Cam Neely Growing Frustrated With Bruins, Is 'Disappointed' With Effort

Cam Neely has just about seen enough.

The Boston Bruins president is starting to get pretty frustrated with his team’s play, arguably the Black and Gold’s worst and most uneven stretch of hockey since Neely assumed his current position in June of 2010.

Neely broke his recent silence in an interview with The Boston Globe on Tuesday, and he let it be known he’s growing tired of what his team is showing on the ice.

“For me, you go through all stages of emotions, right?” Neely told the Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont in a phone interview from Edmonton. “You go through this whole range of feelings when things aren’t going well. I’ve been frustrated. I’ve had some anger tossed in there. And now, for the first time, I’ve landed on disappointed.”

The Bruins currently are stuck in another ugly stretch of hockey. Boston has lost four in a row and five of its last six games. All of a sudden, the Bruins’ seemingly tight grip on the Eastern Conference’s second wild card spot has loosened. The Florida Panthers won Tuesday night and now sit just two points behind the Bruins for that final playoff spot.

Neely expressed frustration in seeing the Bruins fall off in February after a solid January in which they went 8-1-3.

“It felt like, ‘OK, you’re watching a team playing and competing the way you expect it to.’ Then you turn to February and you’ve fallen back to where you were,” he told the Globe.

There are decisions to be made in the coming weeks for Neely and the rest of the Bruins’ management team. The NHL trade deadline is March 2, and the Bruins have an important question to answer as they approach the deadline: are they sellers or buyers? Much of that will be decided in the coming days and weeks, especially as Boston wraps up its current five-game road trip.

However, Neely made it clear any sorts of moves will be made taking into account both the short- and long-term prospects of the club.

“I’ve been frustrated at times in the past, but for the most part our team’s compete and effort level has always been there. So, yeah, I’ve not been to the ‘disappointed’ stage before,” he said. “Given the expectation of the team, the expectation of what we have of individual players … we aren’t where we should be. The fans here deserved more than what they’ve received.”