5 quick thoughts on Bruins signing Don Sweeney to an extension

If you've paid attention, the fact that the Bruins signed general manager Don Sweeney to a multi-year extension should not have surprised you.

The way the Bruins' leadership one-two of Charlie Jacobs and Cam Neely (along with the rest of the league) feels about the job that Sweeney has done in Boston over the last decade-plus compared to the way the Boston fans do — vocal minority or vocal majority, social media makes it impossible to tell, honestly — has never quite matched up. I also don't think the Bruins allow him to make all the decisions he made at the 2025 trade deadline if he's not someone they envision being part of their future. Same for his involvement in the ongoing coaching search. I'm not telling you it's right or wrong, but if you were watching it unfold in real time, there never seemed to be even a slight whiff of, "Oh, this guy's on borrowed time."

But if there's one thing to be surprised about with Tuesday's announcement, it is the timing, as the Bruins decided not to have Sweeney by all means play for his job in 2025-26 as a 'lame duck' general manager. This was not a certainty the last time we heard from Neely.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought [and] I'm still contemplating what the best course of action is," Neely said last month when asked about signing Sweeney to an extension. "I'll figure that out in the near future, with that particular question whether we’re going to re-sign Don or not, but he's got another year left. Again, it takes two to tango.”

That tango had two partners, and it took just 27 days.

But why?

If there's one thing the Bruins have praised about Sweeney and the Sweeney Era, it's the sustainability of their franchise. When times have been tough or Sweeney's credentials have been questioned, the Bruins have by all means always defaulted to their regular-season record and points percentage under his watch. This past season was the undeniable bottoming out of that, but in an hour-long presser in the bowels of TD Garden last month, it once again came up as a check in Sweeney's favor.

I think the Bruins feel a natural comfort in the 'executive you know' with Sweeney versus the unknown.

It's also possible that the Black and Gold's ongoing search for a new head coach would be limited by the potential unknown of Sweeney's future. The Bruins believe coaching their franchise is a dream job for anybody, but after missing out on Mike Sullivan and David Carle, and with Rick Tocchet reportedly having second thoughts about Boston given the potentially rocky front office dynamics, it was fair to wonder if the unknown was emerging as a greater unknown that perhaps the club envisioned it. (And that's without getting into the fact that the Bruins have dismissed two highly successful coaches in the last three calendar years.)

It also stands to reason that you don't want a GM entering the offseason with nearly $30 million in cap space (and plenty of needs) but operating with the idea that he has to build a roster for the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sweeney will be the first to tell you that GMs are always on notice (and he'd told me as much when I've asked about his job security), but if it's sustainability the Bruins want to keep as a check in their favor, having an executive giving out money for immediate results probably wasn't the play.

Here are some other quick-hitter thoughts on Sweeney's new deal...

I try to live by a simple rule: Don't tell people how to fan. We're not going to agree on everything, and we honestly shouldn't. Would be a boring-ass society. I'm going to like this, you're going to like that. This is why Baskin-Robbins made 31 flavors, and they were right for it. Now, with all that in mind, I'm saying this knowing that it's going to be an unpopular opinion: Don Sweeney is not as bad at being a general manager as you think.

I think Sweeney is, well, like any general manager in the NHL. He has strengths, and he has weaknesses. But if we're keeping things to the last two years and change, I have a hard time thinking he's this awful executive. He tried going all in at the 2023 trade deadline, and the failures there were at ice level. He then cobbled together a value team that honestly should've been a lot worse than it was. Now, this past season was not a good one, we'd all acknowledge, but resisting the urge for three playoff gates and selling at the deadline was ultimately the right call and required some self-reflection that we hadn't previosuly seen. So if we're giving him anything less than a B- over the last say 33 months, that feels a bit extreme to me.

I say all of this absolutely knowing and acknowledging that Sweeney is going to wear the 2015 Draft forever. They botched it as bad as they could've. No one can dispute that, and no amount of Bruins-attempted re-litigation will paint the club in a better light. So let's just stop. And I mean that across the board: At a certain point, we gotta get over it. I'm not saying you have to love it, but unless one of us owns a time machine an, nobody is bringing anything new or exciting to the table, so move on.

Is there a better option out there? I don't know, probably! I can't think of many jobs where only 32 people in the world are truly qualified to do it. I only ask that we all acknowledge the insularly culture of this particular job and its hiring practices. Ken Holland (the last Stanley Cup winner he built came in 2008) was just deemed the best man for the job in Los Angeles, and the 82-year-old Lou Lamoriello is still being eyed for NHL roles. Would you rather those guys or Sweeney? I know my answer. And, sure, it's not that simple and there are more options out there, but given the way these things have gone, it's often hard to feel like there truly are other options.

Again, this is not to tell you that Sweeney is this incredible general manager whose batting average is 1.000. But in this job, especially when it comes to recent history, the truth is that there's been more than good than bad.

The Bruins will defend their draft record. And when they can't when that player is no longer involved in the sport or playing in Germany, they'll tell you it's hard to project how a 17-year-old or 18-year-old will develop. Here's what I'll tell you (and this is a bold, inventive opinion I know): It's gotta be better. And the Bruins need to get more impactful talents out of their drafts.

Too often when using the picks they didn't trade at the deadline or to dump horrendous contacts, the Bruins have opted for safer floors and lower ceilings. And in the first round, no less. It's how they got Trent Frederic in 2016 and Johnny Beecher in 2019, and Urho Vaakanainen (after taking three left-shot defensemen in the top 60 in the previous two drafts) in 2017.

Given where this game is going and where the Bruins want to go and grow as a franchise back in the mix for Stanley Cups, taking bottom-six talent and third-pairing talent in the first round isn't going to cut it. Especially when considering that it's one. of the one things they're actually damn good at evaluating in the free agent and trade market.

Now, the Bruins are going to get a hell of a start proving that they've changed with the No. 7 overall pick next month, and Sweeney is back in the mix with the most high-end draft picks he's had since first taking the job in 2015. If the Bruins want to tell you that he wasn't ready for all those picks in 2015, that's fine. But now? He should be more than ready, and the Bruins need to clean up on 'em or this has been a colossal waste of time.

In proof that life moves real fast, Sweeney is actually entering the offseason as the fourth-longest tenured general manager in hockey. Only the Blues’ Doug Armstrong (July 2010), Winnipeg’s Kevin Chevaldayoff (June 2011), and the Stars’ Jim Nill (Apr. 2013) have been at their respective posts as general manager longer than Sweeney in Boston. 

Sweeney is, by definition, a veteran general manager.

Now comes building his roster like that.

Armstrong, the longest tenured executive in the league, did that a year ago when he pried Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway away from Edmonton knowing the Oilers' cap situation. The Bruins are in a great position to do that in 2025 if they so choose. Armstrong, who won a Cup in 2019, seemingly realized this is a league about winning, not being friends, and he acted accordingly. Sweeney has zero reason not to do that, especially with the way he's been borderline stuck up by other general managers over the years when dumping contracts (a tax that Rangers general manager Chris Drury didn't have to pay when dumping bodies in Cali, for some reason.)

But even beyond that, you have to hope that Sweeney realizes that the Bruins are in David Pastrnak's prime and that he won't be this effective forever and that they make the appropriate moves to reflect that. The Bruins were late to the draw on that with the Bergeron-Krejci era, and it's arguably the biggest reason why they are where they are right now.

In essence, the longer you're on the job (and especially with the same franchise), the better and savvier you're supposed to be at it. Now comes Sweeney's turn to do circles around the competition.

Something worth noting here: When the Bruins inked Don Sweeney to an extension in 2022, it was a four-year deal. This time around, it was a two-year deal. To simplify things to a painful (and perhaps inaccurate) degree: The Bruins believe in Sweeney half as much as they did in 2022.

In other words, they're keeping their own options open as they enter this unknown as a lottery team for the first time since 2007.

For a Bruins team that thinks they're a 'retool on the fly' away from being legitimate contenders, that's two full offseasons before the 'lame duck' debate re-emerges. That's enough time if this is indeed on the fly.

And when the Bruins sign a new head coach, odds are that it'll be a three-year deal. Maybe even a four-year deal. This means that both the head coach and Sweeney will most likely be on dueling contracts. This will give the Bruins an extended, complete look at whether or not it's the coach or the general manager that's proving to be an issue for Boston and with Sweeney holding a 3-0 edge in that debate thus far.