The Boston Bruins fan base has had a love/hate with its owner for decades. There is no question that Jeremy Jacobs brought in the right people to the Bruins front office. Those front office people helped build a Bruins team that won the Stanley Cup back in 2011. Since then, it’s been a process of trying to get lightning to strike twice.
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The Bruins organization tried to make the big moves to keep themselves in Cup contention. The Bruins went all in for Jarome Iginla and made it all the way to the Stanley Cup finals in 2013. Things have gone downhill for the B’s the last two seasons. The Bruins were getting older and slower, and were starting to show the signs of a team that wasn’t able to compete for the Cup.
Last season the Bruins failed to make the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons. This meant things had to change. The Bruins (in the form of CEO Charlie Jacobs and President Cam Neely) chose to part ways with general manager Peter Chiarelli. Chiarelli went from having the complete confidence of the organization a year ago to being a man without a job.
“I think Peter is a great human being, and a great hockey mind, said the elder Jacobs of Chiarelli. “I think he’s going to prosper out west (in Edmonton). He’s got a great young team there. We were not in the same position. It’s a cap environment we find ourselves in here, and you’ve got to look to the future. If you watch the success of the Chicago team, and I do admire them quite a bit, they dealt with their high-priced players early on and kept creating room.”
Puck Prose
The Bruins biggest problem under the Chairelli era was the salary cap. That salary cap problem was caused by keeping too many replaceable players that were given long-term, no-trade contracts. While the Bruins still have a few of those players on the roster, new GM Don Sweeney certainly made enough moves to finally give the Bruins some breathing room. Granted, fan favorites like Dougie Hamilton and Milan Lucic had to be moved.
Jeremy Jacobs respects success. We’ve seen the Chicago Blackhawks win three Stanley Cups in the last six years, and the success has come from change. While the Blackhawks won’t be moving Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane any time soon, they’re willing to moving practically everyone else if it helps them stay at the apex of their game. Jacobs is pleased to see Sweeney making those kind of changes in order to get the Bruins back on track come October.
“Every year, there was a change, not too unlike the change we see here (this year),” said Jacobs to CSNNE. com. “We see some great players going elsewhere. Even to this year, you see very successful teams have met that problem. We didn’t deal with it in a timely enough manner and we found ourselves in a cap position that wasn’t attractive for us.”
Now the Bruins have made the moves and we’ll see if they translate to success on the ice in the 2015-16 season.