2015-16 Bruins Post Mortem

Dummy Hoy · Apr 9, 2016

Looking forward to reading the parade of people who don't like their lives chiming in.

fieldslikebuckner · Apr 9, 2016

I love my life and agree with PSK, don't fire Claude.

He had a terrible D and still managed to make Game 82 meaningful.

Yes, he's infuriating sometimes but the man is an excellent NHL coach.

redsoxcentury · Apr 9, 2016

Fire Cam then?

kenneycb · Apr 9, 2016

Dummy Hoy said:
Looking forward to reading the parade of people who don't like their lives chiming in.

Does this mean the media?

Dummy Hoy · Apr 9, 2016

Why does anyone have to be fired? This is clearly a team in transition. They're not too many moves from being a top 3 team in the east.

RIFan · Apr 9, 2016

The biggest move they could make is to convince Krejci to waive his NMC and try to move him for a legitimate top pairing D. That would also create the potential to resign Loui, who I think is far more valuable. His contract is rapidly becoming an albatross. We all get mesmerized by him when he's at his best, but clearly either due to his frequent injury status or something else he isn't capable of bringing it on a consistent enough basis. The only thing that gives me pause on PSK's roster take is C Miller as a top pairing D with Chara. Tuukka may quit if faced with that pairing in front of him 23 minutes a game.

burstnbloom · Apr 9, 2016

I think Claude is gone and he probably shouldn't be. As for changed to the roster, it feels a little bleak right now but just have a feeling Sweeney will make a lot of moves that we can't predict at this point. I also think some of them will hurt. They clearly need a major upgrade on the backend. I would say at leaSt 2 top 4 D are a must for next season.

This is depressing.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Apr 9, 2016

Dummy Hoy said:
Why does anyone have to be fired? This is clearly a team in transition. They're not too many moves from being a top 3 team in the east.

Yeah, all they have to do is replace like 5/6 of their defensive corps.

Look, whatever the potential of the team they crashed and burned hard this year. Terrible at home all year, far too inconsistent week to week (5 good games followed by 5 bad ones), no direction from the front office as to how to go about prepping for the future. You can apportion blame any way you like, but this was a huge clusterfuck. And I don't think I have faith in the current front office to fix it. I think they got caught in the middle in trying to make the playoffs while thinking about a rebuild and it boomeranged on them.

So I dunno. This was pretty damn disappointing to witness. I don't think the FO knows what kind of team they want. Or worse, they do and it's some idealistic re-imagining of the "tough" Bruins teams of the 80s and 90s that Cam and Sweeney played on, which never won anything and would be too slow for today's NHL.

Dummy Hoy · Apr 9, 2016

They need two top 4 defenseman and that back line is vastly improved.

I know the sky is perpetually falling, but this team, despite some horrific flaws at the back end and some absolute no-shows up front, won more than half their games and finished with a +10 GD. The team has missed the playoffs by 1 point and by a tie break in the last two years and everyone wants to chop heads and create scenarios in their heads about what goes on behind closed doors.

I'm not going to waste anyone else's time in this thread- I don't think things are nearly as bad as everyone else does, but I'm usually pretty patient and optimistic. I've been right before and I've been wrong before, but I'm going to sit back and see what the next couple of seasons bring. If they suck I will be bummed out, but I've been pretty satisfied with the Julien era Bruins and can live off that for a couple of years.

I feel bad for season ticket holders- the shit is just too expensive and that was an abortion of a season at home.

Edit: and I would argue they have a fine vision for the future...there a bunch of young talent including some puck moving defenseman and some goal scorers (and a goalie or two). None of it was ready to help the transition from the Chara Bruins, and that's why they didn't make the playoffs the last two years (by razor thin margins). But that glass is never going to be remotely full for most of us here, huh?

Yo La Tengo · Apr 9, 2016

What available coach would do a better job next year and beyond?

Eddie Jurak · Apr 9, 2016

RIFan said:
The biggest move they could make is to convince Krejci to waive his NMC and try to move him for a legitimate top pairing D. That would also create the potential to resign Loui, who I think is far more valuable. His contract is rapidly becoming an albatross. We all get mesmerized by him when he's at his best, but clearly either due to his frequent injury status or something else he isn't capable of bringing it on a consistent enough basis. The only thing that gives me pause on PSK's roster take is C Miller as a top pairing D with Chara. Tuukka may quit if faced with that pairing in front of him 23 minutes a game.

Problem: Krejci is not worth a top pair D.

Tyrone Biggums · Apr 9, 2016

Yo La Tengo said:
What available coach would do a better job next year and beyond?

None. But I'm ready for the train wreck that will be Mike Milbury or Adam Oates. It will certainly be someone with ties to the early 90s Bruins. That I'm sure of.

jk333 · Apr 9, 2016

Eddie Jurak said:
Problem: Krejci is not worth a top pair D.

Shattenkirk or Dumba for Krejci would improve the defense. The Bruins would probably have to add and they're more #2/3 types but I don't see the value as too far off.

I definitely see Krejci for a top pair D as the best move they can make for the team in the next couple years.

veritas · Apr 9, 2016

Eddie Jurak said:
Problem: Krejci is not worth a top pair D.

That's definitely a problem. He's also not worth his contract, IMO. If someone will give you anything of substance and will take his whole contract, I'd do that in a heartbeat. Re-sign Loui and keep the change.

That would leave them scary thin at center, which is also a problem.

Eddie Jurak · Apr 9, 2016

jk333 said:
Shattenkirk or Dumba for Krejci would improve the defense. The Bruins would probably have to add and they're more #2/3 types but I don't see the value as too far off.

I definitely see Krejci for a top pair D as the best move they can make for the team in the next couple years.

They aren't getting a top pair D for an injury prone second line center (Krejci).

Toe Nash · Apr 9, 2016

Dummy Hoy said:
They need two top 4 defenseman and that back line is vastly improved.

I know the sky is perpetually falling, but this team, despite some horrific flaws at the back end and some absolute no-shows up front, won more than half their games and finished with a +10 GD. The team has missed the playoffs by 1 point and by a tie break in the last two years and everyone wants to chop heads and create scenarios in their heads about what goes on behind closed doors.

I'm not going to waste anyone else's time in this thread- I don't think things are nearly as bad as everyone else does, but I'm usually pretty patient and optimistic. I've been right before and I've been wrong before, but I'm going to sit back and see what the next couple of seasons bring. If they suck I will be bummed out, but I've been pretty satisfied with the Julien era Bruins and can live off that for a couple of years.

I feel bad for season ticket holders- the shit is just too expensive and that was an abortion of a season at home.

Edit: and I would argue they have a fine vision for the future...there a bunch of young talent including some puck moving defenseman and some goal scorers (and a goalie or two). None of it was ready to help the transition from the Chara Bruins, and that's why they didn't make the playoffs the last two years (by razor thin margins). But that glass is never going to be remotely full for most of us here, huh?

Chara is still on the team. Most franchises would kill to have a Chara / Bergeron / Rask core and the Bruins have wasted it by trading other key pieces and filling in a shitty back of the roster. That's the problem. This isn't a team that started from scratch, it's a team that started from the top.

Also, saying they just need two top 4 D is a useless statement without a plan to get them. Teams are just lining up to trade those players.

Jordu · Apr 9, 2016

If the Bruins had won today, would we be assuming Neely was going to fire Claude? This year's team turned out to be what many of us thought it would at the start of the season -- a middle of the pack team on the playoff bubble. They had a great run after mid-season, and then they had an ugly run to end the season, and they ended up outside the bubble.

This year's team had heart but was short on talent. When crunch time came, they got tight and tentative and afraid to make mistakes. Coaching and leadership (Chara, Bergeron) aren't the problem. In the past two years the front office let Boychuk go, traded Hamilton, and watched Seidenberg wear out and become a third-pairing D man. That's a lot for a team to lose in two seasons.

Julien can only try to get the most out of the players Neely and Sweeney give him. The front office did not have a good year.

j44thor · Apr 9, 2016

Seems like a lot of whistling past the graveyard in this thread. The only reason the b's were competitive was because mon went nuclear when price went down.
This was a bad team in a terrible division that had no right being as competitive a they were. Stick this team in the met and the season is over long ago.

Massive changes need to the place only to keep even.

Salem's Lot · Apr 9, 2016

j44thor said:
Seems like a lot of whistling past the graveyard in this thread. The only reason the b's were competitive was because mon went nuclear when price went down.
This was a bad team in a terrible division that had no right being as competitive a they were. Stick this team in the met and the season is over long ago.

Massive changes need to the place only to keep even.

Completely agree with this. Put this team in the West and they're picking top 3-5.

MiracleOfO2704 · Apr 9, 2016

Jordu said:
If the Bruins had won today, would we be assuming Neely was going to fire Claude? This year's team turned out to be what many of us thought it would at the start of the season -- a middle of the pack team on the playoff bubble. They had a great run after mid-season, and then they had an ugly run to end the season, and they ended up outside the bubble.

This year's team had heart but was short on talent. When crunch time came, they got tight and tentative and afraid to make mistakes. Coaching and leadership (Chara, Bergeron) aren't the problem. In the past two years the front office let Boychuk go, traded Hamilton, and watched Seidenberg wear out and become a third-pairing D man. That's a lot for a team to lose in two seasons.

Julien can only try to get the most out of the players Neely and Sweeney give him. The front office did not have a good year.

Well, yeah, but the thing is Neely and Sweeney are the ones tasked with making the team better. If I had to guess, they aren't going to hold a presser on Tuesday, sit down, and tell the media that they screwed up, greatly overestimated the abilities of McQuaid/K. Miller/Trotman/Morrow/Seidenberg, and that Claude really should be up for the Jack Adams. The team missed the playoffs the last two seasons, and it's not often that the head coach misses the guillotine's blade. It's even rarer that he'd miss it twice.

RIFan · Apr 9, 2016

Eddie Jurak said:
Problem: Krejci is not worth a top pair D.

Agree, straight up I don't see anyone doing it. They would obviously need to sweeten it with a prospect and retain a decent chunk of his salary. It would also take a special set of circumstances where a team has cap space and a roster that needs a playoff tested center. The only team that would seem to fit that bill is Florida, assuming they make a little noise in this year's playoffs.

burstnbloom · Apr 9, 2016

I could see a Krejci for Shattenkirk swap. They get younger at Center and replace a guy who blows in the playoffs (Backes) with a guy who is very good. Krejci between Tarasenko and Schwartz would be unreal. They may need to add here or there and maybe take back Berglund but I could see that materializing if Sweeney wanted to do that.

My struggle comes from my inability to see the plan since Sweeney took over. I feel like this team needs big changes and I don't trust that he can make the right decisions.

cshea · Apr 9, 2016

If we trade Krejci, who is the 2C next year?

It is rearranging the deck chairs. Solves the back end problem, opens up a big hole down the middle.

Granite Sox · Apr 9, 2016

Julien is a really good coach to teach mature teams how to win. He's not a great coach for bleeding a lot of young talent all at once. As he opined recently, he doesn't believe it's his job to develop players in the NHL... development should take place in the AHL. I'd hate to see him get fired, but with the roster in its current state, he is not likely to get this bunch any farther than what we've experienced the last two seasons.

Sweeney bought some cap relief post-Chiarelli, but from a talent standpoint he's had a nightmare year. I remain unconvinced that Neely can find his ass with either hand as it relates to any substantial team building philosophy in the modern NHL.

Repeating the obvious, the McQuaid, Rinaldo, Hamilton, Stempniak, Liles deals were terrible and robbed the ore-gan-eye-zation of future draft picks. The Lucic deal was a net positive, but in hindsight trading Jones was a mistake. The non-Eriksson deal cemented Julien's status as "going down with the ship" in 2015-2016 riding his precious veterans, who ultimately let him down. Zboril had a shitty year, and DeBrusk has disappointed. Senyshyn has been a pleasant surprise, Carlo has some potential, but they can fall in line with the Spooners, Morrows, C. Millers, Pastrnaks, and Vatranos who showed momentary glimpses of talent at the NHL level but ultimately didn't cut it.

Krug has pictures of someone... he sucked this year and couldn't defend my grandmother. I have no idea why he is such a teacher's pet. Krecji has been a ghost for the past six weeks. Seidenberg and K. Miller were lousy. Chara is sliding towards the abyss. There isn't a single defenseman that improved from last year to this year.

Bergeron, Marchand, and Beleskey can stay (as limited as he is, he is one of the few that busted his balls all season). Everyone else should be in play. Deciding not to blow it up and go for the half-rebuild this year turned out to be a mistake. Don't make the same mistake twice. Let Julien go, and he'll find a better situation that will maximize his skills. Winningest coach in Original Six franchise history, but he deserves a better situation. The next guy won't be better, so Sweeney gets one more chance this summer to blow it all up and get the Bruins on a path forward, albeit with fewer/less valuable assets than he had at his disposal last summer.

It's going to be U-G-L-Y for the next 2-3 years...

SeoulSoxFan · Apr 9, 2016

PedroSpecialK said:
I don't think anyone should be fired - I think most folks are resigned to the fact that Neely/Sweeney will most likely can Julien and get 'their guy' in before they start getting on the hot seat themselves.

Thank you, PSK. Wish you were running the B's.

I don't buy that the Bruins underperformed. Neely & Sweeney are buying the groceries and it was obvious Claude did not have enough, especially on D.

Unless the Wonder Duo can pull a Brad Stevens in replacing Claude, their 2016-2017 version of the team could be a lot worse, not better.

lexrageorge · Apr 9, 2016

First, Hayes, Connolly, and Rinaldo are redundant. We don't need all 3 players on the team next year; that is not how you improve. Instead, we need to focus on getting playing time to the younger players that everyone always drools about in September.

As of today, I'm not optimistic. As a group, the forwards are decent but depth is thin and as a group not fast enough overall, the goaltending is solid, but the blue line is terrible and projected to get significantly weaker next year as Seidenberg and Chara get a year older and slower. It's not like the rest of the league is going to shower the Bruins with the players they need for draft picks and prospects either. Best case is that they tread water until their recent drafts start bearing fruit 4 or 5 years down the line.

Yes, the canary in the coal mine will be if Neely/Sweeney bring Millbury on board. The one benefit of such a move is that they would be guaranteed a top 2 draft pick for the forseeable future. I would like to assume that is just unfounded media speculation with no real substance behind it, but I honestly have no idea.

Granite Sox · Apr 9, 2016

Christ... I didn't even mention Hayes and Connolly. Two completely ineffective sweaters taking up roster space.

catomatic · Apr 9, 2016

I love my life and I think Claude is one of the best in the business. I also think he's gone. I'll feel very divided about that for a long time. Ultimately, I think I'll feel like I do now watching Tito—whom I miss all the time—talk up one of his players and protect him from the media to the point that I can see why he was actually taken advantage of by them. He was great—and yet, there's a case to be made that they walked all over him and, without that lead dog, they lost their sense of daily urgency as a team.

I think Claude's one weakness has been revealed as the thing this team perhaps needed most. He doesn't seem to be able to fire them emotionally. You simply cannot have watched this season—especially the last month—and not have witnessed how supernaturally inconsistent their compete level was. In the history of every sports league, that kind of Detroit/Ottawa effort differential gets laid at the feet of the coach. It's wrong in the sense that these guys should know their own internal mechanisms well enough to be able to push the right emotional levers for themselves but I watched the Bruins play Detroit with their hair on fire on Thursday, and despite a day of rest and all the stakes the universe could offer them, that commitment was, inexplicably, missing today. It was missing in the Montreal series when they lost the last two at home, and it's gone missing, bafflingly, at other key moments where one would least expect it to.

It's possible to think he's a phenomenal coach but that his particular Achilles Heel with this group has been revealed too often for one town's ability to endure it any longer. These are not mutually exclusive appraisals. We're talking about sports, about diversion and excited adrenal glands and the appetite and desire for drama—not choosing a worthy mate. People who like their lives plenty—may not want to watch this specific dynamic unfold one more time. If they're going to miss out on the tournament, fans will want it to be by some other flaw, but not this one—this embarrassing, bewilderingly insufficient level of effort at key moments down the stretch. It's ancient history but it came back to me today; NJ fired him on the eve of the playoffs when the team started to swoon (not as visibly as '14/'15/'16, either) and the front office didn't like their reading of those particular locker room tea leaves. I'll be shocked if the same assessment isn't made tomorrow or Monday. And I'll be sad, but resigned. I'll feel like we lost our guy, but I'll recognize that there could exist a legitimate need for a new one—with new strengths and flaws that we don't yet know about. Just don't go to Montreal, that'll be my nightmare.

MuzzyField · Apr 9, 2016

Cam isn't the NHL's Elway. Enjoy the long road until ownership corrects it. The Jacob's are milking the Tim Thomas Cup until it's dry.

SoFloSoxFan · Apr 10, 2016

I loved Cam as a player. I don't see anything he has done as an executive that should earn him trust. They need someone who is proven as a builder of a team... a team moving into the future not someone who makes 'oh shit' moves to try to deflect blame and save their job.

Unfortunately I don't see that happening. Claude will go and Neely/Sweeny will stay and my hope moving forward is low.

Keith Gretzky should stay.

Edit: and the first moment I hear rumors of trading Pastrnak, and I wish I didn't think this will happen, I am done with this front office.

veritas · Apr 10, 2016

Dick Pole Upside said:
Repeating the obvious, the McQuaid, Rinaldo, Hamilton, Stempniak, Liles deals were terrible and robbed the ore-gan-eye-zation of future draft picks. The Lucic deal was a net positive, but in hindsight trading Jones was a mistake. The non-Eriksson deal cemented Julien's status as "going down with the ship" in 2015-2016 riding his precious veterans, who ultimately let him down. Zboril had a shitty year, and DeBrusk has disappointed. Senyshyn has been a pleasant surprise, Carlo has some potential, but they can fall in line with the Spooners, Morrows, C. Millers, Pastrnaks, and Vatranos who showed momentary glimpses of talent at the NHL level but ultimately didn't cut it.

Can you explain what you are you trying to say here? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now...

Kenny F'ing Powers · Apr 10, 2016

MuzzyField said:
Cam isn't the NHL's Elway. Enjoy the long road until ownership corrects it. The Jacob's are milking the Tim Thomas Cup until it's dry.

What does this mean?

Can you cite the last time the Bruins were simply trying to scrape along the salary cap floor?

Your post feels like Boston Bruins Buzzword Bingo.

Eddie Jurak · Apr 10, 2016

I have mixed emotions on Claude. Obviously better than most, but he's not an elite coach on the level of a Bill Belichick or a Brad Stevens. It could be that while he is a very good coach, he is not the guy for this rebuilding job. On the other hand, no guarantee that whoever they hired to replace him would be, either.

In the end, the fall guy for the current state of the team is still Peter Chiarelli. He mortgaged the future to bet heavily on the short term, lost, and now those bills are coming due.

lexrageorge · Apr 10, 2016

I for one am not ready to write off Pastrnak, Vatrano, Spooner, et al. Pastrnak struggled a bit out of the gate, not uncommon for a 19 year old in his 2nd year in the league. Then he sustained a serious foot injury that limited him to 50 games. But he was still good for 14 goals despite playing alongside the Max Talbot's of the league. Vatrano is all of 21. Spooner was uneven, but was still the team's 5th leading scorer. Morrow, Trotman, and Kevan and Colin Miller all outplayed Seidenberg by a significant margin. But Seidenberg still got all the playing time.

Van Everyman · Apr 10, 2016

Eddie Jurak said:
I have mixed emotions on Claude. Obviously better than most, but he's not an elite coach on the level of a Bill Belichick or a Brad Stevens. It could be that while he is a very good coach, he is not the guy for this rebuilding job. On the other hand, no guarantee that whoever they hired to replace him would be, either.

In the end, the fall guy for the current state of the team is still Peter Chiarelli. He mortgaged the future to bet heavily on the short term, lost, and now those bills are coming due.

So Chia is Mike Tannenbaum, then?

Edit: And, per the below posts, Claude is Doc?

drtooth · Apr 10, 2016

Claude is no doubt an excellent coach. My main concern is whether or not he can be the coach of a younger team in a rebuild mode. He has always leaned toward relying heavily on his veterans at the expense of youth. This team absolutely needs to get younger, especially on D. Is Claude really a coach that can coach this type of team? Not sure.

Eddie Jurak · Apr 10, 2016

drtooth said:
Claude is no doubt an excellent coach. My main concern is whether or not he can be the coach of a younger team in a rebuild mode. He has always leaned toward relying heavily on his veterans at the expense of youth. This team absolutely needs to get younger, especially on D. Is Claude really a coach that can coach this type of team? Not sure.

Well, he did in 2007-08 - but that team didn't have a roster full of veteran favorites for him to lean on at the expense of the younger guys.

FL4WL3SS · Apr 10, 2016

cshea said:
If we trade Krejci, who is the 2C next year?

It is rearranging the deck chairs. Solves the back end problem, opens up a big hole down the middle.

Agree 100%.

I would rather explore trading Rask and buying out Seids. Free up some cash to make some moves.

Yo La Tengo · Apr 10, 2016

Looking at the 8 teams that fill out the East playoff bracket, are there teams that the Bruins are better than on a pure talent/expected production level? Maybe Florida? The Islanders? Philly? I think it is a pretty close call. I don't see how Claude gets the blame when the B's appear to have performed as expected as compared to the rest of the conference.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Apr 10, 2016

Well, part of that is the team finishing up on a 3-8-1 run to go from 1st in the division to out of the playoffs. Fair or not the coach gets blamed for such things.

Granite Sox · Apr 10, 2016

veritas said:
Can you explain what you are you trying to say here? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now...

Perhaps stated a little differently, all the young'uns have potential, but this season Julien would staple them to the bench or have them eating popcorn for making mistakes while allowing more established players (McQuaid, Seidenberg, Chara, et al) to routinely cough up pucks or miss assignments and still be rewarded with more ice time.

Thus, the Bruins had a half dozen or so younger players with waning confidence who didn't develop much or really improve their games this year. A regrettable waste. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to other young players with talent/potential.

I feel like there were too many inexperienced players on the NHL roster this year that didn't progress much. They were trumped with ice time by the likes of Hayes, McQuaid, K. Miller, and Connolly who provided very little value. Even worse, some of the vets played poorly or disappeared. By the end of the season there were maybe 3-4 productive forwards (Bergeron, Marchand, Beleskey, maybe Eriksson/Stempniak) and only maybe Chara (to be generous) on D that were providing good value.

Claude has shown that he can blend in young players here and there, but I'm afraid that bringing along 6-7 young players all at once is not his forte.

burstnbloom · Apr 10, 2016

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
Well, part of that is the team finishing up on a 3-8-1 run to go from 1st in the division to out of the playoffs. Fair or not the coach gets blamed for such things.

Exactly. I don't think anyone would argue that the biggest issue on this team is lack of talent, but this team fell apart at the end of last year (when they were much more talented) and repeated that this year. I don't think it's Claude's fault and I think it is a mistake, but I expect them to fire him. He will likely go get a job immediately and kick the Bruin's ass next year.

As far as the roster is concerned, I think the forward group is pretty good and can likely survive the loss of Eriksson, though it will hurt. They need to spend significantly on the back end. Seidenberg's salary needs to be moved our bought out. I'd kick the tires on Jason Demers, my only concern being that someone might give him a Jeff Petry contract, but the solution to those problems is likely not in free agency. They need to sign the three RFA D and figure out which of them are part of the future and move the others. There are a lot of NHL players in this organization but so many of them are middling or bottom 6, bottom pairing types that they need to clear some of it.

TFP · Apr 10, 2016

Using this season as the example of "Claude won't play young players" is absolutely absurd and immediately disqualifies your point of view on anything in my mind.

Spooner, Vatrano, Pastrnak, Ferraro, Connolly (who's younger than Spooner), Acciari....all got significant playing time, and at the expense of veterans. Those guys showed flashes of talent but also disappeared for long stretches and proved they weren't enough to get them to where they need to go, yet.

On defense, Morrow and Trotman have proven they are not NHL caliber defensemen (right now) and the organization, not Claude, decided to bury Colin Miller in the AHL.

This isn't like he went down with the ship riding the likes of Paille, Campbell, and Thornton. He played the young guys. And the team scored a lot of goals, couldn't defend worth shit, and showed minimal leadership and consistency throughout the season.

This team desperately missed Chris Kelly, and I'm not joking. He would have given you more than Spooner did in the last month and at least tried to not let them sleepwalk through these games. The fact that people are still staying "MOAR YOUNG KIDS" without realizing that playing them comes at a cost doesn't make sense to me.

All that said, Seidenberg, K Miller, and McQuaid gotta go and they gotta find replacements for them that aren't in the system now. It's 3 bottom pairing defensemen getting top 4 mins.

burstnbloom · Apr 10, 2016

Dick Pole Upside said:
Perhaps stated a little differently, all the young'uns have potential, but this season Julien would staple them to the bench or have them eating popcorn for making mistakes while allowing more established players (McQuaid, Seidenberg, Chara, et al) to routinely cough up pucks or miss assignments and still be rewarded with more ice time.

Thus, the Bruins had a half dozen or so younger players with waning confidence who didn't develop much or really improve their games this year. A regrettable waste. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to other young players with talent/potential.

I feel like there were too many inexperienced players on the NHL roster this year that didn't progress much. They were trumped with ice time by the likes of Hayes, McQuaid, K. Miller, and Connolly who provided very little value. Even worse, some of the vets played poorly or disappeared. By the end of the season there were maybe 3-4 productive forwards (Bergeron, Marchand, Beleskey, maybe Eriksson/Stempniak) and only maybe Chara (to be generous) on D that were providing good value.

Claude has shown that he can blend in young players here and there, but I'm afraid that bringing along 6-7 young players all at once is not his forte.

The guy had 7G/8A in the 19 games post deadline. He belongs in the group with Bergeron and Marchand as the only consistent forwards down the stretch. We are going to miss this guy, though as I said, the forward depth helps mitigate some of the loss.

TFP · Apr 10, 2016

Dick Pole Upside said:
Perhaps stated a little differently, all the young'uns have potential, but this season Julien would staple them to the bench or have them eating popcorn for making mistakes while allowing more established players (McQuaid, Seidenberg, Chara, et al) to routinely cough up pucks or miss assignments and still be rewarded with more ice time.

Thus, the Bruins had a half dozen or so younger players with waning confidence who didn't develop much or really improve their games this year. A regrettable waste. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to other young players with talent/potential.

I feel like there were too many inexperienced players on the NHL roster this year that didn't progress much. They were trumped with ice time by the likes of Hayes, McQuaid, K. Miller, and Connolly who provided very little value. Even worse, some of the vets played poorly or disappeared. By the end of the season there were maybe 3-4 productive forwards (Bergeron, Marchand, Beleskey, maybe Eriksson/Stempniak) and only maybe Chara (to be generous) on D that were providing good value.

Claude has shown that he can blend in young players here and there, but I'm afraid that bringing along 6-7 young players all at once is not his forte.

While this isn't a completely unreasonable take, Connolly is younger than Spooner and Hayes was benched the last week of the season (and throughout the year too). Claude consistently gave a college FA top 9 mins this year in Vatrano, who excelled.

Claude is right. The NHL isn't for development. Either they can play and win now or they need to develop elsewhere.

TFP · Apr 10, 2016

Also, not sure what I means but the Bruins are the only team with a positive goal differential to miss the playoffs.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Apr 10, 2016

The Four Peters said:
All that said, Seidenberg, K Miller, and McQuaid gotta go and they gotta find replacements for them that aren't in the system now. It's 3 bottom pairing defensemen getting top 4 mins.

Agreed, but who's taking McQuaid? That 4 year deal isn't looking like a great choice at this point in time.

Eddie Jurak · Apr 10, 2016

Wait. Colin Miller was sent down over Claude's objection?

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