Cam Neely On B's Trade Deadline Plans: 'We Still Want To Try To Improve Our Club'
Cam Neely joined Felger & Massarotti at the 98.5 The Sports Hub studio inside the TD Garden on Tuesday, hours before the puck dropped for the Bruins-Canucks game. The Bruins at least temporarily reverted back to positive play with their 6-2 win in Chicago on Sunday, and Neely said that marks two straight games where the team played well.
Still, obviously that's not satisfactory after the 1-2-2 road trip, and Neely was asked what happened to the team's compete level.
"It's a good question. I think when things aren't going as well, you start thinking too much and maybe try to do too many things, not being as reactionary, not getting back to the basics," Neely said. "And I think that's what this coaching staff has tried to do, just get everybody back to basics."
Neely said the Bruins played well in St. Louis but didn't quite get the result they wanted. That was, in large part, due to Malcolm Subban allowing three quick second-period goals. Despite the poor result, Neely said it was the right decision to give the 21-year-old a shot in an NHL game.
"We brought him up to play for a reason," Neely said. "We thought he was playing well in Providence, so we felt it was an opportunity to see where his game's at at the NHL level. I can't speak to the jitters. ... I would assume just based on experience, my first NHL game, I had jitters, so I would assume a goalie would probably have that more so."
Neely was asked about a Boston Globe report that characterized the team as jumpy and on edge. Neely said he disagrees with that description, but he does know that as the team continues to barely hang on to the final playoff spot in the East, everyone feels a certain pressure.
"I was on that trip for a while. I didn't get the sense that they were jumpy, stressed and unsettled," Neely said. "These guys are all professionals and they know what they have to do and what the expectations are of them."
"When Charlie [Jacobs] came out and said that we're all under review, he wants to see where the season plays out, and understandably so. ... We actually got a pretty decent January and then we reverted back these last handful of games more to where we were playing beforehand. The expectations here are high, and we all want them to be high. When you have a team of players that we have that we've felt that we can compete with, those expectations are going to be there. We have a fan base that's very passionate, they understand the game, they know the game and they follow the team very closely, so they have expectations when they come into the Garden or watch us play of how they want to see us play."
Peter Chiarelli mentioned that it's not necessarily fair to be judged off just one season. Does Neely agree?
"Well, I mean, sports is driven by what you did today and what are you going to do tomorrow? It's not so much what you did yesterday. That's just the nature of sports," Neely said, admitting that his own performance as president of the team is evaluated the same way. "If players have a down year, you talk about, 'OK, are they gonna regroup? Are they going to be better next year? Or do you have to make a decision?' I'm sure ownership and presidents in my position look at the same thing with management, and ownership looks at it with me.
"The same way you evaluate players, you have to evaluate everybody in the organization."
It's an environment which Neely enjoys.
"I don't mind pressure. I really don't. I had it as a player," Neely said. "I would hate for us to be in a situation where nobody's paying attention and no one cares. I would rather it be this way."
Seemingly every week, the Tyler Seguin trade from 2013 came up, and this week was no different. Felger asked Neely if he accepts responsibility if people are disappointed with the return in the Tyler Seguin deal.
"Yeah, I do. I was involved in the decision-making process, so, I would, if there's an element of our fan base, an element of our ownership that feels it was a mistake, then I'm partly responsible for that."
"It's a decision we made as an organization, feeling like it was the right thing to do to move Tyler, and what we got back is what the return was that we felt was the best return."
And as for trade deadline expectations, Neely said the Bruins will approach it the same way they always do.
"I believe our team is better than we're playing, our current team. Obviously with David out, that hurts. But if we have an opportunity to do something, and I know it's a broken record and I've said it every time we've talked this year. If there's an opportunity to improve our club, we're still going to do it. Regardless of who's in or out of the lineup, we still want to try to improve our club."
Neely was also asked how the team could manipulate the cap now that Kevan Miller and David Krejci are injured, and what's wrong with Dennis Seidenberg.
Listen to Neely's full conversation below:
