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The writing was on the wall, but the optimists, this columnist included, refused to believe it.
For the past several weeks, it appeared that the Boston Bruins would make no real serious offer to retain Bill Guerin, an All-Star winger who had accounted for 69 goals in a Boston uniform since coming over to the team from Edmonton nearly 20 months ago. Last night those ominous warnings of an imminent split between the Black 'n' Gold and one of its top players became a reality when the former standout with the Springfield Jr. Olympics and Boston College Eagles, a player who won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 1995, signed with the Dallas Stars of all teams, a team with an owner who thinks nothing of throwing his cash around in the pursuit of winning championships.
As the United States celebrates its 226th birthday on July 4th, many of the team's supporters are demanding answers for the lack of accountability that lead to Guerin's departure amidst some acrimonious comments about the team's non-efforts to keep him on board. The club's lack of activity in this latest round of NHL free agency has merely fueled the fires of discontent in Bruin Nation.
Guerin, a native of Wilbraham was arguably the most popular Bruin to play on the team since Ray Bourque left in March, 2000. Although nowhere near the dominant scorer and physical player of another power wing who roamed the right side for the Bruins, Cam Neely, Guerin was the closest thing to the former 50-goal sniper who retired prematurely with hip and knee problems at age 31 in 1996. Guerin may not have had Neely's natural ability or mean streak, but he nevertheless endeared himself to the local populace as a team leader and all-around good guy who went above and beyond the norm to take care of the fans when he wasn't pumping home goals to their delight. His departure to Dallas is much better than losing him to say the Philadelphia Flyers or New York Rangers, but the manner in which it has all come about reeks of the standard belief that Boston isn't an organization on the verge of serious contention, but one satisfied with being adequate at best.
The Bruins and GM Mike O'Connell are facing an aggressive fan base that has become convinced that the team will do nothing substantial this off-season, which is dangerous thing in the wake of losing the popular Guerin and cutting its man between the pipes for the past five seasons loose. O'Connell reportedly offered Guerin a two-year, $18 million contract on Saturday, but was rebuffed because the player's desire for term is said to be more important than the dollar amount on this deal. Now, Guerin has called that alleged offer "blatantly false," and asserted that the team never attached any kind of figure to the two-year deal it proposed to him.
Besides, from Guerin's perspective, accepting a short-term deal even for lucrative dollar amounts made zero sense, especially when Tom Hicks and his Dallas Stars dangled a five-year contract option in front of him. O'Connell knew he was in a game of high-stakes poker when he acquired Bill Guerin way back in November of 2000, and the questions about the signability of a player who had come to loggerheads over money with his two previous employers came up. The Boston GM insisted at the time that Guerin was a player who would fit into the team's plans and budget, but when faced with the usual suspects group of free-spenders in the NHL's upper economic hierarchy at present, O'Connell passed. He has drawn the ire of critics with his stance on not offering contracts beyond the current CBA, which has just two full seasons left. Beyond that, nobody knows how the league's salary structure will work, but to expect the NHLPA to simply accept a hard salary cap that would force the big spenders underneath it without some kind of grandfather clause seems shortsighted. Unfortunately for the Bruins and their fans, this is exactly the kind of approach that O'Connell is taking.
"We have to be careful about the personnel decisions we make right now, because the landscape could certainly change in 2004," O'Connell said before the start of the NHL free agent signing period which began at midnight on July 1st. "Our job is to remain competitive and not burden the club with extended deals for big money that might hurt our chances to compete against the rest of the league. You don't want to handcuff your team with high-dollar, long-term deals if you believe that the system is due to change in the near future, so we have to take a measured approach to free agency and how we build on what we have already."
A lot of folks aren't buying that.
The time to sign Guerin was in the summer of 2001, when the club made a good offer, but it wasn't enough. The team could've upped the ante at that point, once Guerin came away with his one-year $5 million arbitration award, but didn't. Both sides rolled the dice this past season; Guerin gambled that he could have another big scoring year, while the Bruins hoped that Guerin's numbers would be good, but not so high that many other teams would covet him. Guerin won, and is walked away with not only a long-term deal, but one that puts him into the upper stratosphere for NHL salaries. Smart or not, that is the current "landscape" of the NHL in 2002, to coin an "O'Connell-ism" so to speak. The Bruins waited to see what would happen in 2001-2002, and as a result, they peddled the 28-year old Anson Carter and two impressive prospects in Ales Hemsky and Doug Lynch for the right to suit Guerin up for 100-plus games and 69 goals. That isn't exactly what you would call a great return on a significant investment.
Now, with Guerin skating along in Big D, the Bruins will have to figure out how they replace the offense gone from the right side. Regardless of who comes in to take Guerin's place, the team has taken a huge PR hit over this one. Perhaps the only two names that would appease the ticket buyers are Hingham's own Tony Amonte, a blazing speedster who would create more balance to Boston's front six, or Teemu Selanne, the gifted but intensity-challenged San Jose winger who would certainly fill the offensive void left by the departed Guerin, but isn't nearly as fiery or gritty. Either way, folks aren't happy about losing Guerin given what it took to acquire him, and the fact that barely after the ink had dried on the press release, the pundits were questioning whether the team would be able to keep him.
As for Dafoe, his fate was decided back in June, when the Bruins made no effort to sign the veteran goalie who recently finished his fifth season with the team, posting a lackluster 10-14 career playoff record. Dafoe had talked about testing the free agency waters months prior, but the Bruins had the power to negotiate with him before the July 1st date, when other clubs were free to make pitches. That O'Connell chose not to speaks volumes for where Dafoe actually stands in the GM's eyes. Two days after the draft wrapped up in Toronto, the Bruins then made a deal to bring in the 30-year old Steve Shields, all but punching Dafoe's ticket out of town.
The Bruins would probably be willing to sign Dafoe for money comparable to what they are giving Shields ($1.2 million), but Dafoe would never go for that. Not in Boston at least, and why should he? To do so would be admitting that he never should've been paid the $3 million he got from the Bruins after his holdout three years ago, and that is one loss of face Dafoe's ego would never allow. From his perspective, it would probably be better to sit out a season of NHL play than return to Boston for peanuts and have to fight for a job. Besides, part of what got Shields to agree to an extension in Boston at such a bargain rate was the promise of a significant opportunity to earn the starter's job. If the Bruins brought Dafoe back into the fold, the net wouldn't be big enough for the both of them.
So, Bruins supporters everywhere have to kiss Guerin and Dafoe goodbye in the Black and' Gold and watch for them to appear back in the FleetCenter in the next few years wearing other teams' colors. How angry the fans get over this situation depends on what the Bruins to do compensate for the losses of two of the more popular players in recent years. Despite his lackluster playoff this spring, Dafoe still has a legion of supporters who insist he is among the top goalies in the league. It looks like he'll have to make his case for that honor elsewhere. Should Shields come in and make it look good with the spoked B on his chest, the Fleet faithful will quickly forget about Dafoe, just as the former Capital and King made them forget about fan favorite Andy Moog in his first two seasons back in 1997-98 and 1998-99.
As for some of the other big names available via the open market, the Bruins are rumored to be in the hunt for Selanne, but nothing is imminent. Most wanted Guerin back over any of the other forwards who are left on the market, but if Selanne were the consolation prize, fan discontent wouldn't be as high, provided that the Bruins can figure out how to upgrade their pedestrian defense.
Selanne isn't as versatile a player as Guerin is, but he is also only three seasons removed from winning the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the league's top goal-scorer. At age 32 (only a few months older than Guerin), he certainly has something left in the tank, and given the right situation, Selanne could flourish in Beantown under Robbie Ftorek's system. Since Mike O'Connell made no serious effort Bill Guerin to sign on the dotted line, he should do all he can to bring the "Finnish Flash" into the Hub. O'Connell faces a crucial time in his tenure as the mover and shaker and could take big strides towards making his team a legitimate contender or giant steps backwards to reinforce the theory that the franchise is not committed to winning. The Boston GM, who just signed a nice five-year extension himself, has done a good job as the primary decision-maker thus far, but this latest fumble with one of the team's most popular players has damaged his credibility. Remember- he said all along that he didn't acquire Guerin to simply let him move on when his contract expired. Nearly two years later, that is exactly what happened, and no second-round compensatory selection in the 2003 draft is going to be enough to remove the bad taste from this non-move by the Bruins.
So...what now?
Will the team go hard after the next best thing in Amonte, another local who has stated his desire to come home and play closer to his family on the East Coast? That Amonte has not yet signed on with anyone lends credence to what was rumored to have been said by Amonte to friends before the NHL draft in Toronto- that the former Chicago Blackhawk wanted to see whether the Bruins came to him with an offer before deciding his ultimate destination. Make no mistake: if O'Connell comes to Amonte with the same kind of two-year offer extended Guerin, the former high-flying scorer at Thayer Academy will not end up suiting up for the Bruins anytime soon. Beyond Amonte, the only other player left that would make the fans reasonably happy would be Selanne, who scored 76 goals as a rookie ten years ago and would certainly make a potential trio Joe Thornton and Sergei Samsonov one of the NHL's most lethal lines. Should O'Connell's answer be to enlist Scott Young, the one-time 40-goal man for St. Louis who appears to be on his last legs as a productive winger, you'll be able to hear the screaming from Chicopee to Revere.
"There are some players out there who we feel could really help the team," O'Connell said when asked about the free agent market. "Are we going to be active? I think you'll see some changes on our end, but we have to look at what we did this year and what it will take to make that next step. We look at who we have and how we need to get there. Beyond that, there isn't a whole lot more to say on the matter."
For the Bruins, it seems to be all about the money. Given the current climate of the NHL, it is understandable to not want to commit upwards of $9 million per year over five to one player, but other teams are doing it. When Boston fans see the Wings, Rangers and now Stars grabbing up the premium talent without regard to cost, they naturally want to see the Bruins get into the act as well. It's not as if the team can't afford to do it- it's a matter of them not wanting to. It's a rhetorical question to ask the average ticket-buying consumer in Boston if he or she was happy with second-place overall and a first-round playoff exit. Ask a Detroit fan if their high ticket prices at the Joe Louis Arena last season were worth it, and the answer you get is also straightforward. Winning makes all the difference, and if the ownership and management of the Boston Bruins would realize that by icing a product that the fans are willing to come out in droves to see, they'll still turn enough of a profit to be a successful franchise. Professional sports should be about winning, not making a buck. And instead of a rigid, slavish adherence to the bottom line, the GM should seek to maximize his assets, not waste them.
The biggest problem with seeing the team simply let someone like Bill Guerin go is that the Bruins gave up three assets to acquire him. You don't have to agree or disagree that $9 million per year was too much a price to pay for his services, but it has now meant that in looking at the Boston roster, there is nothing- not one iota of proof- that giving up a promising young center and two excellent prospects was actually worth it. Guerin, one player who seemed destined to wear the colors of the Boston Bruins, is now a former Bruin, and nothing- no amount of spin or rationale can change that. In a game that the team had to be willing to pay to play, they opted not to even seriously get involved. In doing so, they not only lost an integral part of the winning hockey franchise last season, but created one nasty little jam for the people who write the checks and pay the bills. Unless they decide to get back into the game and make some moves that actually help to improve the team, the Bruins can only take a step backward after losing a player like Guerin. Four other clubs in the league have all made strides to compete for the ultimate prize in hockey next season and regardless of the cost to do so, are looking good right now.
Does Mike O'Connell actually have a plan to keep his team in contention? Based on his inaction thus far- he doesn't. And the club that appears cares so much about the economics of the game may get a painful lesson in economics when it comes time for their season ticket renewals. Disgruntled fans in Boston have ways of making their displeasure known, and the empty, cavernous FleetCenter halls early last season before the team started in its winning ways may just be the start if the Bruins don't bring in a big name to take away the sting of losing one of its most productive and popular players in recent years.
So, if you happen to own a #13 or #34 Boston Bruins jersey, you might want to call up the folks over at eBay. Unlike the B's, if you can find the right buyer, you might actually get a good return on your investment.
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