Looking back, I feel like Chiarelli BOMBED the past offseason going into this season. Financially, the Bruins had enough money coming off the books to be decent players in the FA/Trade market, and arguably ended up a worse team than last year.
We did not make a substantial addition, and lost Ryder, Recchi to boot. Seguin is a completely different player, but he was on the team last year and so while you may say he replaced Ryder, who replaced Seguin and his ability, albeit a rookie, to be able to make a play?
Corvo may be an upgrade to Kaberle, but that's not saying much. Taking a flier on a guy like Sheldon Souray to help out the PP, or a cheap 6th guy like Scott Hannon or MA Bergeron, maybe making a play for Ian White. I think he could have done better than Corvo and finding a 7th dman aside from Kampfer.
Offensively is where he REALLY screwed up though. He lost Recchi and Ryder, both 20 goal scorers we will call them. Both played great in the playoffs and he replaced them with Benoit Pouliot. Which is a fine signing if you want to take a low-risk high reward flier on a guy who could replace what Seguin did last year. But he didn't make a play for a forward.
Chiarelli opted to play it safe instead of making a splash (Det signed Hossa after cup appearance). He could have made a play for Gagne, maybe did something epic and signed Jagr to play with Krejc (1 year deal, low risk).
I know it wasn't the best offseason player wise, but there were a few moves he could have done, maybe explored trade market more. I was disappointed in July/August and aside from that one stretch, the team has been putrid for most of the season.
Boston sports fans have the attention span of a Ritalin-deprived gnat.
Did he bomb the offseason? Because he should have anticipated that Horton, Peverley, Paille, Bergeron, Rask, and Chara would be hurt at the same time? No team survives that, especially one that isnt built to have an established superstar up front.
Pouliot-Ryder was basically a push for most of the year until Horton and Pevs went down.
Seguin replaced Recchi's production on line 2.
Corvo was a bust for sure, but no worse than Kaberle was on the cup winning team.
The rest of the team was literally the same. Not Chiarelli's fault that Horton got cheapshotted(with no punishment to boot) and everyone else had to slide up a line, followed by Peverley destroying his knee, moving everyone up a line again, so that what began as a solid third line with Kelly having a career year is now Brian ****ing Rolston and Jordan Caron holding Kelly back.
The season hit the fan when Marchand got suspended for his clean hit on Salo, since then the lines have been jumbled and we haven't had our real lineup. By the time he got back, Horton got destroyed and now we're not going to have our real lineup for the rest of the year it seems.
Regardless of those injuries, he still did not improve the team. His team had ZERO depth incase of injuries.
Agreed, then we had to look in the bargan bin for guys like Mottau and Rolston. But I still don't think Chiarelli blew this off-season, I have spent more money this year on Bruins stuff than ever before
I support his moves. He got guys that could play and he didn't over pay for them. He kept the core together and set himself up to have plenty of cap space at the deadline. The team that he built to start this season has been proven to be able to dominate this league. He couldn't anticipate the high amount of injuries that have hit the team, nor could he anticipate how horrible the market would be at the deadline.
Now, looking at next year, we'll have a spot on the blueline for Dougie, who will be a huge upgrade over Corvo, Caron will have another year of expirience under his belt, and will be able to take Pouliot's spot, and we'll have cap space to sign some veterans for depth. We'll also have Knight and Spooner in Providence to fill in for injuries.
Chiarelli and his moves have been anything but a problem for this team.
So they went from deepest team in the league to no depth simply by swapping Ryder for Pouliot?
and they lost their veteran presence in recchi. recchi was important to our anemic powerplay last year and ryder, despite being complacent at times, is still much better than pouliot.
Coming into the season, the 3rd line looked weak. That was the time to make a move for a depth guy. The deadline it is obvious prices were to high to consider any moves. I'm not overly upset about the lack of moves in the off season. I would have liked to see us spend more of the cap. However to be honest, you can only plan for so many injuries. I honestly think the blame right now falls on the development system in Providence. Something is seriously wrong there, not a single player from that team is capable of seeing NHL ice.
and they lost their veteran presence in recchi. recchi was important to our anemic powerplay last year and ryder, despite being complacent at times, is still much better than pouliot.
Lost their veteran presence? They all won the Cup, the days of needing to billet Seguin are over.
The PP is middle of the road, which is WAY better than last year.
Ryder was "complacent" (aka invisible) for way too long to earn more than a one-year deal. Pouliot, I was never a fan of. But I'm sure glad they didn't commit to a Joel Ward contract.
Now, looking at next year, we'll have a spot on the blueline for Dougie, who will be a huge upgrade over Corvo, Caron will have another year of expirience under his belt, and will be able to take Pouliot's spot, and we'll have cap space to sign some veterans for depth. We'll also have Knight and Spooner in Providence to fill in for injuries.
Who cares about Dougie Hamilton's 'spot'? He shouldn't have a 'spot', Hamilton needs to earn it. Fans create ‘spots’ for prospects, but it’s the worst mistake a general manger can make.
There should be zero expectations for prospects and if they succeed it gives you something extra and assets to trade, if they have growing pains it won’t affect the team. Example: Marchand started last year as the 13th forward/fourth line and earned his ice time making Blake Wheeler expendable and Adam McQuaid made Mark Stuart expendable.
If Hamilton makes this team next year and expectations are he becomes an everyday NHL defenceman, score 20+ point’s and play better defence than Corvo, that’s highly dubious. When Corvo walks I want Chiarelli to sign someone who can help this team and build this team as if Hamilton doesn’t exist.
Injuries happen and if Hamilton is the 7th defencemen next year he will play some games and get his chance. Hell if he does well who knows, maybe we can dangle that FA pick up, McQuaid, Ference, Boychuk etc during the trade deadline for a big pick up. If we put Hamilton in Corvo’s spot and he doesn’t do well, the Bruins are in the position again to acquire assets. It is always better to be in a position to trade assets deemed as surplus than acquire assets. This year we had no surplus assets and couldn’t trade for needs, but if Chiarelli did a better job addressing those needs in the off season we wouldn’t be in this position.
When healthy this team is more than capable to fight for another cup, with that being said, is this team worst than last year? yes, no doubt.
They should have had a plan b for Horton, and no, bumping Peverley is not what im talking about. Im talking about getting another top 6 player. But maybe the deal was not out there i dont know.
Team relys on the 4 lines, the third is already worst than last year as it is, if you lose one top guy all depth goes to hell because suddenly you dont have one of those lines. And in the proccess Peverley went down too.
The other key is goaltending and right now we dont have that. I just hope TimvezinaThomas is back for the playoffs.
The trades were pretty brutal aswell but i dont think Chia could have done much there.
No he did not, he sacrificed this year to make us a perennial contender in the near future. We had so many contracts running out and it wouldn't have made sense to keep them all.
Look at our payroll and cap-space...we are in a dream-situation after this year. We are basically able to keep our core very easily with enough ammo left to bring in some expensive weapons from the FA-market.
Can't win every year, need to keep the focus on the future, especially in a cap-world.
Nope. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
True. Chemistry was a major reason this team overachieved and won the Cup. If he had made major changes then people would be freaking out that he ruined a good thing. He basically played things smart and tried to keep as many pieces as possible, while adding some affordable players to fill any gaps. There is no way he could have foreseen an injury to Tuukka, several key players getting fairly severe injuries, and a defensive meltdown. In pro sports a lot of things rely on luck. Last year the luck was with us. This year not so much. Of course, the playoffs have not even started, and we still have time to pull our act together and get healthy.
Did Chia bomb this past off-season? Looking back, I feel like Chiarelli BOMBED the past off-season going into this season. Financially, the Bruins had enough money coming off the books to be decent players in the FA/Trade market, and arguably ended up a worse team than last year...
It's probably just as well. Given all of the injuries, what difference would it have made?
wait until the playoffs, everyone keeps on saying this isn't our year, that's ********. lets see if everyone can get healthy. if we do, then i think we have a good of a chance as anyone.
No he did not, he sacrificed this year to make us a perennial contender in the near future. We had so many contracts running out and it wouldn't have made sense to keep them all.
Look at our payroll and cap-space...we are in a dream-situation after this year. We are basically able to keep our core very easily with enough ammo left to bring in some expensive weapons from the FA-market.
Can't win every year, need to keep the focus on the future, especially in a cap-world.
This x1000. When teams get into cap/roster trouble it's usually because of impatient stuff they did a year or two prior. Chiarelli (very wisely IMO) has an eye on 2013 and beyond, and apparently was/is wary of the cap decreasing. He clearly has a plan to keep this core together and challenge for the cup for years to come.
Go to capgeek.com and look down the ENTIRE list of contracts there for the Bruins. I defy you to find ONE obviously bad contract, either in terms of years or dollars. You pretty much can't (and injuries to Savard or Horton don't make those bad contracts). All of those sarcastic posts mocking Chiarelli for "evaluating," "capologist," and "Harvard - tee-hee-hee" when the Bruins were up against the wall with respect to the cap look pretty silly about now.
The Bruins are not one of those teams who has some limited window that needs to be capitalized on. Their window is about as open as any teams in the league as far as I'm concerned. Look at the ages of the top 6 (when healthy) - 19, 26, 23, 25, 23, 26. And a future franchise goaltender aged 24. And all signed, or signable, through at least 2014. That is unheard of. And THAT ability to keep this young core together will be due in large part to him "bombing" this past offseason. And before somebody mocks this top-6 as being somehow substandard, I would argue that for 3 of 'em (Seguin, Lucic and Marchand) we have not even seen their best. Players who are this young do get better....a whole lot better in some cases.
Yeah, this season has been rough of late and Chiarelli's decisions may very well be part of the cause, but you don't get to call that "bombing" like there was zero upside to those decisions. Even with a first round exit or some other kind of epic collapse this year, I for one appreciate how this offseason and trade deadline were handled, because I think it sets this team up nicely for seasons to come.
This x1000. When teams get into cap/roster trouble it's usually because of impatient stuff they did a year or two prior. Chiarelli (very wisely IMO) has an eye on 2013 and beyond, and apparently was/is wary of the cap decreasing. He clearly has a plan to keep this core together and challenge for the cup for years to come.
Go to capgeek.com and look down the ENTIRE list of contracts there for the Bruins. I defy you to find ONE obviously bad contract, either in terms of years or dollars. You pretty much can't (and injuries to Savard or Horton don't make those bad contracts). All of those sarcastic posts mocking Chiarelli for "evaluating," "capologist," and "Harvard - tee-hee-hee" when the Bruins were up against the wall with respect to the cap look pretty silly about now.
The Bruins are not one of those teams who has some limited window that needs to be capitalized on. Their window is about as open as any teams in the league as far as I'm concerned. Look at the ages of the top 6 (when healthy) - 19, 26, 23, 25, 23, 26. And a future franchise goaltender aged 24. And all signed, or signable, through at least 2014. That is unheard of. And THAT ability to keep this young core together will be due in large part to him "bombing" this past offseason. And before somebody mocks this top-6 as being somehow substandard, I would argue that for 3 of 'em (Seguin, Lucic and Marchand) we have not even seen their best. Players who are this young do get better....a whole lot better in some cases.
Yeah, this season has been rough of late and Chiarelli's decisions may very well be part of the cause, but you don't get to call that "bombing" like there was zero upside to those decisions. Even with a first round exit or some other kind of epic collapse this year, I for one appreciate how this offseason and trade deadline were handled, because I think it sets this team up nicely for seasons to come.
I agree if they can sign a Zach Parise/Ryan Suter. But if they do the same this offseason, I will disagree.
