Neely
Bruins President Cam Neely made his weekly radio appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub with Felger & Massarotti today.
It should be no surprise that he ranks the Bruins among the four best teams in the entire NHL.
Neely grouped the Bruins with Detroit, Philadelphia and Vancouver.
He also touched on the trade deadline and a potential extension for Tomas Kaberle (he held the party line of waiting until the season’s over).
Here’s the entire interview:
Published By mattk Tue. March 1, 2011 6:33 pm EST
Chris Kelly is not replacing Blake Wheeler. Wheels was moved for an offensive upgrade, not Kelly. Peverley certainly is a more polished offensive player at this point in his career. Also, Kelly is an upgrade – if you consider that the guy he’s bumped from the lineup is Daniel Paille.
Brian, I think I misunderstood part of what you posted. My bad
wheeler flew around the ice and got very little accomplished, which is exactly what kelly is as a player. i’m not the biggest fan of blake wheeler but come on now this guy kelly has never been anything better than wheeler was this year. except older and with less potential. i certainly like peverly better but the kelly thing is not an upgrade. it’s a wash at best.
george, i don’t disagree that the case can be made, i didn’t mean to criticize you there.
If you don’t see the upgrade between Kelly or Peverly from Wheeler than I can’t help you. Speed, effort, smarts, faceoffs, willingness…I could go on
I was frustrated by Wheeler’s decision making in the offensive zone and the amount of times he killed a rush by being offside. I never thought he used his physical gifts to their potential. I think the Bruins replaced Wheeler with Kelly and Peverly. Kelly plays defensively as good or better than Wheeler and Peverly looks to me like a better offensive threat than Wheeler. I didn’t say the Bruins were a top 4 team, I said the arguement could be made
why does everyone beat up on wheeler so bad? you now have chris kelly playing in his spot as far as i’m concerned. is that really an upgrade?
what do you really expect neely to say?
I’m just glad that an arguement could even be made for the Bruins being in the top 4. There have been points in the season where I was saying “Please just win the division.” For me what puts the Bruins in or near the 4 best teams right now is their top line playing at the level we all hoped for. The goaltending has been there, the defense has been there, and the depth guys have all been doing enough (excluding Wheeler when he was here). IMO this team will live and die by the 1st line production down the stretch and in the playoffs.