Boston Bruins: Wrong Team Sent To Woo Jimmy Vesey?
The Boston Bruins have nothing to lose in grabbing Jimmy Vesey, and have an awful lot to gain.
At midnight Tuesday Jimmy Vesey, officially hit the free agent market. The current Hobey Baker Award winner and his agents can begin to meet with a select number of interested teams in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday. Of all the teams that got to speak with Vesey, the very last team was the Boston Bruins.
Grabbing Vesey would validate some of the choices made by Don Sweeney this offseason. The Bruins only major acquisition to date was stealing David Backes from the St. Louis Blues.
No matter where Vesey ends up, he will be signing a max entry-level contract. That’s two years at $925,000. There will also likely be an additional $2.85 million in signing and performance bonuses.
Sweeney and the Bruins were smart enough to hold back enough cash to support that possibility (proof Don Sweeney was playing the long-game this offseason). The Bruins have $6,731,667 in cap space left according to General Fanager. So that means there will be no repeat of Peter Chiarelli’s cap jail troubles.
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If the Bruins are really going to snag Jimmy Vesey, they won’t be going the money route. The B’s would certainly have pushed the local connections. They obviously would have pushed the hometown angle to the Boston native and Harvard grad. Anyone trying to snag the 23-year old would certainly add the kind of part he could play in the future of the Bruins organization.
The Boston Bruins announced they were going to bring a team to try and sell the team to Vesey. The team consisted of Alternate Governor Charlie Jacobs, Bruins President Cam Neely, GM Sweeney, and head coach Claude Julien. These four people represent the past, present, and future of the Boston Bruins.
For all the pomp those four men bring, they may not have been the best choices to woo a perspective young player. The Bruins may have brought the wrong people to the table, and inadvertently reduced their chance in signing Vesey.
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So what should the Bruins have done? The Bruins should have brought someone in closer to his own age to help make the sale here.
Jimmy Vesey claimed that he was a fan of Torey Krug. The Bruins organization probably should have given Krug a call and told him to come down. Or perhaps the Bruins should have gone with Patrice Bergeron. Who doesn’t love Bergy?
There were other options as well. If the Bruins were trying to sell Vesey on the past and the future, they should have grabbed a 2011 Stanley Cup player to talk with him (maybe even skate with him on the ice). Ray Bourque would have also been a solid choice. If it wouldn’t have been a conflict of interest, they could have even asked Bobby Orr to have a few words with him.
I hope the Boston Bruins are able to nab Jimmy Vesey. But if they don’t it could be because they picked the wrong people to d
The Boston Bruins have nothing to lose in grabbing Jimmy Vesey, and have an awful lot to gain.
At midnight Tuesday Jimmy Vesey, officially hit the free agent market. The current Hobey Baker Award winner and his agents can begin to meet with a select number of interested teams in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday. Of all the teams that got to speak with Vesey, the very last team was the Boston Bruins.