Will Don Sweeney make a big push to get the Bruins roster to the playoffs?
Don Sweeney has to be hoping that firing Jim Montgomery is all he needs to do.
Switching to Joe Sacco should give the Boston Bruins a much-needed short-term jolt, as an early season “malaise” (Montgomery’s word, not mine) gripped the team and ultimately cost Montgomery his job. The B’s need much more than they’ve gotten out of top young cornerstones like David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman, and if Sacco can get the most out of them, the Bruins will start to have more success.
But what if internal improvement isn’t enough to propel the Bruins to legitimate playoff contention? What if the new coach isn’t enough to cure the B’s of their current sickness, as they hang by a thread to the cheapest possible playoff seed?
The Bruins are currently fourth in a lagging Atlantic Division, but they’re only two points ahead of the Senators and Sabres, who each have two games at hand on them. They’re currently third in the Wild Card standings behind the Rangers and Islanders, who reside in the stronger Metropolitan Division. Realistically, if the Bruins keep producing points at their current clip, they’ll slip out of the playoff picture entirely.
And we know what happened last time the Bruins didn’t get any playoff gates. Then-GM Peter Chiarelli was shown the door. And when Sweeney spoke to reporters for the first time during a trying 2024-25 season on Wednesday, he sounded like a man who knows he’s under the proverbial microscope, now.
“We’re always on notice,” Sweeney said. “It’s a results-oriented business…That’s just what you accept when you take the job, you know that you’re on notice. When you make recommended changes, they can say no… and you might be the change. So you face that, you make decisions based on your experience level and what you need to do from your hockey club. And that’s how I that’s how I do the job. I’m appreciative that, in this case, that they still let me make that decision.”
It’s fairly well-known at this point that Bruins ownership expects playoff runs, every year, if possible. Full-on rebuilds aren’t really a consideration. And Sweeney, now in his 10th season as Bruins GM, has certainly done a good-enough job to keep the Bruins above that playoff line, considering the amount of first-round picks that have either been traded away or amounted to nothing. He went all-out to make the B’s the top Stanley Cup contender in 2022-23, so their shockingly early playoff exit that year can’t be pinned on him.
This team? They’re off to the worst 20-game start in Sweeney’s tenure as GM, at 8-9-3. The last time they had more regulation losses than wins after 20 games was 2005-06. The year they traded Joe Thornton. Eggs cost $1.31 a dozen the last time the Bruins were this bad this far into the season. They had Brad Isbister that year. Brad Isbister!
So, Sweeney SHOULD be on notice. Which brings us to the big question for him, as it relates to the rest of this season: assuming he’s facing pressure to make the playoffs, would he do all that’s necessary to get the Bruins in? Would he be willing, able, expected to part with high draft picks to acquire talent at the trade deadline that gives the B’s the boost they need to sneak into that last spot in the Atlantic, or a Wild Card spot?
That was a point of discussion on the latest episode of the Sports Hub Underground, which Ty Anderson and I did on Tuesday in the wake of the news of Montgomery’s firing. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in the above podcast. Beyond what led to Montgomery’s dismissal, where do the Bruins go from here? And if they get to a point that they need another piece to make this roster playoff-caliber, would Sweeney pull the trigger?
Ty has his reservations that Sweeney would part with first- or second-round picks at this stage.
“This team, in my opinion, is not worth buying right now,” Ty said. “You have to see what you have internally, and then make a call from there. This feels like a chance to learn from the mistakes they made in 2015-16. We’ll see if they do it.”
During that aforementioned 2015-16 season, the Bruins traded a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick for forward Lee Stempniak. They also acquired defenseman John-Michael Liles for a third-round pick, a fifth-round pick, and prospect Anthony Camara. The moves proved futile, as the Bruins missed the playoffs, anyway, and were out some valuable picks to boot.
To Ty’s point, Sweeney could be facing a similar situation at the 2025 trade deadline, and would have a chance to prove that he learned from that first season as GM. High draft picks should be more valuable to the B’s right now than squeaking into a low playoff seed, for what would feel like an inevitable shellacking at the hands of a top-ranked squad like the Florida Panthers (again). At least, for the long-term health of the hockey operation.
As Ty mentioned on the podcast, the Bruins do have a well of prospects that have gotten little-to-no chance at playing in the NHL, especially at the forward spots. Players like Fabian Lysell, Brett Harrison, Trevor Kuntar, or Riley Duran should get a look at the NHL level before they make the 2025 version of the Stempniak trade. Hell, Matthew Poitras just got sent down and should be back up here at some point.
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But if Sweeney is facing his own firing for missing the playoffs? Logically speaking, he wouldn’t even be around to make draft picks in the first place. So, as disappointing as it would be for the Bruins to still be stuck in the mud at the trade deadline, it would be intriguing to see what Sweeney does, and how the team performs from there.
Because it’s mostly, if not all, on Sweeney’s shoulders now.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.
