For those who missed it, the Globe's Dan Shaughnessy sat down with Sinden early Tuesday afternoon, hours before Montreal pinned a 1-0 loss on the Bruins in Game 4 of their best-of-seven playoff series, and Sinden made a series of pointed remarks that were demeaning to, in no particular order:
Marc Savard - Sinden said that although Savard is a good player, he is "not a fan" of the club's No. 1 scorer. "He's one of these guys who has a good batting average, but no RBIs," said the 75-year-old Sinden, who comes to the office rarely these days, his job as an adviser to owner Jeremy Jacobs. "He gets a lot of points. He's a good player, I'm just not a fan."
Coach Claude Julien - "We've got a coach who gets everything out of his group of guys," said Sinden. "There are two sides of coaching: tactics/knowledge and making everybody play for you. He's got that latter part down." What of the former part? Sinden, in his comments to Shaughnessy, didn't go there. Damning by silence, or omission.
Chiarelli - Sinden didn't demean the second-year general manager by name, but by review of the Boston hockey product, which is still struggling to recover, retrieve its once-proud heritage. There is a strong basis for the franchise being able to recover, noted Sinden. "But as long as you're middling ground - mediocrity or whatever we do - it's not going to happen," he said. Middling ground. Mediocrity. Now there's something for the marketing department to sell, and for Chiarelli to use to court free agents.
Other than that, hey, Messrs. Savard, Julien, and Chiarelli, great having you aboard. Hope you enjoy the show.
Yeesh.
Timing is everything, and clearly, Sinden has lost his sense of the moment. Or at least it looks that way.
Having not been privy to the conversation between Chiarelli and Sinden, all we can do is take at face value that Sinden was contrite, must have regretted what he said, or at least when he said it, and returned to Florida to ponder not just what was ahead for his team, but for himself, too.
