Jones: Cam Neely Should Be Getting As Much -- Or More -- Blame As Don Sweeney
After a weekend of moves that weren't exactly encouraging from the Boston Bruins, Adam Jones and Rich Keefe (filling in for Toucher & Rich) pondered whether team president Cam Neely is escaping criticism -- much of which has been cast on new GM Don Sweeney.
Jones referenced a report from CSNNE's Mike Giardi that said there was a disagreement in the B's front office with regard to replacing Peter Chiarelli. According to that report, Neely pushed for Sweeney to get the job.
Jones said that while Neely obviously isn't the one making the reach draft picks or making requests on return packages in trades, the team president would presumably have to give his stamp of approval before major moves -- like the trading of Milan Lucic or Dougie Hamilton.
"It does go right back to Cam Neely," Jones said. "He's just in a nice spot where he's separated enough, even if everything's getting run by him. He has the power now in hockey operations. He's not the GM, he doesn't want to be the GM, but he has fingerprints all over this. So he may not deserve more blame than Don Sweeney, but he deserves just as much, in my mind."
Jones, Keefe and Jon Wallach also questioned whether the Bruins might have turned down a better offer from Edmonton, solely to not help out Chiarelli and the Oilers.
"You take the best deal available, and Edmonton had the best deal available," Wallach said. "You make that deal, regardless of who's on the other end of the phone."
Wallach added that someone above Sweeney had to have been steering the GM to make these major moves.
"I think Don Sweeney is answering to a higher calling. You don't just dismantle a team and then leave it alone. There has to be a directive from above," Wallach said. "Whether Neely is the guy calling the shots and Sweeney is a puppet, I don't know the dynamics of that. But what I can tell you is that there was a clear game plan heading into the weekend. If you can't make the deal, if you can't do something out of 13, 14 and 15, jump up and take [Noah] Hanifin, then you go in the other direction. And that's exactly what happened. Right now this team is not just a little worse, but far worse than they were at this time last week. And that's not an accident. This is the way they wanted to go."
Keefe pointed out that Neely was on board with the Tyler Seguin trade, and yet all the blame was eventually pinned on Chiarelli.
Basically, Jones tried to establish how we should view and judge moves made by the Bruins in the Sweeney era.
"We just need to make up our minds on Neely, that's all, because here's what I don't want: Sweeney gets bashed when crappy trades happen, and then something good happens and we all praise Neely," Jones said. "We have to make up our minds pretty soon on Cam Neely. Is it, he's right there with Don Sweeney and he deserves as much blame as Don Sweeney -- or maybe even more, because he's the one who put Sweeney in charge? Or is it not? And is Sweeney a separate entity from Cam Neely?
"I'm choosing to do it in the former, so if good things happen, Neely's going to get some credit. ... Whereas before, it was always Chiarelli. Chiarelli was the good, and by the end he was the bad. Now I think Neely deserves that bull's-eye that's on him, at least in this case it's a bull's-eye. And if they do anything good, he'll deserve some credit as well.
"But right now? He deserves more of the blame than he's getting. It's almost all heaped on Don Sweeney."
Listen to the full discussion below:
