In Keeping Julien, Sweeney Takes Accountability For 2015-16 Season
By Matt Kalman, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- At first it seemed like Bruins general manager Don Sweeney was going to dig a hole of unaccountability and bury himself in it.
After waiting four days after the Bruins rolled over 6-1 against Ottawa in a must-win home game that would've earned them a playoff spot with just one point, Sweeney was asked to assess his team's shortcomings during a joint press conference with coach Claude Julien on Thursday at TD Garden.
"We started the year behind the eight ball and then I felt we played pretty well. If you break the season into segments, if you take out the first three and certainly the past 13 games, it's a significant run of points that we had accumulated along the way," Sweeney said. "I think we knew it wasn't just young player integration, but it was newer player integration. There was some transition at the beginning of the year."
If your mind wasn't blown by the idea that we could assess a season by removing games we didn't like, you might have loved the dandy Sweeney tried to use about the Bruins showing pushback in Chicago on the next-to-last weekend of the season – after they were already down 6-0.
For a guy with a Harvard degree, Sweeney didn't come off like a scholar at certain points of the 42-minute press conference. But in the grand scheme of the day, without focusing too intently on one or two odd-ball answers, Sweeney won the day because he decided not to throw Julien under the bus and several times uttered this phrase:
"I've got work to do."
Sweeney might as well have that comment painted on a sign for his desk Harry Truman style. Because the GM, entering his second offseason in that role, now has to move from the decision about his coach and assess who should play for the Bruins. By retaining Julien, Sweeney isn't just reinforcing what we already knew about Julien's coaching acumen. Sweeney is also admitting he's most at fault for the shortcomings that kept the Bruins from returning to the playoffs and missing the postseason for the second straight season.
Last summer Sweeney traded Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton without getting viable replacements in return or finding replacements elsewhere. He handed Julien a team that wasn't nearly as talented as the 2014-15 club, which proved it wasn't that good when it succumbed to Ottawa's historic run and missed the playoffs. Blaming Julien would have been the easy thing to do to appease the witless masses, but it wouldn't have made sound sense on the ice.
The Bruins are in for more growing pains, especially if the NHL salary cap stays flat. Of the major personnel tasks Sweeney has on his plate are deciding what to do with unrestricted free agent Loui Eriksson and restricted free agent Torey Krug. Kevan Miller is among a group of second-tier unrestricted free agents for this summer. Brad Marchand is due an extension this summer to avoid going into the last year of his deal. The Bruins have prospects turning pro and might land college free agent Jimmy Vesey when he's eligible to sign in August. Sweeney has to begin the process of remaking the defense corps, either around Zdeno Chara or without the captain. Landing that Hamilton-type defenseman for the future might take a season or two depending on how the Bruins draft and what players on other teams become available.
The one thing the Bruins can count on is the structure and accountability Julien-coached teams bring to the ice. That makes up for some shortcoming in talent when coupled with focus and determination. The Bruins are going to need that structure to keep them competitive as they continue to integrate new faces and less-experienced players in an effort to turn the cruise ship around in the bath tub.
The better news is that when they come out the other side of this organizational rebuild, if Julien's still the coach, the system doesn't restrain talent. As evidenced by the fact that the Bruins have finished in the top five in scoring in nine seasons under Julien, the coach's system doesn't discourage offense, it just makes sure that players take care of defense first. Name one NHL championship-caliber team that doesn't think defense first in the modern-day game. The Washington Capitals don't just outscore their opponents to death.
On the day he didn't make Julien into a fall guy, Sweeney also passed on one other chance to pass the buck.
"That's my decision," Sweeney responded to a question about Cam Neely and ownership's involvement in the decision to retain Julien. "As I said, the ownership and Cam, they went through a long process to ... provide me with an opportunity to be in the position I'm in. And we have great organizational conversations about the direction, about sticking to the plan and the process. But the decision with Claude rested with me."
Given a chance for the second straight offseason to start fresh with a coaching choice of his own, Sweeney has decided to hitch his wagon to the Peter Chiarelli hire Julien. The potential for success with someone with Julien's track record outweighs the unknown of what a new coach would bring, in Sweeney's mind.
Ultimately that decision might cost Sweeney his job as fast as it would Julien's if things don't take a rapid turn for the better with the Bruins. But for now Sweeney's decision is a sign of accountability that could resonate throughout the organization.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
