Toronto Maple Leafs: Ranking All 32 NHL General Managers
By Jeff Borsuk
The 8th Ranked GM – Don Sweeney (Boston Bruins)
For the last six years, Don Sweeney has been the general manager of the Boston Bruins. He has impressed in the role, even winning the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award for his work in the 2018-19 season. Sweeney was also the Assistant GM for the Bruins when they won the Cup in 2010-11.
The Good – Recognizing that Taylor Hall still had top six potential despite his poor play, Sweeney made a move for the winger at the 2020-21 trade deadline. It’s amazing that Sweeney wasn’t arrested for the transaction because he absolutely stole Hall for the price of Anders Bjork and a 2021 second-round pick. Not only did Sweeney get Hall in that one-sided transaction but he also received 26 year old Curtis Lazar.
The Bad – On opening day of free agency in 2016, Sweeney signed a big free agent who had eclipsed the 20-goal mark in each of his previous three seasons. He negotiated a five-year $30M contract with David Backes which included a no-movement clause for the first three years and a no conditional trade-clause for the final two seasons.
The contract, which paid Backes $6M per season, remains the third-highest AAV Sweeney’s ever given a player. It sits behind just David Pastrnak’s $6,666,667 and Brad Marchand’s $6,125,000 cap hits. Sweeney never came close to living up to his contract. He didn’t managed to score more than 17 goal in a season.
The Ugly – To get rid of Backes and rid the Bruins of the forward eating too much cap space, they managed to find a dance partner and sent him to the Ducks. Getting out of the contract wasn’t so simple, Sweeney had to also send a first-round pick and Axel Andersson. It’s too soon to know if the Bruins gave up a lot in the right-shooting defenseman as he spent this past season splitting time between playing in Sweden and for the Ducks AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls.
This trade wouldn’t have looked so bad for Sweeney if perhaps the player that Boston got back played to his potential, but that’s not how things went. Anaheim shipped Ondrej Kase, the Czech right-winger, east. He arrived in Boston already injured and was limited to just six regular season games a year ago. Kase managed to only register one point on an assist. In the playoffs, he picked up four more, playing in 11 games.
This past season, Kase didn’t play in any games and injuries once again held him off the ice. He played just three regular season games and didn’t get his name recorded on any of those score sheets. Kase is now a restricted free agent, which means it’s possible that this ugly situation could either improve or look even worse in the coming days.