Does Don Sweeney deserve more credit as a GM? | Pucks With Haggs

Does Don Sweeney deserve more credit as a GM? | Pucks With Haggs

There’s there’s strengths and weaknesses to every GM. There’s strengths and weaknesses to every hockey coach. There’s strengths and weaknesses to every player. Like there are definitely areas and and the draft is one of them where I think they need to continue to get better. I will say like Mason Lorai and Matt Potra good picks. You know, those are recent picks that they’ve made that have turned out to be uh guys that are going to that have played in the league, guys that will play in the league, guys that uh you know, for where they took them, I think are pretty good players and good talent. Um, I I do agree with you that, you know, that there’s it seems to me that they don’t draft enough. All I agree from the OHL and, you know, maybe that’s going to change with the way the the rules changes are coming where that’s not going to be as much of a hotbed as it’s been. But, um, I do think I continue to think Canadianborn players are an important part of having a successful NHL franchise. As much as I say that as a fan of USA hockey of of the kids that play college hockey from the US and want to see those players do well and and local guys play on the Bruins, I think every Stanley Cup champion has like 50% or more uh Canadian players on their roster. So, you need to hit on the Canadian prospects playing Canadian junior hockey and the OHL is the best one of those leagues. So, you obviously should be hitting more and taking more picks out of that as opposed to some of the other areas that they go to. Um, but on on the other side of the coin, like he has the diamond in the rough thing that you talked about, like the Morgan Geekies of the world and they find guys that are Zaka is another one. Zaka Justin Brazo was a guy they ended up getting value with in a trade that they signed off the street and turned into an NHL player. Um, they do a lot of that and they do it well and that supplements the guys that the some of the draft picks they miss is some of the other like free agent undrafted players that they sign and these players they get from other places. And I think Don Sweeney does a very good job at the deadlines on July one with free agency at the trade deadlines. I think he consistently has done made moves, bold moves, big moves, uh, small moves, whatever is needed. And I think he’s been much better than Peter Sharelli ever was at those kind of instances. Like I remember the famous quote, you know, uh, Charelli said something like, “Nobody’s ever won a cup at the trade deadline or whatever.” He said something like that. It was basically uh, addressing uh, or July 1. I forget which one he was talking about. I think it was the trade deadline, but it was kind of addressing how that was never like the biggest strength of his as a GM was those particular little snapshot moments where like there’s winners and losers and knee-jerk reactions. Not to mention deadline because he got big Z on the on in Mark Sevard on July one, right? But but do the bottom line is Don Sweeney I think is very good at those. Whether it was trading for Hampus Lynholm, trading for Taylor Hall, I still think Rick Nash was the might right move when he made that trade. Zidor Rob and Elias Lynholm I think are going to turn out to at least be you know good players if not what they thought they were going to be and certainly they stabilized in the second half of last year. So, I think some of the criticism about them and signing them should be tempered by what we saw in the second half of the year. And really, Zidorov, I think when you look at his year as a whole, had a pretty good season and was what they paid for and what they thought they were getting. But the bottom line is I think he’s shown so many areas, you know, where he has strengths or where he does things well that it’s really hard to the the the things he’s criticized most for the draft, which I think is which I think is valid. And the other one is going through the three NHL coaches that have won Jack Adams, which I think is kind of an unfair criticism when it’s just lumped in that way. Look, I think the Bruins made a mistake firing Bruce Cassidy. Okay, that’s the one they probably would like to have back. I think they made a rash judgment about uh the players wanting a softer approach and they kind of catered to the players and what they wanted instead of like keeping the coach that was actually getting results and was a really good NHL coach has been borne out by what he did in Vegas. I think they they made a mistake there. But I think that’s the one where there was a mistake. I don’t think it was a mistake to fire K Julian when they did. It was his time. Like they made the right move bringing in Bruce Cassidy at that time. So I think that one is an unfair criticism. Firing Jim Montgomery again, I think was the right move. Jim Montgomery was part of the choke job against the Florida Panthers in the first round that year when they had that wagon of a team. He was just as wideeyed as some of the players. He was a problem in that series. He got out coached uh he got out coached on the other side by the Florida Panthers. You know, he there are issues with him that continue to be with the St. Louis Blues. They allowed more six on five goals, the Blues did this year, than anybody else. And it killed them in game seven of the first round, just like game seven, the Bruins collapsed under Jim Montgomery when he was the the coach of that team. Like, I think they made the right move with Jim Montgomery. I know he’s got a lot of backers and a lot of people that think he was railroaded here and it was an unfair thing that happened to him, but I think it was the right call. I don’t think he was the right coach for this team. And I think it’s really an unfair criticism of Sweeney to talk about like, you know, why would any coach want to come here because he’s fired three Jack Adams winners and blah blah blah. Like I I I don’t get that. And I think maybe one out of the three was a misstep or not the right choice. But I think the other absolutely the right calls and you can’t crucify a GM for making the right call and firing the coach when he should fire the coach. Jim Montgomery did not have the team ready to play last year coming out of training camp like that. Wasn’t it obvious to everybody that he should have been fired after 20 games? Like he might be a good coach, but he wasn’t the right fit here. And I I just I I get tired of hearing people harping on this with Sweeney. You can tell it’s a sensitive subject because he reacted to it uh you know really defensively when he was asked about it. I think Terra Sullivan in that end of season press conference and he really he’s got his hackles up. But I I I really hate that criticism of Sweeney because I don’t think it’s valid in any way, shape or form. NHL coaches are not NFL coaches where they stay there for 15, 20 years. They are hired to be fired. Their life expectancy is not long at any stop. There’s plenty of coaches that are great examples of this that are good hockey coaches that after 2, three, four years, it’s you got to move on to somebody else. [Music]

Joe Haggerty asks the question – does Don Sweeney deserve more credit? The Bruins GM has faced much scrutiny over the years and fans are not thrilled at the news of his extension, but is he better than fans believe?

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