Don Sweeney, Cam Neely, and the Bruins have plenty of work to do this offseason.
But before the Bruins go about bolstering their prospect pipeline in the draft or adding talent in free agency, the Original Six franchise likely needs to make a call about what to do with interim head coach Joe Sacco moving forward.
Speaking to reporters at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday, Sacco said that he hasn’t received any clarity yet about his future with the Bruins.
“No I haven’t,” Sacco said. “I think that’ll be something that’ll be addressed as we move forward here. Right now we have our exit meetings today and our players are taking care of their physicals. So that stuff will be addressed hopefully in the near future.”
Sacco, who joined Boston’s coaching staff in July 2014, took over as Boston’s interim head coach in November after the team fired Jim Montgomery in November following an 8-9-3 start.
Boston responded with arguably their best stretch of play under Sacco this winter, winning seven of its first nine games with the Medford native at the helm.
But Boston’s season-long flaws once again reared their collective head as the season went along, with Boston ultimately going 24-30-6 under Sacco over the final 60 games of the season en route to a failed push for the playoffs.
“Everybody thinks about team defense, they think about defending in your own zone. It’s not necessarily the case,” Sacco said of Boston’s defensive struggles after a strong stretch in November and December. “It’s other things that factor into playing team defense. It’s managing the puck, executing plays at the right time, it’s game management, all the things that I’ve talked to you guys about during the course of the season.
“It just seemed like at times, we weren’t able to sustain that solid commitment for 60 minutes. Whether it be execution or just sometimes lack of details, whatever the case may be, we just weren’t able to sustain it over the 60 minutes of the game like we would have.”
While Sacco’s appointment as interim head coach wasn’t enough to change Boston’s fortunes in a lost year, Morgan Geekie vouched for his head coach on Tuesday after the Bruins’ season came to a close.
“Joe’s awesome. He was put in a tough situation, for sure — just with where the team was at at the time,” Geekie said. “And he did a great job of rallying us together. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t compete every night for him, because I think when we did compete, we had a great team, and you saw that right after the deadline and around Christmas, just how good of a team we could be.
“But he’s a great man and a great coach, and I had a lot of fun playing for him. … I can’t say enough good things about him, as a coach, as a man, and how he kind of led us down the stretch.”
Could a situation arise where Sacco would want to return to his previous position as an assistant coach with Boston?
“That’s a tough question to answer,” Sacco said. “We’ll see what happens in the near future. We’ll address that if and when that opportunity comes up.”
Regardless of who the Bruins’ choose to lead behind the bench in 2025-26, Sacco expressed gratitude over getting an opportunity to lead an NHL franchise — especially his hometown team.
“I’ve been very fortunate,” Sacco said. “I think just finishing up over a decade here and being part of a great organization — I think the Bruins have treated me very well, and they’ve been very loyal, and I feel like I’ve been loyal too.
“It’s worked both ways. So no, I’ve been really lucky to be in this business and be with the same team for that long. You’re pretty fortunate as an individual.”
