trading a couple of your good expensive guys for a handful of first and second round picks, having your mostly young core players signed to fantastic deals by your predecessor, and still having enough salary cap space to slather what turned out to be awful contracts on Matt Beleskey and Jimmy Hayes(and to a lesser extent McQuaid) doesn't sound very hellish to me.

Sounds kinda heavenly.
Heavenly? The 2014-15 team was over the cap limit and had to pay a $4.75 million dollar bonus overage penalty. As a reminder, that team did not even make the playoffs, which certainly does not align with "the team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players." And even after Donnie made some (necessary) moves to reduce the salary burden in the summer of 2015, Bleacher Report listed them as having the worst salary cap issues in 2015-16. And BR wasn't the only place to talk about the Bruins salary cap issues in 2015. Hell, a simple search of Bruins contracts 2015-16 shows tons of articles about the team's serious issues, some of which even referred to the team troubles as Salary Cap Hell. You should have done this before posting; I don't have the time or inclination to respond to something you could have easily researched yourself.

So, while I'm sure you could have done a much better job, it is a fact that the Bruins were able to get into a much more workable salary cap situation. And they were able to do this while they improved the team each year, culminating in a Stanley Cup final appearance (that will haunt me forever), and the best record in the NHL.
 

j44thor

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Sorry Fris appreciate your candor in this thread but are we really quoting BR and random bloggers as proof? The Bs were in salary cap hell much like TB is in salary cap he'll every year which is the best kind of cap hell, having productive players on market value contracts that they can easily trade for assets. The EDM article you linked even suggests that Lucic is a trade candidate which is exactly what DS did. The problem with DS is that he has put the Bs into actual salary cap hell a couple times since by greatly over paying bottom six forwards that he then has to trade assets with just to get out of the contracts. This is the biggest difference between the Bs and TB and how they build out a deep roster. TB consistently trades for and signs players at or below market and then trades them for assets consistently to restock, such as JT Miller to VAN for a first plus whereas Bs have to trade a first to get out of bad contracts like Backes. DS has had his share of good moves, the best being Hall for a bag of pucks, but at best I think the good and bad have canceled each other out. DS to me is a league average GM and Cassidy is an above average coach, esp for a big market team.
As for offensive philosophy getting more conservative, isn't part of the problem that they didn't have a true 2C this season? Coyle seems to be allergic to the slot regardless of what Cassidy does to motivate him and Haula gave you more than you could have hoped for but he is arguably the worst 2C of any team in the playoffs. Ironic that during the last several years the knock was Krejci never had competent wings then the first year he is gone they have 2 elite wings and a pedestrian C drive 2nd line.
 

Frisbetarian

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Sorry Fris appreciate your candor in this thread but are we really quoting BR and random bloggers as proof? The Bs were in salary cap hell much like TB is in salary cap he'll every year which is the best kind of cap hell, having productive players on market value contracts that they can easily trade for assets. The EDM article you linked even suggests that Lucic is a trade candidate which is exactly what DS did. The problem with DS is that he has put the Bs into actual salary cap hell a couple times since by greatly over paying bottom six forwards that he then has to trade assets with just to get out of the contracts. This is the biggest difference between the Bs and TB and how they build out a deep roster. TB consistently trades for and signs players at or below market and then trades them for assets consistently to restock, such as JT Miller to VAN for a first plus whereas Bs have to trade a first to get out of bad contracts like Backes. DS has had his share of good moves, the best being Hall for a bag of pucks, but at best I think the good and bad have canceled each other out. DS to me is a league average GM and Cassidy is an above average coach, esp for a big market team.
As for offensive philosophy getting more conservative, isn't part of the problem that they didn't have a true 2C this season? Coyle seems to be allergic to the slot regardless of what Cassidy does to motivate him and Haula gave you more than you could have hoped for but he is arguably the worst 2C of any team in the playoffs. Ironic that during the last several years the knock was Krejci never had competent wings then the first year he is gone they have 2 elite wings and a pedestrian C drive 2nd line.
The 2014-15 team was over the cap and did not make the playoffs. I don't know what more proof you need. But if you had taken the time to research it, you would see articles on the 2015-16 Bruins salary cap issues from lots of major publications.

As far as the bolded goes, if you actually read my post you would have seen that the Bruins were near the top of the league in shot attempts and near the bottom in percentage from the slot for the past 2 years, not just last year. In fact, they have been 30th, 29th, and 30th in percentage of shots from the slot the past 3 seasons. So no, it wasn't just because they didn't have a true 2C this past season.

I'm done in this thread, and honestly probably shouldn't have posted here at all. I don't have the time or inclination to respond here anymore. I understand the passion and that people are upset about Butchie getting fired, but the level of discourse in pretty low, and there's no upside for me in engaging.
 

burstnbloom

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I think a lot of the issues with narrative around Sweeney's performance center around the 2015 draft and how high profile the players were that they traded to get those pics and then the results of them. I think if you're being objective and you look at Sweeney's drafting compared to the drafting under Chiarelli, the results are generally positive. It's just there aren't a lot of impact players. That's probably a result of their drafting philosophy, which we've lamented again and again over the years. They look for high floor players, not home run hitters. He did a good job getting the team back into contention and while I think he deserves criticism for drafting Frederic in 2016, he also drafted McAvoy with Fabbro and Chychrun on the board. The former was seen as equal value and the latter was seen as higher value based on the publications. He also picked Lindgren and Oskar Steen in that draft. 4 NHL players out of that draft, a top 5 D man, a second pair D and two depth forwards is a dream draft. If you go through his draft performance, there are no big hits since then but there are a fair amount of NHL players and promising prospects.

2017- Urho, Jack, Swayman, Berglund
2018- lets forget about this one
2019 - Beecher, Olson, Mantykivi
2020 - Lohrei, Kuntar, Langenbrunner, Duran
2021 - lysell, Harrison, Jellvik, Mast, Gasseau, Gallagher - all of these players outperformed their draft pedigree this year

So there is a lot of quantity in his performance since 2015.

I think the larger issue is their pro scouting performance has been so so bad over this same time period. The Nash trade was a disaster, some of that isn't their fault, but my understanding is they chose Lindgren as the least of Lauzon, Zboril and Urho of their LHD prospects. Clearly that was a mistake. I don't mind that they made that move but they had to pay more to get rid of Beleskey and the RW problem that had been an issue since Nathan Horton was solved by trading for a left wing who was 34 years old. The Backes signing, the Beleskey signing, the foligno signing. Trading Heinen for Ritchie. They continue to go to the well for "power forwards" who actually suck at hockey. The Forbort signing. Kill me. There are so many moves that are indefensible on the day they happened and aged even worse. So he's had 7 years at the helm. He's drafted a star and a bunch of quality players, but the only other impact player was traded for a UFA.

I think the general narrative around him is really fueled by that 2015 draft and the fact that the players he's drafted are not impact players. I don't actually think that is very fair. The scary thing about him for me though, is that he doesn't appear to be learning from these mistakes and I don't see much creativity in his approach that leads me to believe he can manage a challenging situation (see previous Nathan Horton/Rick Nash). The Bruins have no center depth. It's a problem we've seen coming for years. The issue is its really really hard to acquire top 6 centers. Below is the list of them that scored 60 or more points this year. The vast majority of them were acquired with picks so low that the bruins haven't picked that high without trading Phil Kessel since they drafted Phil Kessel. I don't know how to solve this problem, but its not something that feels do-able with Sweeney's track record.

52327
 

cshea

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What an absolute joke this front office is.
There's no easy way to fire a coach. If Sweeney told Cassidy at the exit interview that they were evaulating Cassidy's performance and/or considering a change, they'd get killed for having left Cassidy in limbo for 3 weeks. Plus, Neely basically said they were taking a look at the coaching staff at his year end press conference. It's not like the signs weren't there, we all thought it was possible at the time. If Cassidy was totally blindsided, part of that's on him for not paying attention to what his bosses were saying in public.

When Sweeney took over and was initially non-commital to Julien, he was killed in the media for it. In the end, Cassidy hasn't missed this years coaching cycle and will very likely end up behind another bench for next season. The complaining or angst over Sweeney's handling of the situation just seems to be straight up piling on.
 

RedOctober3829

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There's no easy way to fire a coach. If Sweeney told Cassidy at the exit interview that they were evaulating Cassidy's performance and/or considering a change, they'd get killed for having left Cassidy in limbo for 3 weeks. Plus, Neely basically said they were taking a look at the coaching staff at his year end press conference. It's not like the signs weren't there, we all thought it was possible at the time. If Cassidy was totally blindsided, part of that's on him for not paying attention to what his bosses were saying in public.

When Sweeney took over and was initially non-commital to Julien, he was killed in the media for it. In the end, Cassidy hasn't missed this years coaching cycle and will very likely end up behind another bench for next season. The complaining or angst over Sweeney's handling of the situation just seems to be straight up piling on.
You're right, it's the timing of it that looks bad. However, if my bosses told me everything was good and then 3 weeks later the situation takes a 180 I'd be pissed and have a lot of questions as to what happened. He'll come out if it on the other side.
 

cshea

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We don't know what they told him, we've only got one side of the story. Bruce's verision is they conveyed "status quo" which is very different from "everything was good."

They could've said "as of now, you're the head coach" which indicates status quo but also isn't a confirmation that he's safe.
 

Haunted

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I have been frustrated with the sort of "caught looking at strike 3" things from Sweeney. He seems to make good preparatory moves to pull off a big move... which doesn't come. The 2015 draft. The 2021 offseason. The 2021/22 deadline. I know it requires more than just Don Sweeney to make a trade, but why does it seem to keep happening?
 

kenneycb

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Getting Lindholm and signing him to an extension wasn't a big move?

The other answer is their prospect pool sucks so they're limited to using draft picks to entice other teams.
 

burstnbloom

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I agree that the piling on of how Don is handling this process is likely just people getting their emotions out and is kind of unfair. There have been rumblings all year that the room wasn't in love with the coach and Sweeney is well within his right to look elsewhere. It's a chicken/egg thing to talk about Cassidy's structured system regressing offensively because the talent level of the forward group has certainly sank over the last few years. I don't really think the solution is letting go of the coach, but I do think he has to do SOMETHING to change the mix if the rumors are true. I hire and fire a lot in my professional life and my staff and I try to do it "right' and make sure there are clear expectations and that no one is ever surprised by a termination. But no matter how "well" we manage the process, the person is always upset. They are usually mad. Sometimes the rest of my team is mad and I have to explain myself. So I don't really think there is much use in debating the how/why of the firing at this point.
 

mcpickl

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Heavenly? The 2014-15 team was over the cap limit and had to pay a $4.75 million dollar bonus overage penalty. As a reminder, that team did not even make the playoffs, which certainly does not align with "the team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players." And even after Donnie made some (necessary) moves to reduce the salary burden in the summer of 2015, Bleacher Report listed them as having the worst salary cap issues in 2015-16. And BR wasn't the only place to talk about the Bruins salary cap issues in 2015. Hell, a simple search of Bruins contracts 2015-16 shows tons of articles about the team's serious issues, some of which even referred to the team troubles as Salary Cap Hell. You should have done this before posting; I don't have the time or inclination to respond to something you could have easily researched yourself.

So, while I'm sure you could have done a much better job, it is a fact that the Bruins were able to get into a much more workable salary cap situation. And they were able to do this while they improved the team each year, culminating in a Stanley Cup final appearance (that will haunt me forever), and the best record in the NHL.
Heavenly, yes.

Again, being over the cap by having lots of good players under good contracts isn't salary cap hell. Sorry.

The guys Don cleaned off the hellish cap, Lucic and Dougie, were such dead weight contracts that it only garnered him 3 first round picks, 2 second round picks, and a decent D prospect. Those two moves alone not only got them out from "cap hell", it left him more than enough to drop a pile of money on Matt Beleskey.

Oh the humanity!

If you think having these players under contract for these prices doesn't align with "the team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players.", then I don't know what you're watching

David Krejci 7.25
Tuukka Rask 7
Zdeno Chara 6.9
Patrice Bergeron 6.9
Milan Lucic 5.5
Brad Marchand 4.5
Loui Erikkson 4.25
Reilly Smith 3.425 So onerous he was able to get Florida to take Savards contract while giving up about to be overpaid Jimmy Hayes
Torey Krug 3.4
David Pastrnak 925K entry level
Dougie Hamilton RFA rights

HELL!!!
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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The 2014-15 team was over the cap and did not make the playoffs. I don't know what more proof you need. But if you had taken the time to research it, you would see articles on the 2015-16 Bruins salary cap issues from lots of major publications.

As far as the bolded goes, if you actually read my post you would have seen that the Bruins were near the top of the league in shot attempts and near the bottom in percentage from the slot for the past 2 years, not just last year. In fact, they have been 30th, 29th, and 30th in percentage of shots from the slot the past 3 seasons. So no, it wasn't just because they didn't have a true 2C this past season.

I'm done in this thread, and honestly probably shouldn't have posted here at all. I don't have the time or inclination to respond here anymore. I understand the passion and that people are upset about Butchie getting fired, but the level of discourse in pretty low, and there's no upside for me in engaging.
Second time that Chuck has been run off of SoSH. You're too good for this place nowadays anyway.

(Good luck with the house sale, Amigo. If you're selling any of your Tupac art/stuff before the move, you know where to find me!)
 

veritas

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Heavenly, yes.

Again, being over the cap by having lots of good players under good contracts isn't salary cap hell. Sorry.

The guys Don cleaned off the hellish cap, Lucic and Dougie, were such dead weight contracts that it only garnered him 3 first round picks, 2 second round picks, and a decent D prospect. Those two moves alone not only got them out from "cap hell", it left him more than enough to drop a pile of money on Matt Beleskey.

Oh the humanity!

If you think having these players under contract for these prices doesn't align with "the team was expensive, but it's because they had a lot of good players.", then I don't know what you're watching

David Krejci 7.25
Tuukka Rask 7
Zdeno Chara 6.9
Patrice Bergeron 6.9
Milan Lucic 5.5
Brad Marchand 4.5
Loui Erikkson 4.25
Reilly Smith 3.425 So onerous he was able to get Florida to take Savards contract while giving up about to be overpaid Jimmy Hayes
Torey Krug 3.4
David Pastrnak 925K entry level
Dougie Hamilton RFA rights

HELL!!!
This post is garbage on so many levels
 

veritas

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Can you expand on why?

What exactly did I say that was incorrect?
In addition to being wrong*, your post was unnecessarily hostile, especially considering who you were replying to. Fris provides unique and valuable firsthand insight into the Bruins. People taking out their fan frustrations on him is not cool at all, to put it nicely.

*They couldn't keep 2 of the best young players in the league because of the cap situation, Loui's "good" contract was only there because of that. They also couldn't afford to keep Lucic, a core player. At that time the Krejci's deal was not particularly popular. And has been said previously, all those good players were not good enough to make the playoffs.
 

mcpickl

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In addition to being wrong*, your post was unnecessarily hostile, especially considering who you were replying to. Fris provides unique and valuable firsthand insight into the Bruins. People taking out their fan frustrations on him is not cool at all, to put it nicely.

*They couldn't keep 2 of the best young players in the league because of the cap situation, Loui's "good" contract was only there because of that. They also couldn't afford to keep Lucic, a core player. At that time the Krejci's deal was not particularly popular. And has been said previously, all those good players were not good enough to make the playoffs.
Yeah man, I already said in the post they were over because they had too many good players, to which you apparently agree?

It isn't cap hell if you're over the cap, but the players that put you over are so valuable you can get 5 picks in the first two rounds of the draft for them. Sorry, it's just not a bad situation at all.

If a poster says the Bruins were in salary cap hell, I disagree with it, I look up all the contracts at the time to make sure my memory isn't failing me, I believe it verifies my opinion, I'm not allowed to post it if the original poster provides unique and valuable firsthand insight into the Bruins? What difference should that even make? Like, if Don Sweeney himself posted it, would I just have to agree with it because Don has more insight than me?

*Not one of your addendums shows that I'm wrong, except for maybe you disagreeing on the Krejci contract, because I never said they weren't over the cap, and I never said the team Sweeney took over was good enough to make the playoffs(though I do think the missing the playoffs thing is a bit of a red herring because they missed the playoffs by one win two consecutive years. It's not like they were a dreadful team. Probably just an unlucky one, and it's besides the point of the salary cap situation anyway). Also, they absolutley could've afforded to keep Lucic if they wanted to. They only saved 2.75M by trading him. They just decided the value they got in trade for him was better than either keeping him for a year if they weren't going to re-sign him. Again, because his contract had value.I pointed out I thought they had 11 guys under control, 10 of them age 30 or under, who were positive value contracts(including Dougie as an RFA). You disagreed with two of them. So even going by your count(even going with your stretch that Loui with one year left at 4.25 coming off a 22 goal season where he missed one game is bad), do you think it's salary cap hell to have 9 guys, 8 of them age 30 or less, under control as positive value, and at most only 3 guys Seidenberg, Savard and if you want to stretch it one year of Chris Kelly left as negative contracts?

If you do, I disagree. I don't think you're right.

But I wouldn't say your opinion was "garbage on so many levels" because I think that's unfair.

It's not like I just shot an opinion off without doing my homework.
 
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burstnbloom

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I'm deeply uninspired by all these coaching rumors. I realize these guys know exponentially more than we know from reading articles, but none of these guys is especially forward thinking or progressive, or really stand out at all. Quinn is the scariest of all. I was a fan of his at BU but at NYR he was famously bad with young players outside of Fox and Lindgren and watching those teams try to play with any kind of structure was eventful for the other team.
 

cshea

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Nov 15, 2006
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I have no real opinion of these candidates. Leach would seem to be the favorite given the bulk of his coaching career came at Providence.

Leamen has long been mentioned for NHL vacancies. I'm not well versed enough in college hockey to have an opinion on him, but maybe others who follow the Providence progam can shed some light?

Montgomery had a lot of success as a college coach at Denver, reaching the tournament all 5 seasons and winning a NCAA Championship. His NHL resume is incomplete. His only full season was a 93 point playoff appearance. Dallas was on pace for a 98 point season when he was fired for an off ice incident that has not been disclosed. I believe as part of this he underwent treatment for alcohol abuse. He spent the last two seasons as an assistant to Berube in St. Louis.
 

Dummy Hoy

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Jul 22, 2006
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I'm deeply uninspired by all these coaching rumors. I realize these guys know exponentially more than we know from reading articles, but none of these guys is especially forward thinking or progressive, or really stand out at all. Quinn is the scariest of all. I was a fan of his at BU but at NYR he was famously bad with young players outside of Fox and Lindgren and watching those teams try to play with any kind of structure was eventful for the other team.
I used to attend coaching clinics when I was coaching HS and they had a run of clinics put on by Hockey East coaches. Quinn's was easily the most uninspiring. He obviously knew the game, and his practice was fun to watch, but he poked fun at Mark Denehey (the previous year's presenter) for using technology, mentioned not liking stats, and just came off pretty nonchalantly. I can see how that works well coaching college- most of the battle is recruiting, and he's a large charismatic guy who can sell you on a program. But I didn't get the feeling it extended much beyond that (and obviously knowledge of the game). That isn't going to cut it at the NHL level and his Rangers tenure showed that. Unless he's made some major changes (which I doubt), I want nothing to do with him.

Leaman is a great coach, but as always coaching 18-24 year olds is very different from coaching millionaires.

It's a bit of a gamble but Leach is atop my list I think.
 

jsinger121

@jsinger121
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Jul 25, 2005
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Leaman is a legit great coach. While he won the national championship at Providence go look what he did at Union College and what they were before he took over. That program was absolute trash and laid the foundation for success that Rick Bennett eventually had.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
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Leaman is a legit great coach. While he won the national championship at Providence go look what he did at Union College and what they were before he took over. That program was absolute trash and laid the foundation for success that Rick Bennett eventually had.
Coaching college is great and all but the NHL is a totally different animal given the vast differences in how you can treat players and run an organization versus a college program . Is he capable of coaching pros?
 

Dummy Hoy

Angry Pissbum
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Jul 22, 2006
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I may be drawing a blank, but I don't recall a successfull college to NHL coach./
I think it's smart to be skeptical given the lack of good examples, but I'd also argue there has long been a bias against college coaches that has probably prevented some pretty good ones from getting a chance.
 

burstnbloom

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Jul 12, 2005
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I think the sample is just way too small. Who has done it? Montgomery, Quinn, Hakstol......Bob Johnson? I can't think of any others. Montgomery had a pretty decent first season before his personal life derailed everything. That team that fired him played in the cup finals so who knows how much of it was his doing. That system was VERY conservative, though. Quinn wasn't successful because he was just bad at it. As @Dummy Hoy attested to above. Hakstol reportedly lost the room but I actually think his system is lacking in the modern NHL. He's a huge low to high, point shots to generate offense guy. That is inefficient.

I'd be open to a college guy but I want all the other boxes to check. Leaman has a great track record in NCAA. The guy from Duluth seems like an awesome coach. Would it translate? I don't know. I do know that I'd rather take a shot on someone like that than a known mediocrity. Leach has a great reputation but a lot of players came to the Bruins from his system and were not even close to being ready to play. I don't know how much of that was their talent versus his role in their development. He also had a troubling tendency to defer to veteran AHL guys. I'd hope he didn't adopt much of Hakstol's system in Seattle this year.

It's early, but I'd like to hear some rumors about candidates who have interesting outlooks on the game. Maybe that's just my personal bias and it doesn't align with the front office.