By: Tom Calautti | Follow me on Twitter @TCalauttis
The dust has finally settled on a whirlwind 48 hours for the Boston Bruins, and they’ve come out the other side with a new bench boss. On Tuesday evening, the team announced via Twitter (X) that they relieved Jim Montgomery of his duties and hired longtime staffer Joe Sacco as interim head coach. General Manager Don Sweeney addressed the media yesterday to discuss where things have gone wrong this season, and the one topic he kept falling back on was training camp.
“I don’t want to be too specific and too critical on any one singular player; I just felt our camp was flatline across the board,” said Sweeney in front of an unusually packed press room at Warrior Ice Arena. “I just felt our camp was flatline across the board. To me, that was the first troubling sign…but we were flat all the way through training camp.”
When asked what specifically led to the flat training camp, Sweeney acknowledged that some of his players may not have had the same intensity heading into this season as in previous years. He made sure to point out how difficult it is to win games in the NHL, and if your players think they can waltz into a season without hunger and desire to improve, these are the results you’ll get.
“The guys (that) had really good years last year (maybe they thought they) would come out, and it would just fall in place,” said Sweeney. “This league is incredibly humbling if you have that approach to the game, and it’ll expose you in a hurry, and that’s sort of what’s happened to our group.”
Sweeney continued, “I just don’t think, as a group, we did a good enough job. Whether or not that’s adhering to your player calling out your linemate to wake up in terms of the standard that we need, whether you think it’s going to be easier because you had a successful year before, it just doesn’t work that way.
Sweeney made sure not to call out anyone in particular, but his comment about ‘guys that had (career) years’ is damning. Players like Trent Frederic, Morgan Geekie, Charlie Coyle, and Pavel Zacha had the best seasons of their respective careers during the 2023-24 season. It’s difficult to take Sweeney’s comments at face value without looking at some of those guys and wondering if their approach to training camp was suspect.
The lack of intensity in camp is one thing, but you can’t discuss the 2024-25 Bruins offseason without talking about Jeremy Swayman. The biggest specter surrounding training camp was the ongoing contract negotiations with Boston’s underachieving goaltender. The heavily publicized back-and-forth between Swayman and the organization made headlines across the hockey world, and Sweeney acknowledged that it may have played a role in the ‘flat’ camp.
Sweeney was asked how much of an impact Swayman’s situation may have had on the team’s slow start, and the general manager wouldn’t rule it out as a significant factor.
“I think it’s all part of it,” said Sweeney. “The League, as I said earlier, it’s humbling, and we found that out in a hurry here, that when you don’t play to the standard, you’re going to get knocked around in this league. We need to get back to what we expect. And that’s whether Jeremy missed timing in parts, that applies.”
If it’s true that players came into training camp complacent, and Jeremy Swayman’s pubic back-and-forth made waves, it’s just one more mark against the organization’s approach this offseason. Expectations were too high coming in, and there’s too much at stake for this roster to take things for granted, as shown over the first 20 games.
With Jim Montgomery dismissed, the players and the organization have nowhere left to hide. Don Sweeney played the best card he had, and now it’s time for the Boston Bruins to prove their mettle. Eight of their next ten games are against teams currently outside the NHL playoff structure and maybe their best chance to salvage this season.
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