Cam Neely says the Boston Bruins ‘failed’ to vet defenseman Mitchell Miller
Neely said the team decided to cut ties with Miller "based on new information"
Boston Bruins president Cam Neely faced reporters Monday morning and addressed the team’s decision to release Mitchell Miller.
Neely expressed that the signing of the controversial 20-year-old was his biggest regret as an NHL executive and expressed concerns the Bruins failed to properly vet Miller.
"I'm extremely upset that we have made a lot of people unhappy with our decision," Neely said Monday. "I take a lot of pride in the Bruins organization and what we stand for, and we failed there."
Boston signed Miller on Friday to an entry-level contract and the move was immediately dealt with massive scrutiny and fan backlash.
Related: Bruins under massive scrutiny over the signing of Mitchell Miller
Miller’s release comes on the heels of the comments from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
"I can't tell you that he'll ever be eligible to come into the NHL. If in fact at some point they think they want him to play in the NHL -- and I'm not sure they're anywhere close to that point -- we're going to have to clear him and his eligibility, and it'll be based on all the information that we get firsthand at the time,” said Bettman.
The NHL commissioner also said the league would not make a ruling on Miller’s eligibility “without a hearing.”
Neely touched on that the team explored the idea of signing Miller back in August.
The Bruins president admitted that the club not reaching out to the Isaiah Meyer-Crothers family prior to signing Miller. Neely said that not reaching out to the team’s family “was concerning to me.”
"We like to take pride in what we do in the community and we hold ourselves accountable," said Neely, who said he plans to reach out to the family of Meyer-Crothers. "We dropped the ball, and I'm here to apologize.
"I'll say it again: I want to apologize to Isaiah and his family. It's something that they shouldn't continue to go through."
The Bruins front office believed Miller deserved a second chance with the NHL. Neely did say the team “could’ve dug deeper” into Miller.
"From everything I've heard, he was working on himself, working in programs to better himself," Neely said. "I was under the impression it was a 14-year-old kid who made a really, really bad decision and did some horrible things, and he's 20 years old now. I was under the impression that he, in the last six years, had done a lot of work on himself."
Patrice Bergeron’s comments on the signing of Mitchell Miller
Neely said that Bruins general manager Don Sweeney reached out to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly prior to signing Miller.
"From what I gather, [NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly] said that Mitchell would have to get in front of Gary Bettman if he was going to play in the NHL," Neely said.
The Bruins are off to their best start in franchise history sitting with a 10-2-0 record. With all the good news surrounding the Bruins, the Miller news seemed to catch fans, the players and the media off guard.
"The timing of it was never probably going to be good," Neely said. "I think it got down to the point of [whether] we're doing it or not. And we made the wrong decision."
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