You can’t bemoan an alleged leadership void in the locker room for the Bruins’ failure to rise to the occasion the last two playoff-less seasons and ignore the leadership vacuum that exists in the front office, as it relates to taking ownership of the most crucial decisions. They mirror each other.

It’s unclear, and that’s part of the Bruins’ problem as they try to determine their path back to the playoffs after two straight years of late-season sinkholes and postseason silence. Who exactly is leading the way out of the hockey wilderness?

On the verge of his seventh season as club president, is Cam Neely simply a fan-friendly franchise figurehead or is he the blunt and fiery final decision-maker for the Bruins?


With the other sports franchises in town, we know who is ultimately responsible. We know the buck stops with Bill Belichick with the Patriots, Danny Ainge with the Celtics, and now Dave Dombrowski with the Red Sox. They’re the decision-makers. The product is a reflection of their vision, for better or worse. We know whom to celebrate and whom to denigrate.

On whose desk the puck stops with the Bruins is murkier than the Hudson River. Not surprisingly, so is the Bruins’ team-building blueprint. This season, the Black and Gold planned to integrate young players and remain in the Stanley Cup playoff starting grid at the same time, a balancing act worthy of Cirque du Soleil in a salary cap league.

Ultimately, the Bruins landed flat on their face in both attempts.

Former general manager Peter Chiarelli was shown the door following last season’s collapse in part to clear the decks for Neely to put his imprint on the on-ice product. Neely handpicked his former teammate, Don Sweeney, as GM.

Neely got the power. He has to bear the responsibility for the fate of the Spoked-B.


In a press conference Wednesday at TD Garden, 76-year-old Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and his CEO son, Charlie Jacobs, were quite clear that Neely is the commandant of Causeway Street.

“The accountability actually is with Cam in this organization,” said Jeremy Jacobs.

Whom is the product on the ice a reflection of?

“I say without question this is Cam,” said Charlie Jacobs. “If people were to ask who is head of hockey operations, it’s a collaborative effort between a number of people. But if you ask for one sort of name, I would say it’s Cam Neely.”

Well, there you go, except Neely seems to want that responsibility about as much as he would like to share an Uber ride with Ulf Samuelsson.

A take-charge talent in his playing days, Neely appears reluctant to accept the final-say mantle, even with ownership, inches to his right, anointing him with it.

“You have to allow your GM to do his job,” said Neely. “If I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing, I will let him know. But you have to allow your GM to be able to do his job and what he thinks is fit.

“When we interviewed Don and he laid out a plan that he thought would get us to where we want to be, I certainly agreed with it and I think both Mr. Jacobs and Charlie agreed with it. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t be the GM.”

That’s an acceptable answer, but one that doesn’t accept full responsibility for the faulty personnel projections that capsized this team, from Jimmy Hayes to the dazed and confused defense corps.


Neely has stated that he has no interest in the day-to-day grind of being an NHL general manager or in being a micro-manager.

Fine. But someone has to have the final say and assume the burden of making the decisions that will determine the organization’s future, such as retaining coach Claude Julien.

Neely said that decision was Sweeney’s call, which is what Sweeney stated at a press conference last week.

Got it. The Bruins are really Sweeney’s team then, right?

“There absolutely should be no confusion about [the final decision-maker],” said Charlie Jacobs. “If there is perceived confusion, I would like to clear that up. There shouldn’t be any at all.

“I don’t sense that reluctance that you may see, but maybe I’m not conscious to it. But absolutely in my mind this is Cam’s decision.”

OK, the Bruins are clear as mud on how their hockey operations operate.

Perhaps Neely and Sweeney are one of those power couples whose names meld into a catchy portmanteau, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, known as Brangelina.

Unfortunately, if you combine the first names of the Bruins president and general manager you get Con and Can.

Bruins fans might feel Sweeney’s plan to remain a playoff team while refreshing the roster on the fly is the former, and they might advocate for doing the latter to the duo if the team doesn’t return to the postseason or start to harvest some hope from its promising collection of Maybe-Bs.


The good news for Neely is that the Bruins’ first family is behind him for the long haul.

“He’s my leader right now, and I ride with him,” said Jacobs the Elder.

The Bruins are a club trying to go down two parallel tracks at the same time — player development and playoff contention — praying they intersect somewhere to whisk them back to Stanley Cup contention.

Part of this is pride and part of it is a reflection of the sports environment in our city. Boston sports has become binary. It’s win or we lose interest.

Jeremy Jacobs acknowledged that there is pressure to keep up with the other teams.

The Bruins can’t honestly sell a rebuilding plan because they still need to fill their building, and they don’t want to get tuned out in Title Town.

So, it looks as though the Bruins are following their likable and reluctant leader — stuck somewhere between diving in and stepping back.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com.