Morning Skate: Quiet

Well yesterday wasn’t exactly a typical, sleepy, off-season Monday, was it?

While you expect July Mondays to be relatively uneventful for your local NHL club, the Bruins were all over the place yesterday:

• Jim Montgomery was officially unveiled as head coach, answering questions from the assembled media.
• Jeremy and Charlie Jacobs addressed that same assembled media, discussing everything from supporting management to a potential rebuild.
• Development Camp kicked off at Warrior Arena, marking the official start of on-ice summer sessions.
• #KrejciWatch heated up, with “will he or won’t he” rumors reaching a boiling point.
• The Bruins confirmed that they extended qualifying offers to Jack Studnicka, Matt Filipe, and Jack Ahcan.

Elsewhere, former Bruins assistant Kevin Dean got hired as an assistant in Chicago, Evgeni Malkin has reportedly decided to test free agency, and the Leafs decided Matt Murray was the answer to their goaltending concerns.

Did you catch all that? Whew.

There were plenty of interesting tidbits from the media availability yesterday - Montgomery must have mentioned the concept of “communication” a hundred times, which isn’t a surprise, given the team’s focus on a “new voice.”

What I found interesting was ownership’s comments on a rebuild, which is something many of us feel is looming in the not-to-distant future, and a not-very-subtle shot at the tanking Chicago Blackhawks:

“There’s been a lot of theatre around this National Hockey League this past week, in particular at the Draft,” said Charlie Jacobs. “We saw some teams, what I would call it: sellers...and I think that would be awfully difficult to sell in this market to our fanbase.”

Jacobs went on to acknowledge that there’d be a time where the roster would need to go through a transition, but also said that the Bruins are a cap team and that they’re “going to spend to the max to deliver the best product [they] possibly can” to fans.

Easier said than done, but my guess is ownership wants to do whatever it can to keep fans in the seats before resiging themselves to some lean years.

We’ll see how it goes!

Today’s discussion topic

Did you like what you heard from Montgomery yesterday? Anything in particular stand out to you?