Don Sweeney’s Contract With Bruins Is Yet To Be Extended

Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney confirmed to the media Wednesday that his contract with the team has yet to be extended.

Sweeney did however, indicate that a resolution should be reached soon.

“I’m under contract for right now. I’ve had a discussion earlier in the year in terms of the indication of where my path will be and that will be determined in short order.”

This Friday will mark seven years since Don Sweeney succeeded former Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli, who led the franchise to their sixth and only Stanley Cup since 1972. At the time, Sweeney and team President Cam Neely stated that they were committed to gaining cap flexibility for the Bruins and getting them back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs after missing the postseason for the first time since the 2006-07 season. The Boston Bruins missed the playoffs the following two seasons but have made the dance every season since under Sweeney’s watch. They have also gone 313-162-61 during his eight seasons at the managerial helm of the stories Original 6 franchise.

With Sweeney as their GM, the Boston Bruins have lost in the first round twice (2017, 2022), three times in the second round (2018, 2020, 2021) and once in the Stanley Cup Final, in the heart-breaking Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Final.

Sweeney also won the 2019 Jim Gregory General Manager of the year award following that Cup appearance.

After Sweeney was able to pull off another high impact trade at the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline, when he acquired defenseman Hampus Lindholm from the Anaheim Ducks, the team had even higher expectations to get back to the Cup Final but they ran into a buzzsaw in the Carolina Hurricanes and lost in seven games, unable to win one game at PNC Arena in Raleigh.

“We’re not playing and we’re disappointed,” Sweeney said in the season-ending press conference Wednesday. “Ultimately, how we performed throughout the series. …good pockets to it and I’m sure we can get into the nuances, but I mean ultimately we’re disappointed we’re not playing. So, we have to look internally first and foremost at areas that we need to improve. That falls on me and player personnel and we’re going to implement internally and properly so all those things have to be evaluated and they will be.”

In fact, Sweeney said that process has already begun and that they’re using the experience of last offseason to move forward.

We’re in that process already and then going back to the coaches, how do we continue to make the necessary tweaks, implementing the personnel that we have brought in? I think we did a pretty good job last year of really attacking some of the areas. …we have a lot of players that have left the organization in the last three years that have been big parts. You’re talking about Tuukka, you’re talking about Krejci, you’re talking about players that have been here a while and helped us win. So replacing those players, and implementing those players, you saw a little bit of that in the first part of the season. We had some new faces and people were figuring out where they were going to fit in and Bruce [Cassidy] and his staff figured out what impacts they were going to make.”