2023 Bruins Ratings: Judge the performance of the coach and front office

At first glance, it’s hard to find too much to complain about when it comes to the performance of the Bruins head coach, general manager, and team president.

The first-year head coach led his team to all kinds of regular season records.

The GM played the trade deadline extremely well, reinforcing a strong roster.

The team president did whatever it is that he does.

All good, right?

Then the playoffs came, and a lot of the goodwill Jim Montgomery earned over the course of the regular season began to slowly evaporate.

After pushing the right buttons in the regular season (or more accurately, never really having to push buttons), Montgomery struggled to find answers for his team’s problems in the playoffs.

He was burdened with the weight of expectations after such an historic regular season, and it’s easy to forget it was only his second full season as an NHL coach.

For Sweeney and Neely, who you kind of have to rate as a duo, the very early and very late portions of the season were nearly faultless.

Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci returned on team-friendly deals. Sweeney pulled all of the right strings at the trade deadline.

The Bruins’ roster heading into the playoffs was widely regarded as among the strongest (on paper) in recent memory...yeah.

You can’t really fault them for how the on-ice product turned out.

What the historic regular season and good trade deadline hide, however, is the entire Mitchell Miller fiasco, which feels like it was 10 years ago but was actually earlier this season.

The way the team handled that situation, from not consulting their player leadership to failing to do much background on Miller’s actions, was atrocious, and much of that falls at the feet of Sweeney and Neely.

It was easy for fans to move past that as the team ultimately decided to drop Miller, and that entire situation was probably the only thing the duo got wrong this season.

Still, like the players, you have to look at the entire picture — and that plays a part.

Rate the 2022-2023 performances of the Bruins’ head coach, general manager, and president