Boston Bruins: Don Sweeney Defends His Choices
The Boston Bruins turned out to be secondhand buyers at this year’s trade deadline. The Bruins picked up two players this year. Don Sweeney acquired Lee Stempniak from the New Jersey Devils and John-Michael Liles from the Carolina Hurricanes.
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The Bruins had to surrender four future draft picks for their two new players. Thankfully, the Bruins chose not to pull the trigger on Loui Eriksson. The B’s are going to try to figure out a way to keep Eriksson in a Black and Gold uniform between now and the end of the season. B’s general manager Don Sweeney was adamant in his defense of his picks and his desire to keep Eriksson in Boston.
“In all honesty I certainly had evaluated over the course of months really as to whether or not Loui was going to be signed before the deadline,” said Sweeney. “We’ve been in contract negotiations; we’ll continue to talk with Loui and his group.”
“I’ve always valued the type of player that Loui is. The season he’s having I think is important for where our club is and if the deal wasn’t going to be right, that we were going to maintain our position. If you look around the league, I don’t think any team currently in a playoff position traded a player of Loui’s magnitude.”
“So the deal had to be right. It had to be right for this organization to do that and that’s what I’ve been entrusted to do and I’m going to continue to do that.”
“For me, Loui Eriksson is an important part of what we’re doing now, being in the position that we’re in.”
A lot of the fans were disappointed in Sweeney. They were hoping for a big trade that would get them a top-four defenseman. The Bruins couldn’t find anyone who would pay their asking price for Eriksson, and they didn’t see any top blueliners that they liked. So, the Bruins did what they could to help at the deadline.
Overall, the Bruins are a little better off. Stempniak is a competent top-six forward, and Liles being brought up means that Kevan Miller will likely be off the roster (and that should be considered a plus to many B’s fans). Sweeney still believes this team will be competitive in the playoffs. It’s entirely possible the Bruins will surprise us and go far this season.
“We’ve said all along that I think we’re going to be a very competitive hockey club, and expect to be in playoff positioning, and we hope to maintain that between the next 19 games,” said Sweeney. “And whether that’s proving ourselves right or other people wrong — doesn’t really matter what the motivation is.”
“The ownership group, at the time that I was interviewed for this position, expected certain things to be addressed, be it the cap and flexibility there, to acquire some younger players that would be implement into our group — because of the cap situation on the horizon and that it may not be increasing — so we’ve tried to attack it in different ways.”
“But part of the exercise of being a competitive team right now — being in playoff positioning — was to try and improve our hockey club, and hopefully we did that. We’ve got some work to do, and certainly, starting with [Tuesday], I think everybody takes a deep breath that this is the group moving forward,” said Sweeney. “And they can galvanize as a result of that.”