Bruins Need to Consider Trade for Sweeney After Montgomery Firing – Hockey Writers –

The Boston Bruins have parted ways with head coach Jim Montgomery following a frustrating game against the Columbus Blue Jackets in which they lost 5-1 and fell below .500 with an 8-9-3 record. It was clear that a change needed to be made and replacing the head coach was the easiest and fastest way to go at this time.

Despite a disappointing and lackluster start to the 2024-25 season, Montgomery leaves his position in Boston with a .715 hitting percentage and 120 wins in just over two seasons. He navigated the team through two seasons where expectations were very low, only for them to become the top team in the NHL. Even though he has run out of options to get the Bruins going this season, there's no reason he shouldn't be a top player in any coaching job around the league next summer.

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Firing Montgomery won't cure all the problems with this current team. Sure, new blood and leadership can help (though who knows if that will actually happen with an internal hire like Joe Sacco), but that doesn't solve the makeup of this roster built by general manager Don Sweeney.

This is now the third head coach fired since Sweeney took over as GM in 2015. The first was Claude Julien in 2017, then Bruce Cassidy in 2022, and now Montgomery. At some point, the finger needs to turn from the coaching staff to the front office for not being able to get over the hump and win a Stanley Cup in the last decade. The question of how Sweeney will keep his job was there when Cassidy was fired, now it needs to be discussed again regarding the poor performance of the team and the release of another coach.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Before delving into the specific reasons why the organization should consider parting ways with Sweeney, it's important to give credit where credit is due. He's certainly made some terrific trades in his time that have brought in assets like Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha without really losing much. He was aggressive at the trade deadline when he needed to be. He got long-term deals with key roster pieces like David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Hampus Lindholm, who has been their best defenseman so far this season and his current injury will be a disaster for the team in the coming weeks. .

While I don't think anyone would consider Sweeney a great artist, he brought great pieces to the organization like McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, Mason Lohrei, and Matthew Poitras. He found some of his biggest success with first-round picks in Lohrei, Poitras, Swayman, and Brandon Carlo, who was a 2015 second-round pick.

Sweeney has been the GM for almost a decade, and overall, the team has a winning record during that time and has performed better than expected. But, there was no championship and for the first time in a long time, the Bruins fell way below expectations.

The current state of the Bruins

Coaching can do a lot to bridge the gaps in the list building itself. To some extent, Sweeney's lack of drafting skills contributed to the problems with the 2024-25 Bruins. In his tenure, the team has struggled to draft and develop young talent, especially in the center position. This has left them scrambling at the deadline or in free agency to bring in guys to round out their roster, and paying those players a lot of money is a big reason why the team seems to always have cap space issues.

Granted, the Bruins have been competitive for most of Sweeney's tenure, so their first-round picks, when they do have them, often come in the later rounds or are traded for pieces at the deadline to make a run to the postseason. While some of those works stood, others received more skepticism at the time and should be viewed with a more discerning eye now. For example, the Bruins lost their first-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft in a trade to bring in injury-prone Ondrej Kase from the Anaheim Ducks. Kase wasn't eligible for the first pick, but he needed to be included so the Ducks could take the aging David Backes on the bad, questionable contract Sweeney had originally made. Back in 2018, he also traded a first-round pick and top defenseman, Ryan Lindgren, to the New York Rangers for an aging Rick Nash, a move that didn't go as planned.

Not every trade will work out, obviously, and being aggressive at the trade deadline is also important when a team is a true Stanley Cup contender. But every time Sweeney brought someone in at the right time and it worked, there was a trade where it didn't happen, and now the organization is seeing some of the problems of planned trades in an effort to compete, leaving. a team with few options from within the organization and forcing its hand to offer inflated contracts with free labor to compensate. Another kicker is that many of those free agent signings weren't used to being the talent the team needed.

The truth of the matter is, Sweeney has yet to field a championship-winning team in his time. He had ten years, which is longer than most GMs get, especially without winning a Stanley Cup. Right now, the group is a mess and only one person can be blamed for naming it. In theory, the Bruins should be more talented than they are, but guys aren't playing up to expectations and especially, the two big contracts Sweeney signed this summer, don't look good. Signing Elias Lindholm to a seven-year deal after a slump doesn't look good right now and could end up being a contract albatross, not the first under Sweeney's leadership. Nikita Zadorov leads the team in penalty minutes with 46, 20 more than the second place, McAvoy (26), and most of them are not the best penalties and lead to powerplay goals of the opponents.

Additionally, while Sweeney addressed center and defensive depth this offseason, he allowed one of the Bruins' top players, Jake DeBrusk, to leave in free agency, and did nothing to replace him. Therefore, it is not surprising that the team is struggling in the wing. Now, DeBrusk hasn't had the best seasons so far, but I'm sure many fans will take him over several current players.

When it comes to young players, Sweeney has made some questionable decisions throughout his career. Many are still scratching their heads as to why 20-year-old Matthew Poitras was demoted to play with the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL). Fabian Lysell, the team's first-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, has yet to make his NHL debut, another eye-opening GM decision. These are just examples of this season. There have been plenty of other moments in his time, as well as questionable signings of older players brought in during free agency to take up spots that the younger guys couldn't get.

The Bruins right now are bad. Yes, they have time to right the ship, but the season could start to slip away from them in the next few weeks if they don't get it together. Unfortunately, the signs do not point to what is happening. Some of the problems can definitely be fixed for training. They were sloppy and combined special teams, the power play and the penalty kill, were brutal.

However, in the end, the finger should open the man who created this team, which has been doing it for almost 10 years without the Stanley Cup competition. Sweeney has consistently failed to restore the Bruins' future pipeline or make the right decisions for the development of young players, has failed to bring in the right talent through trades and free agency to win a championship, and has allowed key free agents to leave without a plan. to replace them. At this point, it's ridiculous to even think that it's just coaching that has caused this mess of a season so far.

It's Sweeney's Time

Personally, I believe Sweeney should have gotten the boot from Cassidy back in 2022. Instead, he got an extension and Cassidy won the Stanley Cup the following season with the Vegas Golden Knights. The coaching changes ended up doing little to change the outcome for the Bruins, so now it's time for the team to move forward and make changes in the front office.

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As the saying goes, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a sign of insanity. The Bruins have been doing that for several seasons now. They continue to have the same roster problems with a lack of forward depth, continue to change coaches, and get the same results. What makes anyone think that just shooting Montgomery will lead to real change or a Stanley Cup?

The organization should not stop at Montgomery. While it may not happen in the 2024-25 season, and I understand not wanting to cause too much disruption if this team still has a shot at making the playoffs, the front office needs a change by the time the 2025-26 season arrives. continues 11 months from now. The Bruins can't keep doing the same song and dance, and think it will eventually get them the result they want. It's time for the organization to take a hard look at replacing Sweeney, and in all honesty, team president Cam Neely should also be given due consideration, and they need to get it while the current group of players (Pastrnak, McAvoy, Swayman, Lindholm) are all in their prime.