Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
He inherited a team that didn't make the playoffs.
And just to prove that wasn't a fluke, they didn't make the playoffs his first season as a GM either.
Management How would you rate Sweeney?
- Thread starter PlayMakers
- Start date
He inherited a team that didn't make the playoffs.
And just to prove that wasn't a fluke, they didn't make the playoffs his first season as a GM either.
Pia8988
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He also tore out major pieces his first year making the team worse in the short term for picks. He inherited a contending core. He only good add through trade has been Coyle with countless losses.
He is also the #1 reason this franchise is on the path to crater post krejci/bergeron
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
How can you call it a contending core when they didn't even make the playoffs two years in a row?
Yet he made one good trade and they got to a finals Game 7 and then had the best record in the league this past season.
Pia8988
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Because all it took was a coaching change. Kicking out Claude for Cassidy has been the best thing Sweeney has done
Good topic and categorization. Ok, here we go:
- Drafting - C. Middle of the road. Some hits, some bad misses. Seems to do well when making more conventional picks, but none of his 'reaches' have yet paid off, except DeBrusk to some extent. Wasting at least 3 1st round picks so far is a major black mark, but McAvoy and Carlo are big wins, and hopefully Studnicka and Lauzon are too. Time will tell with Beecher etc.
- Developing draft picks and young talent - C. Middling mark again, which probably reflects the sum of a solid B for defenders, but a poor D for forwards. We've seen McAvoy, Carlo, Gryz, Lauzon and Clifton all come up to the big time and perform well in the last 3 years. That's a good haul. It's easy to get the sense that as an ex-defender himself this is Sweeney's strong suit and he is good at identifying and helping to develop blueline talent. But up forward it's nowhere near so rosy. Obviously Pasta is the great success story but I don't think Don had much influence there. Otherwise there is DeBrusk who has done ok, but his play is borderline one-dimensional and could be better. That's about it so far. Have high hopes for Studnicka but we'll have to see. Worry isn't guys like Kuhlman who just don't have a heap of talent, but the ones like Seny and Frederic who seem to have greater potential but it just isn't translating into NHL success or even much opportunity so far. Not great.
- Identifying and signing college free agents - B. Sweeney and his team are pretty sharp in this area. Good at finding a couple of hidden gems.
- Acquiring NHL talent to fill holes (like Krejci's RW) - C-. MoJo and especially Coyle are the wins. Wags, Nords and Lindholm have been solid 4th line adds. But too many mistakes, or in some cases sheer inaction when it's clearly needed. Sweeney is simply not good at luring quality players from other teams to Boston. With him as GM it is not a 'destination' team. This is an ongoing problem.
- Making trades (player for player, player for futures, futures for player) - B-. When Sweeney does make a trade, he usually gets a good deal. Coyle again is the obvious clear win. Don also did pretty well in eventually offloading Backes. There have been no howlers in this area like there were in the years prior to him taking on the role. But he loses points for what I said above - simple lack of really meaningful trades made.
- Trade deadline acquisitions - see above.
- Free Agency (as in July 1st UFA's) - C. Sweeney's good at picking up cheap depth pieces for reasonable prices and getting good value out of them. Smith should be a good add. But Backes and Beleskey will haunt him forever, and he's never landed a really big fish by this method who's delivered for the Bruins. I appreciate his reluctance (usually) to overpay, but sometimes you need to take a bit of a punt to generate serious results.
- Getting existing players to sign at discounts - A-. Clearly Don's greatest strength. Has put the team in a really strong position in cap management with these deals. Two problems - he's then wasted those team-friendly deals by failing in other areas, and you have to wonder if the GM's reputation for driving a hard bargain for players is something that turns other guys away from joining the Bs. How things panned out with Krug for example were understandable but probably don't reflect that well on the Bruins as an organization.
- Overall team performance under Sweeney - B+. A Cup final and a Presidents' Trophy are not to be sniffed at, and the team has been in a position to legitimately compete for the Cup 2 years in a row. The team has been able to perform as well as you could possibly expect it to in those 2 years, with the exception of the 2019 SCFs, and the bubble playoffs. Hard to blame Don for either of those, purely in terms of selections made from the available roster or his influence on the culture and morale of the playing group. But he does have to account for important roster deficiencies which held the team back, which leads to...
- Overall Grade: B- for overall performance, but an F for results. Coming up short in 2019 and 2020 was down to a combination of certain players simply not bringing their best when it mattered most, for various reasons, but also due to roster issues that could and arguably should have been better addressed by Sweeney (2RW, secondary scoring generally, a little more grit and physical presence). Overall, he's done well to pull the team out of the hole it had fallen into and turned it back into one of the best teams in the league with the tools available to contend for Cups. But his mistakes and areas of poor performance have also held it back and arguably been the key difference between getting close and actually winning the big prize. It sounds harsh, but anything short of a Cup with this core and the assets he's had to work with is IMO a fail. So I rate him as an average to good GM, but without a big shiny trophy to show for his efforts, his time in the job, to date at least, cannot be considered a success.
UncleRico
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- May 8, 2017
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In six Off-seasons as GM with four top 15 picks and six seasons worth of free agency he’s only added four core players , Debrusk, Mcavoy, Coyle and Carlo.
Sweeney was gifted a core of prime Bergy, Marchand, Krejci, rask. As well as Chara and Pastrnak.
It was summer 2014. The Bruins were coming off a presidents trophy win where they lost to an Atlantic team in the 2nd round
The year before that, they made it to the finals before watching a central division team raise the cup on TD Garden ice.
The big offseason move? Cap mistakes lead to watching a beloved defender and locker room leader leave for no immediate return as we wait for the other shoe to drop.
The thread?
Grade Peter Chiarelli as a GM
The year before that, they made it to the finals before watching a central division team raise the cup on TD Garden ice.
The big offseason move? Cap mistakes lead to watching a beloved defender and locker room leader leave for no immediate return as we wait for the other shoe to drop.
The thread?
Grade Peter Chiarelli as a GM
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Mr. Make-Believe
The happy genius of my household
Drafting - C
Dislike most of the picks at the top of the draft. 2015 was a massive miss and should have restocked the cupboards after Chiarelli sank the prospect pool. A couple of nice players wasn’t near good enough. McAvoy was a major win though and I have a real appreciation for how he identifies players in the later rounds. There are good-to-great goaltenders in the system and quite a few hidden gems in the pipeline.
Development of youth - C+
This ties directly with the first category. Are players not being developed well or are they just not NHL quality players? People will criticize how Senyshyn has been brought along, but I think that’s more a product of being a reach and not having intuition for the game at a pro level. Bill makes a strong case however for how DeBrusk seems stapled to the same place in the lineup, despite looking nightly like an ill-fit for his line. Defencemen though all seem to come in and play like they belong, so the blueline is a decided positive. Mixed bag.
College Free Agents - A
He’s done a real good job here. Love the character and talent he’s brought in and I think he sells Boston really well - especially considering in a lot of instances, it’s players who don’t have foreseeable openings in Boston. High hopes for Ahcan and Wolff.
Acquiring NHL Talent - F
His free agent acquisitions build from the bottom of the lineup with an attempt to play them in positions where it’s unfair to expect them to succeed. There’s been little-to-no success in signing top-4 defencemen or top-six forwards. This is a massive issue.
Making Trades - F
The major issue here is an inability to make deals outside of the trade deadline. He started off his tenure getting great value for Lucic and okay value for Hamilton. But those were both “trade downs” (giving up the best player in the deal for packages of assets). He hasn’t pulled a non-deadline trade in the other direction.
Trade deadline acquisitions - F
Not what I would have said a couple of weeks ago, but that post from Bruin Dust (? I believe) show that in deadline deals alone, he’s given away the equivalent of two entire draft classes and has not a single difference-maker (aside from Coyle, which was objectively a great trade) to show. Even the Backes deal failed to free up any significant cap space (less than $1M) and he gave up a first in a fantastic draft year to do it. Prime assets flushed.
Free Agency - F
As stated above, the strategy of filling from the bottom not is not only terrible from a logical team-building aspect, but also leaves only key critical spots for young guys to fill in, which sets them up for failure. Karson Kuhlman should never have been the answer to the Krejci’s wing question (for example), but there he played and failed as it’s over his head. Add to this, the perennial “oh you best believe we’re going to be active in free agency” and “we’re looking at making some big changes” (both paraphrased). It’s terrible optics to over-promise and so drastically under-deliver.
Signing his own - A+
He has one of the best top lines in the entire league over the last decade and they’re signed to 2/3 of many lesser lines around the league. McAvoy for a great deal. Carlo for an excellent bridge. Grzelcyk is gonna be one of the league’s most enviable contracts probably starting this season. Sweeney excels here and I refuse to nitpick at a couple of examples folks may use to argue against that fact.
Overall Team Performance - B+
Yeah. I know. Should be an A, shouldn’t it? Well how much of the team’s success is his build of the roster? Would come across as hypocritical to slam him in so many areas and then laud him with perfection here. His best move overall was moving on from Julien to Cassidy’s up-tempo transition offence. It was like turning on a light. I say this as an unabashed Julien fanboy and a Cassidy critic. It was the right play at the right time and it continues to this day.
Overall - C-
A real mixed bag makes this grade the most difficult for me. He excels at a couple of real positive things, while being complete dogshit in other critical areas. I believe the Bruins have over-achieved during his tenure, however. And I don’t expect that success to continue after this absolute disaster of an off-season. Thing is, I KNOW he’s smart enough to understand what this team needed (needs) to round out the roster. He’s not stupid in the slightest. But it’s the execution in acquiring those pieces that leaves so much to be desired. I’ve never seen a roster so close seem so f***ing far away.
BlackFrancis
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- Dec 14, 2013
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Dear God it was like I was still in this thread when reading that.
Lobster57
Registered User
Drafting
C- McAvoy and Carlo are great picks, JDB is a very useful player. Everything else is blechh
Developing draft picks and young talent
D Seems to be doing an adequate job with blueliners, but pretty bad with Forwards.
Identifying and signing college free agents
C Hard category for me to judge as i am 100% ignorant of College hockey. I would think it's tough to find guys here, most if them are going to be undrafted/unsigned for a reason
Acquiring NHL talent to fill holes (like Krejci's RW)
D Coyle and Mojo are the only successes at areas of need IMO, and then they let Mojo walk
Making trades (player for player, player for futures, futures for player).
C- Coyle trade was good, so was Mojo, i still like the Rick Nash trade despite the outcome. But mainly blehh
Trade deadline acquisitions
C- Again, only saved by Coyle/Mojo
Free Agency (as in July 1st UFA's)
F Can't think of anything really good, i like the Smith signing this offseason, but if that's your big move? Terrible
Getting existing players to sign at discounts
B+ Be interesting to see how this goes once they aren't a top 5 team in the league.
Overall team performance under Sweeney
B- hard to argue the record, but as others have said it's largely based off the core that was in place long before Sweeney took over
C- McAvoy and Carlo are great picks, JDB is a very useful player. Everything else is blechh
Developing draft picks and young talent
D Seems to be doing an adequate job with blueliners, but pretty bad with Forwards.
Identifying and signing college free agents
C Hard category for me to judge as i am 100% ignorant of College hockey. I would think it's tough to find guys here, most if them are going to be undrafted/unsigned for a reason
Acquiring NHL talent to fill holes (like Krejci's RW)
D Coyle and Mojo are the only successes at areas of need IMO, and then they let Mojo walk
Making trades (player for player, player for futures, futures for player).
C- Coyle trade was good, so was Mojo, i still like the Rick Nash trade despite the outcome. But mainly blehh
Trade deadline acquisitions
C- Again, only saved by Coyle/Mojo
Free Agency (as in July 1st UFA's)
F Can't think of anything really good, i like the Smith signing this offseason, but if that's your big move? Terrible
Getting existing players to sign at discounts
B+ Be interesting to see how this goes once they aren't a top 5 team in the league.
Overall team performance under Sweeney
B- hard to argue the record, but as others have said it's largely based off the core that was in place long before Sweeney took over
BruinDust
Registered User
- Aug 2, 2005
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Give that 2015 team even an average back-up goaltender, and they make the playoffs. I don't think they do a whole lot of damage, that team had flaws, but no question Svedberg did that team in as far as playoff qualifying goes.
Not enough points from the back-up, and also forced Julien to over-use Rask down the stretch. And we've now seen what a properly rested Rask can do in the regular season. They missed the playoffs by just 2 points.
Same thing the next year. Instead of Svedberg this time it was Gustafsson. Once again a team with flaws, but actually tied the 8th seed (Detroit) in points but lost the tiebreaker. When the Bruins went out west late in the season an lost 3 straight then came back East to MSG and Rask was ill and yet Julien still started him of Gustafsson told you all you needed to know about Julien's confidence in Gus.
Sweeney inherited a pretty good deal. How many GMs inherit teams one year removed from a President's trophy and two year's removed from a finals appearance? His 4 best forwards, two best LD, and starting goaltender when he took the job were still his 4 best forwards, two best LD, and starting goaltender here 5 years later. And he immediately sold off their 6th best F and best RD at the time a month after he took the job. Really cushy deal "Sweens" got. Very few GMs are so fortunate.
He also inherited a team with 5 Cup-winning stars still in their prime (well not quite in Chara's case but he's still been a high quality 1LD until at least last year), including one of the top 3 goalies in the league, and emerging A-graders in Pastrnak and to a slightly lesser extent Krug, all of whom were willing to play on very good value contracts. He then scored three 1st round draft picks in his first year in charge, and another 2 a year later. That's a very very strong collection of assets to work with. Certainly not enough to guarantee a Cup, but a perfectly adequate base from which to form a Cup-winning team within 5 years if you're smart, have a little luck and make the right moves. Sweeney got some right, but too many wrong, and here we are.
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BruinDust
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- Aug 2, 2005
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Take a look at the players Sweeney inherited when he became GM. Either in the system or on the team. Every player listed here played in the NHL in 2019-20
F:
Marchand - Bergeron - Pastrnak
R.Smith - Krejci - Connolly
Lucic - Soderberg - Eriksson
Bjork - Donato - Heinen
Krug - Hamilton
Chara - Miller
Gryz - Benning
Rask
Subban
He inherited essentially a full line-up of NHL players who 5 years later were still in the league.
PlayMakers
Moderator
I know. We're on the same page here, my friend.
BigGoalBrad
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PlayMakers
Moderator
BruinDust
Registered User
- Aug 2, 2005
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Still in organization:
Marchand
Bergeron
Pastrnak
Krejci
Bjork
Miller
Gryz
Rask
The following players he basically has no current assets to show for them. They either left as UFAs, were traded and the assets acquired are no longer here, or were non-tendered when the became RFAs.
R.Smith, Connolly, Eriksson, Krug, Chara (assuming he's gone), Benning, Subban
So that's 3 pretty decent players with nothing to show for it (Smith, Connolly, Krug).
Connolly ended up a cup winner and a 20 goal, 40 pt. winger.
We know what Krug is.
Reilly Smith has basically been a 60 point winger the past 3 seasons.
I don't blame him much for Benning, Eriksson, or Subban. Benning didn't want to sign, Subban lost on waivers (no biggie) and not re-signing Eriksson was the right call. Should of been traded at the deadline for a 2nd rounder but I digress.
Sweeney turned the following players into assets still on the books:
Lucic, Hamilton, Donato, Heinen, Soderberg
Zboril,+Frederic+Kuraly (Lucic), Senyshyn+Lauzon (Hamilton), Coyle (Donato), N.Ritchie (Heinen), Steen (Soderberg)
So the Lucic deal turned out pretty decent. Not great, just OK. You could argue Kuraly is at least as good as Lucic is now. The other two prospects aren't wrote off yet however time is ticking on both.
He didn't do so well on the Hamilton deal. Unless Lauzon ends up a Top 3 D-man, he lost that trade majorly as the picks he made didn't work out very well. I said it at the time he made a bad mistake not getting at least one NHL caliber player in the Hamilton trade to help his current group. All futures and little to show for it over the following 5 seasons, that's fact.
He won the Donato-Coyle deal.
At least he got something for Soderberg's rights, even though Steen isn't much of a prospect. They couldn't afford to keep Soda here past 2015.
The Heinen-Ritchie deal is still to be determined.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
So the big problem was the backup goaltender. And Sweeney resolved it.
And the bolded is what many posters want to happen right now. But this new GM would get a team coming off a President's trophy season, not a year remove from one. And only a year removed from the finals, not two. So its an even better deal, despite Sweeney screwing up everything.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Correct, an adequate base from which to form a Cup-winning team within five years. But not enough to guarantee a Cup.
And that's exactly what happened. Came within a game of the Cup. Can anyone honestly say the GM of that team cost them the Cup?
Cost them? I mean it’s the butterfly effect so it’s an impossible argument to make, but I’ll say this. They don’t have a banner hanging and $12.6M of the $79.5M salary cap was allocated toward Seidenberg, Backes, Moore, Hayes, and Beleskey in 2018-19. They combined for 11 total minutes in game 7(thanks John Moore).
UncleRico
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- May 8, 2017
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