Contrite Cam Neely casts blame across Bruins organization while apologizing for signing Mitchell Miller

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Why didnt they?

Its a great question, he said. Something I need to find out.

When he spoke to reporters for 15 minutes Monday morning, Neely still hadnt reached out to the Meyer-Crothers family. It was the latest failure in a dark chapter in the franchises history. It also spoke to how the club may be trying to navigate their colossal mistake.

The Bruins announced their intention to cut ties with Miller late Sunday evening, two days after signing him to a three-year rookie contract and one day after player leadership including captain Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and Nick Foligno expressed their misgivings about the move.

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The ongoing backlash flooded the social media teams and fan relations departments. Any post by the team was met with hundreds of calls to dismiss Miller. An email address to fan relations began returning auto-replies.

Neely said Miller became unwanted because of a combination of everything certainly our fan base being upset, and rightfully so, he said. For me, it was not worth putting the organization through this any longer.

As of Monday morning, the Bruins had not officially cut ties with Miller. To do so, they would have to place him on waivers for the purpose of contract termination. If they did that perhaps as soon as 2 pm Monday the NHL Players Association would have 60 days to file a grievance.

An NHLPA spokesperson told the Globe that they are obviously aware of the matter and actively reviewing it.

A grievance case, which would be likely, could be one reason Neely was light on specifics in his news conference, beyond expressing shame.

Im extremely upset that we have made a lot of people unhappy with our decision, Neely said. I take pride in the Bruins organization and what we stand for. We failed there.

What did he think the fan reaction would be?

Initially I was thinking it was going to be, OK, this kid deserves a second chance, he said. I thought there would be some people that were going to be upset about it. But to the extent of this I misread that.

He would not get into the financial implications of cutting Miller, whose contract is worth as much as $2.85 million over three years. Neely said the Bruins have not spoken to Miller about their decision to cut him.

Speaking in Finland on Saturday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the Bruins did not inform him they were signing Miller and that he would not be eligible to play in the NHL until meeting with Bettman. Neely pushed back on that, saying that Sweeney did reach out to deputy commissioner Bill Daly last Wednesday.

Neely said the Bruins hockey operations department though members of the organization expressed a lot of trepidation and hesitation erred by not discovering the extent of Millers abhorrent abuse of Meyer-Crothers, his classmate whom he coerced into consuming a piece of candy that had been wiped in has urinal. Neely said they believed that Miller had made a singular mistake as a teenager, echoing general manager Don Sweeneys comments on Friday.

From everything I heard, he was working on himself, working in programs to better himself. I was under the impression he was a 14-year-old kid who made a really, really bad decision and did some horrible things. And hes 20 years old now, so I was under the impression that he had done a lot of work on himself.

However, publicly available news reports after Miller was drafted by the Coyotes in 2020 including by the Columbus Dispatch, near where Miller and Meyer-Crothers grew up in Sylvania, Ohio noted that Millers torment of Meyer-Crothers went on for years.

When a reporter noted that deeper information about the ongoing mistreatment was widely available, Neely reiterated that the club had focused on what happened from when Miller was age 14 to today.

Again, I don’t want to get into specifics, Neely said. We should have had a conversation with the family.

Speaking on his own involvement, Neely said he was first informed of the teams interest in Miller in early August. He relayed the information to Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and CEO Charlie Jacobs.

Neely said he made it clear to the hockey operations department headed by Sweeney, senior advisor Scott Bradley, assistant GMs Evan Gold and Jamie Langenbrunner, and director of amateur scouting Ryan Nadeau that we had to vet this out properly, Neely said. This is a massive decision for the organization to make.

The incident could mean discipline within the Bruins front office.

Something I have to deal with today and this week, Neely said. See where it takes me.

Asked if he felt let down by the hockey operations department, Neely punted on the question.

Theres a lot of people who are let down today, he said. Im disappointed were in this position. We shouldn’t be in this position. We could have done a better job. We should have done a better job.

Neely offered his public condolences.

I want to apologize to Isaiah and his family, Neely said. Its something that they shouldnt continue to go through.

Matt Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @mattyports.

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