Boston Bruins: Don Sweeney On Change And Aggression
Let’s start this off by wishing Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney a very happy forty-ninth birthday.
The Boston Bruins had a lot of changes happen to them this offseason. They moved players, traded others, and cut a few adrift. Now the Bruins will need a plan moving forward for the 2015-16 season. That plan: Get aggressive.
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“They had teed up some clips in meetings and stuff before I even had a chance to sit with them,” said the Bruins general manager to NHL.com. “Where we can get up ice and create a little more anxiety in really all three zones, where we defend the blue line and we create some turnovers and get back on offense. I think our breakouts have to have a little more flow to it and our forwards are going to have more ownership to have some guys in motion to be able to get back on offense. And that’s going to be a work in progress. That’s not something you just change overnight.”
The Bruins found the right people to promote a more aggressive squad. Jimmy Hayes brings a very large 6-foot-6 frame, and he’ll certainly bring a level of snarl that seemed to be missing from Milan Lucic the last two seasons. Matt Beleskey brings an Andrew Ference type snarl to the game. If he can repeat the solid twenty-two goal performance next season, the Bruins chances will only get better. If Zac Rinaldo can contain his more “bad penalty” impulses, that brings another dimension of anger to the team.
While the Bruins are a work in progress, they’ve made a lot of positive strides.
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“I remember when Billy Guerin a long time ago had told me, you walk into that new locker room for the first time, you’re re-energized with people around you,” said Sweeney. “And I think it can be similar when you have had some change going on, some player personnel change, and hopefully our guys will recognize that as a core leadership group and really, really bring this group together and get back to grow together. They know how it’s done. The accountability and structure piece, that’s not going anywhere. Our guys know how to win and need to charge that direction.”
Sweeney is comfortable with his moves. He’s also happy with keeping Claude Julien at the helm (for now). While there was a lot of people asking for Claude’s head, Sweeney believed that Julien had done the best job he could with the tools he had, and chose to keep him. Sweeney believes Julien is the right coach to develop the Bruins newer and younger players.
“Having gotten himself comfortable, him and Claude both, from the player’s perspective understanding what it was going to take to be a good player, and Claude recognizing what he did with Spooner’s speed and power-play acumen, and I think the production started to come for us,” said Sweeney of his head coach. “That’s a good evolution of that type of player. We have other younger players that fall into that same category, and when they are ready and have earned the opportunity then they take advantage of it.”