Sweeney still trying to 'learn and grow' 10 years after becoming Bruins GM

BOSTON -- Don't worry, Don Sweeney has heard it before.

He's heard it from the Boston Bruins fans, fans that rarely pull their punches, and who still struggle to let go of the 2015 NHL Draft.

He's heard it from his boss too.

"Cam [Neely] and the Jacobs family are very supportive of what the goals are," Sweeney said. "Sometimes, as Mr. Jacobs would say, the execution needs to be better. And that's matter of fact. I actually appreciate that line."

How many times has he said that, exactly?

"There's a fair amount," Sweeney said. "To me, there's nothing wrong with that. I felt that way as a player, where you go out and you feel responsible when you don't execute."

Sweeney is entering his 10th season as general manager of the Boston Bruins, a tenure that has had its share of ups and downs, its share of gently worded rebukes from the owner, its share of successes. There have been record-setting regular seasons and a trip to the 2019 Stanley Cup Final. There have been steals in the draft and significant misses.

There has also been what is ultimately his hardest task, transitioning from the last of the cohort who won the Stanley Cup in 2011 under his predecessor, Peter Chiarelli -- with Sweeney on staff as an assistant general manager -- to a new generation, a generation that can stand on its own.

At this point, with the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci last summer, only one player remains from 2011, captain Brad Marchand. There are new leaders in Charlie McAvoy, in Charlie Coyle, in Brandon Carlo, all of whom were drafted or acquired under Sweeney's tenure. There is a Stanley Cup Playoff-tested goalie of the present and future in Jeremy Swayman, who was selected by Sweeney in the fourth round of the 2017 NHL Draft.

And there is hope that the Bruins can pull off a magic trick, avoid a rebuild or retool or reset, and keep right on chugging. They will continue that effort this week, when Sweeney leads the team at the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft in Las Vegas, with the first round on Friday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS) and Rounds 2-7 on Saturday (11:30 a.m. ET; NHLN, ESPN+, SN, SN1, SN+). His 10th try at the NHL Draft comes after a season when the Bruins overachieved, reaching Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Second Round before falling to the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.

To that end, Sweeney made a move Monday, trading away the other half of his two-headed goalie duo, sending former Vezina Trophy-winner Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for the No. 25 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, forward Mark Kastelic and goalie Joonas Korpisalo. The pick -- which was originally Boston’s and has been traded twice, to the Detroit Red Wings, to the Senators, and back to the Bruins – marks the first time since 2021 that the Bruins have held a first-round pick and the third in the past eight drafts.

Before the trade – which drew its fair share of criticism, particularly for the acquisition of Korpisalo’s four-year contract – the Bruins had only three choices, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds. They now have that first-round selection and money to spend, with about $24 million in space under the NHL salary cap heading into free agency.

"When you're giving up picks and prospects to try and win, the talent pool gets thin, your cupboards get bare and you've got to find ways to restock that," said Neely, the Bruins president, in a sit-down with NHL.com earlier this season. "I think our group and Don has done a good job with that. But really, everybody wants to win. So, if you don't win, those people are going to be unhappy."

It is, after all, an Original Six franchise, a legacy fan base, with diehards going back generations. There is scrutiny and there are demands, from the fans on up to the owner. And in his nine-plus years as GM of the Bruins, and his two decades with the club before that, no one knows that better than Sweeney.

"The fact that he's played in that market, he's able to tune out the noise, that was one of the things that you had to learn," Chiarelli said. "You had to tune out a lot of the noise because there's always critical people, whatever you do. But that's Boston. They know their sports. There's that criticism [when you fail] and that praise when you succeed."

He laughed.

"One thing about Boston that Don got to know and I got to know when I worked there is that they always want more," Chiarelli said. "It's never quite enough, but you get used to it."

* * * *

No one can say that Sweeney did not know what he was getting into in Boston. The native of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, has spent his entire career in Massachusetts, save for a single year with the Dallas Stars. He went to Harvard, played 1,052 of his 1,115 NHL games for the Bruins before spending a year away from hockey working in admissions at Phillips Academy.

It was when Chiarelli was going through the interview process with the Bruins in 2006 that he reached out to Sweeney, who had been a teammate at Harvard. The two had kept in touch over the years, including once when Chiarelli, then the Senators GM, tried to sign him as a player.

Sweeney was intrigued.

"I knew at the end of the day he'd be in management because he's one of those guys that kind of sits and looks at the big picture and he's very deliberate and organized in planning," Chiarelli said. "I saw it in college. You see that when you talk to him. He lays out his thoughts quite clearly."

When Sweeney came on board, he identified what he didn't know and set out to change that.

"He was green," Chiarelli said. "And he recognized he was green."

Chiarelli gave him sole control of the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League and their then-coach, Bruce Cassidy. He told him to deal with the issues, to put out the fires, to come to him only if something was big.

"He was able to cut his teeth with an NHL-caliber coach and that really helped him," Chiarelli said. "He learned there's a lot to managing, more than just procuring players. You've got to manage personalities and [what stood out] was the fact that he was willing to learn.

"Like, here's a guy, 1,000 games [played in the NHL] and he's willing to roll up his sleeves and learn and he's a fast learner."

Cassidy, for his part, has seen all sides of Sweeney. They worked together in those early years, before Sweeney was promoted to the top job and, in turn, promoted Cassidy, when he opted to let go of Cup-winning coach Claude Julien on Feb. 7, 2017. Then, after a first-round exit in 2022, Sweeney fired Cassidy – who went on to win the Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights the next season.

"Very driven, motivated hockey guy," Cassidy said of Sweeney. "One of the most hard-working guys I've been around in the business in terms of seeing players, being involved with the team. … A lot of interaction, good guy to bounce ideas off. Nothing but good things to say about Don."

Cassidy praised the job that Sweeney has done in Boston, acknowledging the role it had in his career, getting his second chance at an NHL job after a brief cameo as a head coach with the Washington Capitals from 2002-04.

The two didn't always agree, but they could always work it out, come back to the table, sort through their thoughts and ideas and, as Cassidy put it, "do what's best for the crest."

It's what he's still trying to do now.

* * * *

Sweeney was given an unenviable task this season: Remain competitive despite the losses of Bergeron and Krejci, despite the $4.5 million in bonus overages related to their contracts, despite losing forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno and defenseman Dmitry Orlov last summer to free agency and trades.

He answered with a slew of low-cost signings. He added James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Shattenkirk, Milan Lucic, Morgan Geekie and Parker Wotherspoon, signed Danton Heinen, who had 36 points and 17 goals, for $775,000 on Oct. 30 after he came in on a professional tryout agreement, and he was restrained at the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, adding Andrew Peeke and Patrick Maroon, in a bridge year that no one wanted to call a bridge.

"We knew it would be a work in progress, I mean that's the best way to describe it," Sweeney said in a sit-down with NHL.com in late March.

The Bruins were left in a "hybrid" space, as Sweeney described it, still hoping to hit on the next Bergeron in the draft, but also trying to make shrewd low-cost moves, whether through free agency or trades. It's a place that Neely likes to call a "retool," something they did last summer, just as they did back in 2015-16 when Sweeney got the job and the Bruins got themselves back on a run of eight consecutive trips to the postseason after a two-year absence.

They finished the regular season with 109 points, fourth best in the Eastern Conference, tied for sixth in the NHL, and just five shy of the Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers. It continued with a hard-fought, hard-won seven-game series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, in which the Bruins nearly gave up a 3-1 series lead.

But they have to build on it. They want to build on it.

That starts now.

"You can survive with some roster blips knowing that your goaltending is good," Chiarelli said. "So they've filled in a lot of the holes well and you survive. He's done that. He recognizes that they're trying to win and they're trying to transition. That's a difficult task, and they've done a good job of it."

The Bruins last played for the Stanley Cup in 2019, a scant five years ago, but lost in the Eastern Conference Second Round in the two seasons following that run, and in the first round in the two seasons following those, before this season.

That Final still rankles Sweeney, still drives him, as he strives to fashion a team worthy of winning a Cup.

Asked about his hardest moment on the job, Sweeney doesn't hesitate.

"Losing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final," he said. "Did you do enough? You just -- that one's in your bones."

More than in 2022-23, when the Bruins lost in the first round after a record-setting regular season, with the most wins and points in NHL history?

"They're all different," he said. "Every year is different. Last year is a hard one to unwind as to why. You start to second-guess a lot of things at that stage. In Game 7, you're just so close. And then you start to think about Vancouver (in 2011) feeling the exact same way."

That victory, the seven-game win against the Vancouver Canucks, is now 13 years ago, long enough that the players on that team have moved on to second stages of their careers, to front offices themselves, to coaching, to the Hall of Fame.

But it's what Sweeney is trying to replicate in Boston – as are all the GMs in the NHL – to scale the mountain, to get back to the Final, to do it without the pain of a downturn.

"The ultimate goal is to try and win and I spent 10 years in those other roles trying to complement what was in place and the people around me, learn and grow, trying to win then, and I don't think it's any different at this stage," he said.

"People talk about five-year plans and whatever the case is. When I first got the job, we had a vision of where we had to get back to. And you know that there's a balancing act. But I think we've done a decent job of being highly competitive and that's what are goals are, ultimately, to win."

* * * *

It is easy to debate Sweeney's career in Boston, the highlights and the lowlights, the successes and failures, and many of the Bruins faithful do. But it's also possible that Sweeney started from behind, with one of his most difficult moments, putting him into a hole that it's been tough to climb out of, especially in the court of public opinion. That was the 2015 NHL Draft, which arrived barely a month after he was named GM.

It's the swing-and-miss few days that contained both some of Sweeney's finest work -- trading Lucic for Martin Jones, Colin Miller and a first-round draft choice -- and some of his most panned, the draft itself. Had Sweeney made different picks – swapped Jakub Zboril and Zach Senyshyn for, say, Mathew Barzal or Kyle Connor or Thomas Chabot or Brock Boeser or Travis Konecny – his entire career in Boston might have taken on a different cast.

"That was a little unfair to Don," said Neely, who has been president of the team since June 16, 2010, and who has been clear that he does not micromanage Sweeney. "Based on when we went through the interview process for the next GM, by the time we made a decision on Don, it was probably on us a little bit too. It was mid-May or something like that. Until you really understand that you're going to be the one calling the shots at the draft, you're not really focused on, 'OK, if it's my decision, what am I doing?'

"To be honest with you, I think he did everything right getting three first-round picks in that draft and how he acquired them. And then we were trying to move up and it just was too expensive in our eyes to move up as many spots as we wanted to."

That, in some ways, crowds out some of the impressive work that Sweeney has done, with college free agents, with goaltending -- drafting Swayman in the fourth round in 2017 and signing Ullmark, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2022-23 – with trades for Pavel Zacha, Hampus Lindholm and Coyle, with the draft choices that have worked out, like McAvoy and Carlo, all parts of the team's present and its future.

"'Sweens' is one of those guys that thinks a lot and thinks deeply about his next move," said Julien, who coached the Bruins from 2007-17. "So it's never a knee-jerk decision. I've been impressed with the way he's filled his roster over the years in trying to replace key players. Kudos to the way, the system, because that certainly helps, but for Sweens, he's got to find the players that can play that way."

That has been part of the storyline in Boston for years, with frequent references made to the Bruins' culture, to a mien that has been handed down from one player to the next, one generation to the next, from Zdeno Chara to Bergeron to Marchand. That that is the reason they have won and kept on winning, as they have lost players and transitioned and become a wholly new team.

"I think the core of your hockey team is so important, but you've got to have the right core that is willing to play the way the Bruins play and compete," Julien said. "I think so far that they've been able to do that."

That success belies the difficulty of locating those players, getting their buy-in, again and again. It is notable too that the biggest of missteps in that vein from Sweeney – the Nov. 2022, decision to sign Mitchell Miller, a prospect who was convicted of racist bullying and who had already had his draft status revoked by Arizona Coyotes after they picked him in the 2020 NHL Draft – ended up reversed after an outcry by the Bruins players, who were clear that he did not fit with the culture that had been built in Boston.

"You have to realize that a job is difficult and, no matter how prepared you think you are, you're not and you have to learn by making some mistakes, unfortunately," Sweeney said, not speaking specifically about Miller. "And trying to improve in those areas that you did fumble and hope that you get enough rope to survive. Fortunately, I've got people that have believed in me and our organization to try and accomplish them."

* * * *

There were many who believed that the Bruins might not even make the playoffs this season, given the losses of Bergeron and Krejci, the little cap space that Sweeney had left. And yet, the Bruins nearly won their second straight Presidents' Trophy, eventually falling to the second spot in the Atlantic and a date with the Maple Leafs.

That they made it to the second round, which they failed to do the record-setting season prior, was far from a lock.

"It's always easy to criticize general managers for things," Julien said. "But in this case here, I think it's hard to criticize a guy who continues to keep his team competitive and not just competitive, but one of the top teams in the League every year."

And he is getting accolades outside of Boston too, being named the GM for Canada for the upcoming 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and an assistant GM for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.

"Incredibly prepared. Incredibly hard-working. Incredibly bright," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. "I think when he gets home, he sleeps in that Iron Man outfit because he probably only needs an hour of sleep a day and then he comes out and he just starts running. He's a beast.

"I'm amazed at the man. The job he does, just look at our lineup. No one thought we would be the team we are. I think not enough credit goes to him."

Does he care about the credit? Does he care about that uneasy relationship with the fans?

Does he feel he's reached a détente?

"You always care," Sweeney said. "No matter how you might deflect, you always care. It's a polarizing job. Far harder than if you got a chance to play. And you lose one night, you go out and do your damnedest to win the next and make them proud of you.

"The wheel turns slower here and every decision is scrutinized. It's just harder. The job is harder. Unless you win, I don't know whether or not you're ever going to…"

He trails off.

"But, again, I'm not going to stop," he said. "Ultimately, I've been put in a position, earned a position so to speak. I want to do it to the best of my ability and if I can't, then the proof will be in the pudding."

NHL.com columnist Nicholas J. Cotsonika contributed to this report