BOSTON – Bruins President Cam Neely experienced plenty of demoralizing losses as a Hall of Fame player for the Black and Gold.
Neely was with the Bruins when they lost Stanley Cup Finals to the Edmonton Oilers in 1988 and 1990 including the infamous game when the lights went out at the old Boston Garden, and there were plenty of painful losses to the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins throughout a standout playing career that ended without a Cup.
There was also a lost 2013 Stanley Cup Final to the Blackhawks in 2013, and the infamous collapse against the Philadelphia Flyers back in 2010 after the Bruins had built up a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. Certainly, there have been other gut-punch losses since Neely joined up with Bruins management back in 2007 and then took over as club president nine years ago.
But, in Neely’s eyes, none of those defeats compare to the Game 7 that the Bruins lost on home ice to the St. Louis Blues almost two months ago. The Bruins had pushed for the first Stanley Cup Final Game 7 on home ice in franchise history after defeating St. Louis on their home turf in Game 6, but then fell disappointingly short in front of their fans at TD Garden in the winner-take-all final game.
The Bruins President sat down with NBCSportsBoston.com on Thursday afternoon at TD Garden and admitted that losing to the Blues was the most “painful” defeat in his long career as a hockey player and executive.
“I think I’m finally coming to peace with it in the last week or so. I’m getting out of a little bit of this depressed fog that I’ve been in. It’s by far the hardest and most painful loss in my career,” admitted Neely to NBCSportsBoston.com. “To get that close I just feel terrible for the players and all of the staff for putting everything in and getting as far as we did, and then coming up one game short.”
Boston Bruins
Clearly there are plenty of Bruins fans that are in the same “most painful loss” camp as Neely after the B’s pushed things to a winner-take-all final game. Most of the pain stems from the golden opportunity that the Bruins had after all of the Stanley Cup playoff top seeds bowed out in the first round and really opened up a pathway for the B’s to get to the Cup Final for their date with destiny against the hard-nosed Blues.
“This is nothing against St. Louis because they obviously had a great year, but I thought all series long that we were going to win,” said Neely to NBCSportsBoston.com. “Especially going into St. Louis and winning Game 6, I thought we were going to win Game 7.”
So did just everybody else in Bruins Nation, Cam. So did just about everybody else.
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Celtics easily on your device.