This team literally lost three years’ worth of draft picks on players that left after three months? The Boston Bruins have gotten off to a DISASTEROUS start to their 2023 offseason as all of their deadline acquisitions left in free agency and the team has done very little to improve the roster.
I’m not sure if Don Sweeney is doing a speed run of how to turn a 65-win team into a 40/45-win team, but he’s doing a great job.
After getting utterly humiliated with their 1st round exit at the hands of the Florida Panthers last postseason, the Boston Bruins have done literally nothing to improve their 65-win roster as more players have left or been traded than have come in. And, as you could have guessed, I’m furious with how Don Sweeney and Cam Neely have handled this offseason.
In response to getting knocked out of the playoff by a team that finished 43 points behind them in the regular season, the Bruins have signed Milan Lucic (35) to a 1-year, $1M deal, James Van Riemsdyk (34) to a 1-year, $1M deal, Kevin Shattenkirk (34) to a 1-year, $1M deal, Patrick Brown (31) to a 1-year, $800k contract, and Morgan Geikie to a 2-year, $2M deal.
Apart from the Geikie deal, I feel like Don Sweeney and the Bruins front office got caught in a 2014-time machine and signed all the best players of that day.
If there was anything the Bruins had in abundance on last season’s roster, it was veteran experience and age as they had 12 players over (or at) the age of 27. That’s 52% of the roster who are either in the later stages of their prime (27-31) or are now in the twilight of their careers (32+), yet the Bruins management though it would be a great idea to bring in four more players that are already over the age of 30?
Are they stupid?!?! Even if David Krejci (37) and Patrice Bergeron (37) come back, this team is going to completely crater out into a hockey retirement home in the next 2-3 years based on the player’s ages alone, which puts aside the fact that all of these guys the Bruins signed ARE DECLINNING.
Collectively, the five players the Bruins have brought in to replace Tyler Bertuzzi (signed a 1-year, $5M deal with Maple Leafs), Taylor Hall (traded to Blackhawks), Nick Foligno (traded to Blackhawks), Garnett Hathaway (signed 2-year, $4.75M deal with Flyers), Dmitry Orlov (signed a 2-year, $15.5M deal with Hurricanes), Conor Clifton (signed 3-year, $10M deal with Sabres), and Tomas Nosek (became free agent) scored less points (103) than what David Pastrňák (113) scored.
Do you see why I’m so incensed by these moves when the players they lost, such as the ones I named along with Bergeron and Krejci (if they retire as Don Sweeney has made it sound like they will), scored 305 PTS (nearly 3X what Pastrňák scored)?
Sure, maybe Krejci and/or Bergeron comes back for another year (which seems rather unlikely), but that would not only make the Bruins roster that much older (the forward core is already on average 29.4 years old), but it would also take up even more cap space as they’ll rightfully ask for $3M+ contracts.
I just don’t know why Don Sweeney couldn’t have made some offers to free agents like Ryan O’Rielly (signed $4.5M/AV contract with Preds) or Matt Duchene (signed 1-year, $3M contract with Stars) to replace Bergeron or Krejci down the middle of the ice as we saw they didn’t ask for the kitchen sink.
The Bruins had nearly $13M in cap space to resign guys like Bertuzzi, Hathaway, and/or Nosek, bring in either a Duchene or O’Rielly, keep one of Bergeron or Krejci, and then sign guys like Lucic, Van Riemsdyk, and Shattenkirk if they moved on from the Grzelcyk, Coyle, Ullmark, or Carlo contracts.
Yet, like the idiot Don Sweeney has proven himself to be, he traded away a 2023 1st round pick, a 2024 1st round pick, a 2025 2nd round pick, a 2024 3rd round pick, a 2025 4th round pick, a 2023 5th round pick, Craig Smith, Taylor Hall, and Nick Foligno for three minor league defenders and guys who only spent 3 months on the team.
THIS IS THE REASON THE BRUINS ARE DESTINED FOR CATASTROPHE!!!!
The farm system simply doesn’t have the talent or manpower to repower the Bruins core once Krejci, Bergeron, Marchand, Lucic (who was a core player before he left), Pastrňák, Lindholm, and Ullmark all either retire or decline out of their primes. And it’s all Don Sweeney’s fault with these stupid draft pick giveaways.
No one would have batted an eye if the Bruins won a Stanely Cup this season or against the Blues in 2019, but since that didn’t happen, Sweeney looks like the biggest idiot in the world still clinging onto a Cup window that seems closed now.
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