Bruins intent on trying to build winner around core group
The Boston Bruins' brass feel they should be watching the team play instead of addressing its future.
On Wednesday, president Cam Neely was joined by owner Jeremy Jacbos and chief executive officer Charlie Jacobs to discuss missing the playoffs for the second straight season, with the former stressing the importance of not wasting the core group of assembled talent, especially as they advance in age.
"We know where our better players are in their careers, we have an idea of how many more good years they have left at the top of their game," Neely told reporters. "It’s very important for us to put pieces around them to compete again for a Cup. That has to happen sooner rather than later."
That group includes Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Tuukka Rask, and Zdeno Chara - the team captain who's under contract for two more seasons and is less than a year away from his 40th birthday. Brad Marchand fits into the category as well, although the star winger is able to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
In Neely's estimation, this year's club appeared well positioned for a playoff berth after a one-year hiatus, only to experience a late-season swoon that left him shaking his head.
"Quite frankly, with 86 points and 13 games to go, we should’ve been a playoff team - we should be playing right now," he said. "We should’ve locked up the third seed and who knows? But that didn’t happen, and we’re all extremely disappointed the way the season ended."
Neely added he believes in general manager Don Sweeney and he knows retooling on the fly is no easy proposition, but more was expected from this season's group.
"We know what our goals are, we know what we need to improve and we’re taking the necessary steps to continue to do that," he said. "From my perspective. we were told by Don it’s going to be a bumpy road, we should see some improvement along the way and for the most part, we had that. But it's the way we finished that was extremely disappointing for us."
In terms of the offseason outlook, the Bruins will explore any and every avenue towards improving the roster.
Everything is on the table, to be honest with you," Neely admitted. "We need to improve our club and everything’s on the table to try and do that."