Cam Neely acknowledges Bruins looking at ‘two paths’ between buying or retooling
in American Football
General manager Don Sweeney, team president Cam Neely, and the rest of the Bruins’ top brass are no strangers to buying at the NHL trade deadline.
In an attempt to put a core anchored by the likes of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, and others over the top, Boston’s front office has routinely turned the final week of February into their own shopping spree.
Since 2018, the Bruins have brought in players like Rick Nash, Charlie Coyle, Marcus Johansson, Ondrej Kase, Taylor Hall, Hampus Lindholm, Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi, Patrick Maroon, and plenty of others at the deadline.
The cost? A depleted prospect pool, with Boston not making back-to-back selections in the first round of the NHL Draft since 2016-17.
And unfortunately for Boston, mortgaging those future assets has not been assuaged by the sight of a Bruins captain hoisting the Stanley Cup since 2011.
But with the 2024-25 Bruins clinging to a wild-card spot and an underachieving roster still struggling to find some traction, Neely was candid on Wednesday in regard to the proper path forward for this team ahead of the March 7 trade deadline.
As hopeful as Neely and Co. are that Boston has the mettle to orchestrate another run, the team’s front office also has to brace for an unfamiliar scenario — one in which the team punts on this current campaign in hopes of ushering in a new era of contention further down the road.
“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 Wednesday 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.”
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as to why Neely and his staff are hesitant to wave the white flag on what has been an up-and-down campaign so far.
Beyond the poor optics on both Sweeney and Neely if Boston ends the year on the outside looking in at a playoff berth, the Bruins themselves were also expecting the 2024-25 season to be one where an overachieving roster from the previous year was destined to take another step forward.
After winning another playoff round against the Maple Leafs before falling to the Panthers in six games, the Bruins seemingly addressed deficiencies on their depth chart over the summer — shelling out big bucks to add a top-six center in Elias Lindholm and a bruising defenseman in Nikita Zadorov.
Add in the expected ascension of Jeremy Swayman as the team’s No. 1 goalie after a stellar playoff run, and the 2024-25 Bruins were poised to be a tough out in this upcoming playoff field.
For now, the challenge for Boston is simply trying to punch said ticket to the postseason.
Entering Wednesday night, the Bruins currently sit in the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference with 49 points (22-19-5 record). But Boston has several teams nipping at its heels, with Columbus (48 points), Ottawa (47 points), Montreal (46 points), and Detroit (44 points) all poised to make a push.
The Bruins’ heavy workload out of the gate (46 games played) also further complicates things, as those teams behind Boston in the standings can make up ground in short order with the number of games in hand that they wield.
Tampa Bay — who is tied with Boston with 49 points — has played four fewer games than the Bruins — while Ottawa, Montreal, and Detroit have all played 43 games so far.
Even if the Bruins stabilize their play, all it might take is another team going on a heater for Boston to be pushed just outside of the playoff picture.
“This year has been a little frustrating, because we honestly felt coming out of the offseason that — we had a better team than what we’ve showed on the ice,” Neely admitted. “Maybe that’s a product of us overvaluing what we have, or just the start that we had — [it] was not expected, to be honest with you.
“We take a look at our lineup … and we know a lot of players had hit their high side last year, so we weren’t really looking at them to repeat that or to go above that. But we felt like we would be close to where some of these players were last year. Some are starting to get back to where they were. Others still need to pick it up a little bit.”
For all of the rumors floating around the Bruins when it comes to swinging a deal for an impact player like J.T. Miller, Boston will need to take a long look at the state of its roster before deciding to relinquish more draft picks or young players in hopes of another playoff push.
If Boston’s management believes that this team is either charting a course for a lopsided first-round exit — or cleanout day after Game No. 82 — dealing pending UFAs like Trent Frederic or veterans like Charlie Coyle might be the most proactive move when it comes to accelerating a retool around a still skilled core of David Pastrnak, Swayman, and Charlie McAvoy.
It might be the best move for the Bruins if this team can’t rid itself of this extended malaise. But it’s still a scenario that Neely is hoping this current team can take off the table by righting the ship in the coming weeks.
“I don’t really have that appetite,” Neely said of a retool. “But like I told our GM and the staff, we have our meetings coming up here in a little bit — we do have to prepare for two paths. … But we’re not focusing on that right now. We’re focusing on trying to get our team to be in a better place.”
It falls on Brad Marchand and this current Bruins roster to do what it can to take those hard decisions out of the hands of Boston’s front office before March 7.
“We’re aware of the situation we’re in. … We understand that we haven’t performed the way we’ve needed to, and there’s consequences that come with that,” Marchand said. “There’s very high expectations with this organization. And we’re expected to perform and do our job and compete every year for a Cup.
“If we’re not going to do that, then changes are getting made so that the team does compete for a Cup. So our biggest thing, we can’t look ahead. … You look at some teams in the past number of years that have been in a position similar to ours and gone on to go to the Finals and win Cups. We’re not in a terrible spot. Yeah, we’re not in the best spot. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t accomplish something special this year, and we can’t build something special as a group
