So let’s focus on the Bruins/Red Sox comparison for a moment, if only because it’s a fun exercise during this three-day break between the end of baseball season and the beginning of pucks. Putting aside actual talent for a moment, it’s certainly not a bad thing, at least in the abstract, when a good team — any team, and in any sport — opts to bring back familiar players who can still play.
But if you can keep a good team together in a way that keeps it good, then good. The problem with the 2019 Red Sox was that Dombrowski overpaid for players who provided postseason heroics but were not central to the team’s regular-season success, and of course we’re talking Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce here. They simply weren’t worth the money they got, and, anyway, they didn’t deliver in 2019.
How does this relate to the Bruins?
“Nothing’s changed,” Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs said during Tuesday’s Media Day at Warrior Ice Arena. In fairness, though, he was answering a question about his own role with the franchise, not the roster. But … whatever. To look at the current Bruins depth chart, it’s as though Game 7 of the Cup final was played this past Sunday night, and Sweeney is OK with that.
“Well, I thought we were a successful team last year, and we have a motivated group,” he said, and by that I assume he’s referring to the sting of losing Game 7 of the Cup Final on home ice.
“We feel like we have that internal competition,” he said. “We have players that can come up and do the job. We’ve been testing that over the last few years and had some success but also had some failures, and we try to learn from it, be very target specific.”
Sweeney noted that the Bruins lost “… a really good player – two really good players, important players, Marcus (Johansson, a late-season pickup who played in only 10 regular-season games but added 22 in the playoffs) and Noel (Acciari) and hopefully we have players to take that ice time and production.”
Look at it another way: Nothing about last year’s Bruins called for a teardown, which means that, for now, Sweeney gets some time to show that his Dave Dombrowski imitation pays off.
Besides, it’s not like he gave $68 million to Nathan Eovaldi.
But if you can keep a good team together in a way that keeps it good, then good. The problem with the 2019 Red Sox was that Dombrowski overpaid for players who provided postseason heroics but were not central to the team’s regular-season success, and of course we’re talking Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce here. They simply weren’t worth the money they got, and, anyway, they didn’t deliver in 2019.
How does this relate to the Bruins?
“Nothing’s changed,” Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs said during Tuesday’s Media Day at Warrior Ice Arena. In fairness, though, he was answering a question about his own role with the franchise, not the roster. But … whatever. To look at the current Bruins depth chart, it’s as though Game 7 of the Cup final was played this past Sunday night, and Sweeney is OK with that.
“Well, I thought we were a successful team last year, and we have a motivated group,” he said, and by that I assume he’s referring to the sting of losing Game 7 of the Cup Final on home ice.
“We feel like we have that internal competition,” he said. “We have players that can come up and do the job. We’ve been testing that over the last few years and had some success but also had some failures, and we try to learn from it, be very target specific.”
Sweeney noted that the Bruins lost “… a really good player – two really good players, important players, Marcus (Johansson, a late-season pickup who played in only 10 regular-season games but added 22 in the playoffs) and Noel (Acciari) and hopefully we have players to take that ice time and production.”
Look at it another way: Nothing about last year’s Bruins called for a teardown, which means that, for now, Sweeney gets some time to show that his Dave Dombrowski imitation pays off.
Besides, it’s not like he gave $68 million to Nathan Eovaldi.
