There was one transaction that was worse that took place in November 2022
In sports, often times we are a prisoner of the moment. Especially in the age of social media where our attention span has never been shorter than in any given time in human history. The only thing shorter than our attention span is the insatiable desire to react to the latest storyline in sports, especially when it comes to a former player or a coach. There is no place where it rings more true than in Boston, a sports media market that thrives on negativity, pessimistic thinking, and dare I say contrived sports talk on both television and radio.
On Tuesday night's edition of "Boston Sports Tonight" on NBC Sports Boston, host Michael Holley and Mike Felger discussed former Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy winning the Stanley Cup in his first year as the new head coach of the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Felger and Holley were less than pleased with the Boston Bruins firing Cassidy a year ago.
"It starts with the players. They're the ones that go him fired, the management that cow tows too much to the players, went along with it, and it all blew up in their face" Felger said. "They didn't like this guy because he was too mean".
Holley followed up Felger's statement by saying "In the 21st century, this is the worst transaction in Bruins history".
This is where the problem begins with this assessment.
The Bruins had their reasons as to why they fired Cassidy after the 2021-2022 season. In sports no matter how good a coach is, at some point the message with go stale in the locker room. The ability to connect with players goes awashed, leading to an organization making a change at head coach.
One year later, Bruce Cassidy wins the Stanley Cup in his first year as the head coach of the Las Vegas Golden Knights where the players and organization bought into the message and the system that he implimented. There was no guarantee that Cassidy was going to have immediate success, let alone win the Stanley Cup in his first year as head coach of the Golden Knights.
The Bruins players are not to completely blame nor is it fair to blame the organization for its decision to move on from Cassidy. The one thing that is not fair or accurate is to say that firing Cassidy was the worst transaction in the history of the Boston Bruins in the 21st century. This is as exaggerated of a statement one can make regarding the worst transaction by the Bruins in the 21st century.
If we going to be brutally honest here, this is the same organization that signed controversial defenseman Mitchell Miller on November 4th, 2022 after it was learned that Miller and another classmate were charged in an Ohio Juvenile Court for assaulting Isaiah Meyer-Crothers. The incident included Miller tricking Meyer-Crothers into licking a piece of candy that had been wiped in a urinal. This is the same organization that traded Joe Thornton in November 2005 to the San Jose Sharks for forwards Marco Sturm, Wayne Primeau, and defenseman Brad Stuart. This is the same organization that traded Tyler Seguin after the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals, botched the 2015 NHL draft with three consecutive first round draft picks (although Jake DeBrusk has become a better player this past season), among other woeful transactions.
Firing Cassidy was not the worst transaction in the history of the Bruins in the 21st century by a long shot. It is so important to remember to put everything into proper context and perspective when discuss bad moves by an organization.