Haggerty On Adam Jones Show: Weekend Moves 'Scream Out Rebuild' For Bruins
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Boston Bruins made it clear over the weekend that their focus is on the future.
The B's traded away both Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton on Friday, giving them 10 picks in the weekend's NHL Draft. Many of those picks are a few years away from having any impact on the team.
CSNNE's Bruins Insider Joe Haggerty joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's The Adam Jones Show on Monday morning (filling in for Toucher & Rich), and described the Bruins' weekend in one word: "Debacle."
"The positive is they had 10 draft picks and six picks in the first two rounds of a deep draft. In two-to-four years from now, they'll reap the benefits from what they did over the weekend. That's good long-term, but everything short-term and [the] real big moves and broad strokes that Don Sweeney wanted to make really backfired and were mistakes," said Haggerty. "At the end, what happened is they traded away their top-pairing defenseman, who was supposed to be the franchise guy for the next 10+ years, and they traded away their top left wing and signature player of this team, and got back nothing of impact that will help them this year.
"The moves they made scream out rebuild," said Haggerty, "This is not a very good team; you've taken away pieces from a team that didn't even make the playoffs last year."
The Boston Herald reported Sunday that Boston traded Hamilton because the 22-year-old was "uppity" and not well liked in the dressing room. Haggerty said such claims are nonsense, and it was more of an on-ice decision than anything else.
"He has friends on the team, and by no means was he a popular guy in the dressing room or a real charismatic figure. He's kind of a unique kid and he wasn't much of a personality, but he wasn't a divisive influence. I wouldn't say his teammates hated him or there was a strong feeling one way or another," said Haggerty. "He didn't seem to want to change his game too much, and this was my problem giving him all that money. He was happy being an offensive defenseman, but in my opinion wasn't concerned about defensively toughening up in that hard-to-play-against guy in the defensive zone.
"That wasn't always a concern for Dougie, and that's why they didn't give him the money and traded him to Calgary," said Haggs. "It has nothing to do with him being uppity or a loaner or any of that crap. I don't buy into any of that. It's telling that Peter Chiarelli, the GM that had him in Boston and probably knew him more than anybody, was willing to give up a first and two seconds to get him out to Edmonton. If that guy wanted him, there are no personality problems with Dougie Hamilton."
Haggs also discusses why the Bruins overpaid for Adam McQuaid. Listen to the full discussion below:
