Bruins GM Don Sweeney open for business
“We will look at all opportunities to improve our team now but even more importantly moving forward,” said Bruins GM Sweeney.
Don’t expect any help to coming to the Bruins’ battered blue line any time soon. And largely because of that, we could well see some veterans being moved by the March 7 deadline
In a wide-ranging session with reporters, Bruins’ GM Don Sweeney said that, due to some complications in his recovery, Hampus Lindholm is unlikely to play again this season while Charlie McAvoy, though recovering from his shoulder injury and resulting infection, has no timetable for his recovery at the moment.
But Sweeney steadfastly stayed away from voicing any displeasure he may have had with the care McAvoy received from the Minnesota Wild medical team while with Team USA, something that was widely inferred from the team release from Bruins’ team physician Dr. Peter Asnis that detailed the infection and “significant” shoulder injury McAvoy suffered in the USA-Finland game.
Sweeney did not believe that McAvoy would require surgery on the original shoulder injury and was generally pleased with his recovery, despite not having a timeline on a return.
Asked if he thought the infection was preventable, Sweeney said, “I’m not going to talk and get into any more details. I gave you the update with how Charlie’s doing and that’s what we’re grateful for.”
Hampus Lindholm, meanwhile, had been practicing with the team for a couple of weeks before the break but, when the team returned to practice last Tuesday, he was back to skating on his own. Sweeney said that there has been some complications stemming from the original surgery on Lindholm’s knee after blocking a shot in St. Louis on November 12.
“He had a significant knee injury, he fractured his patella, had surgery. There was no real definitive timeline and we didn’t want to peg a timeline on it because of the complexity of the injury,” said Sweeney, revealing for the first time that the defenseman went under the knife. “He’s going to have a follow-up next week to remove a little bit of the hardware because he created a little bit of irritation as he was going through the rehab. The healing process has gone long, and gone well and he’ll have no setbacks moving forward. That being said, it’’s going to take more time for him to heal naturally and we just don’t wan tot put a timeline on when he’ll be back to 100 percent.”
While Sweeney conceded it is hard to turn off his “competitive nature” as the B’s are still in the playoff hunt – they’re currently in 10th place one point out of a spot, though other teams have game sin hand – he did say that the path is now open to possibly move some UFAs, which include Trent Frederic, Justin Brazeau, Cole Koepke, Riley Tufte, Parker Wotherspoon and Michael Callahan (Group 6). While the UFAs are the most vulnerable to moved, Sweeney didn’t rule anything out. He didn’t rule out acquiring players if it made sense, either. But the team is in future mode.
“We will look at all opportunities to improve our team now but even more importantly moving forward,” said Sweeney.
Also on that UFA list is captain Brad Marchand, but his stature puts him in a different category. Marchand has said he’d like to remain a Bruin for life. Sweeney said he’d like to accommodate him, though the two sides are now down to the nitty-gritty to get an extension done with less than two weeks to go till the trade deadline.
“That’s always been my ultimate goal,” said Sweeney. “We’ve had negotiations with Brad and communications with him throughout the year. We’ll have to have a conversation now that 4 Nations is over, sit down with Brad and his representatives and have a clearer path in the next two weeks as to what his final outcome will be.”
So how did the Bruins find themselves here after having high expectations? As Sweeney pointed out, some players didn’t get off to great starts and now the depth is lacking with the loss of McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm. Initially when Joe Sacco was installed in November, the B’s started to play better defensively but in late January, early February they started to “chase offense” and as a result started playing more “porously.” Sweeney said he wouldn’t address the coaching situation until the offseason.
And while this underachievement cannot be pinned on one player, it’s clear that Sweeney has not gotten the impact from Elias Lindholm he expected when he gave him a seven-year, $54.25 million contract last summer, making him the team’s second highest paid forward after David Pastrnak. He has 11-19-30 totals in 58 games. While Sweeney defended parts of the center’s game, he conceded there was some “mutual disappointment.”
“Elias got off to a slower start. It started in training camp when he wasn’t 100 percent healthy. Didn’t find the continuity with a couple of different linemates but has settled in and done a good job overall of being more of a matchup (centerman). It frees up Pavel (Zacha) and David to be a little more offensively tilted with zone starts and such. It’s going to show up in your production. It shows up in everybody’s when you’re in the matchup role and you’re getting defensive zone started,” said Sweeney. “Penalty killing-wise, he’s been as advertised. Our power play overall hasn’t been very effective. It’s not on one man. Ultimately it’s on the five-man unit to improve. He’s taken ownership. To his credit, he’s taken ownership that he hasn’t had the overall year that he’d like to. I think he’s had an uptick in terms of how his play has been and we expect more. It’s a mutual disappointment at his point in terms of how he’d like to perform, but he’s not going to stop trying and improve and acclimating to our roster. He’s owned that, and that’s good on him.”….
As for the 4 Nations Faceoff in general, Sweeney may not be happy he’s lost his best defenseman for the time being but understands it’s the nature of the business.
“The injuries are generally unfortunate and going to happen (with) the high stakes that you quickly realize, the pace of play,” said Sweeney, who served as GM for Team Canada. “It was a terrific event. The players were so invested from the very onset. It was an incredible opportunity personally to be amongst those players and the staff I had a chance to work with, the coaches I had a chance to work. And the NHL did a terrific job and the fans supported the hell out of it across everywhere. It elevated the attention for watching hockey for a lot of different reasons but mostly because the quality of play was at such an elite level.”…
Sweeney said Fabian Lysell and Georgii Merkulov could get more looks if their play warrants it.
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