Cam Neely frustrated by narrative surrounding Bruins’ Don Sweeney originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
When the Boston Bruins gave general manager Don Sweeney a multi-year contract extension after firing head coach Bruce Cassidy, it thrust Sweeney’s NHL Draft track record into the spotlight.
Team president Cam Neely apparently heard that discussion, and he doesn’t want to hear any more of it.
Neely gave a passionate defense of his general manager Monday at Bruins Media Day, insisting there’s more to Sweeney’s body of work than his disappointing 2015 draft.
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“The narrative, quite frankly, is a little frustrating to me,” Neely told reporters, as seen in the video above. “We’ve said it many times. From the draft perspective, we have missed on the high side, especially in 2015. And I’m tired of talking about 2015.
“But if you look at who the Boston Bruins have drafted from 2015 to 2018 … how many NHL games they’ve played, it’s among the highest in the league. So, the narrative is a little old for me.”
The Bruins had three consecutive first-round picks in 2015 and used them on Jakub Zboril (No. 13), Jake DeBrusk (No. 14) and Zach Senyshyn (No. 15). The next three selections in that draft — Matthew Barzal, Kyle Connor and Thomas Chabot — all went on to become All-Stars. Not the best look for Sweeney.
But Neely believes Bruins fans and critics needlessly focus on that 2015 debacle while avoiding the fact that Sweeney hit on players like All-Star defenseman Charlie McAvoy (2016) and starting goaltender Jeremy Swayman (2017) in subsequent drafts.
In other words, Neely wants everyone to cut Sweeney a little slack.
“Every GM in the league makes mistakes,” Neely said. “We’re going to continue to make mistakes, but hopefully we learn from those mistakes and limit those mistakes, and I think Don has certainly evolved over the last few years. Our scouting staff has evolved.
“We certainly have high expectations and high standards, but mistakes are going to happen. I don’t think it’s as bad as the narrative is out there.”
Neely’s point is taken — to an extent. McAvoy and Swayman look like franchise cornerstones, while top prospects Fabian Lysell and Mason Lohrei both have promising NHL potential. Outside those four players, though, the Bruins don’t have much young talent in the pipeline to take the torch from the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Krejci.
So, unless Boston gets more out of its young players in the coming years, it will be fair to criticize Sweeney for his drafting, even if we leave 2015 out of it.