Sweeney said he has no long-term concerns regarding the health of Brad Marchand, who underwent double hip surgery earlier this offseason. In fact, Sweeney said, he expects the winger to rebound quite strongly from the procedure.
"We know what he had, where he's going," said Sweeney. "How well he's feeling, having done both sides - the stuff he's dealt with to play every night, I think mentally he's going to be in a much better place. Physically, they'll allow the time for it to heal and he'll be fine.
"We won't have any resurfacing or things like that creep into long-term care. He had several procedures done. It's been done for a lot of guys, and in Brad's mind, he wanted to do both at the same time. I don't think they needed to be done, they could have staggered it - but in his mind, he's like just let me get this over with and be one hundred percent on the inside.
"We'll allow all the necessary time for him to be 100 percent."
Sweeney was not yet sure if the club will utilize long-term injured reserve for Marchand or any other of the B's that are expected to miss time early in the 2022-23 season, including blue liners Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk.
"It depends on what we do in the next couple of days, if we add [in free agency]," said Sweeney. "It's not ideal, but it exists for us because we've got significant money [injured], but we do have to prepare for them coming back."