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BOSTON -- In his first official act as CEO, Charlie Jacobs made it clear that everyone in the Boston Bruins organization is being evaluated and decisions will be made soon in regard to the team's subpar performance. "I'd say without question this has been a very disappointing year," Jacobs said. "It's unacceptable the way this team has performed given the amount of time, money and effort that's been spent on this team. To see it deliver the way it has is unacceptable."  After Wednesday's 3-2 win over the Penguins, the Bruins are in eighth place in the Eastern Conference and second in the wild-card standings. Before his promotion to the CEO spot Tuesday, Jacobs, the son of owner Jeremy Jacobs, had served as the team's principal and alternate governor. Charlie Jacobs met with the media Tuesday morning at TD Garden and gave his state-of-the-Bruins address. Jacobs said he has had several meetings in the past 24 hours with the organization's senior leadership, specifically with president Cam Neely and general manager Peter Chiarelli, regarding the team. Jacobs added the evaluation process is ongoing as the organization attempts to right the ship. As far as what changes, if any, are coming, Jacobs said he did not have an answer for that. "I can tell you that at the moment this is a very fluid situation that is being monitored very closely. I don't have any answers for why we're underperforming. If I did, I would've tried to fix them long ago," he said. When asked whether he has trust in the organization's leadership, including Neely, Chiarelli and coach Claude Julien, Jacobs said: "As I mentioned, we're in a constant state of evaluation right now. This is a fluid process." After the team's practice Tuesday at TD Garden, Julien defended Jacobs' comments, saying everyone is under evaluation all the time no matter how successfully a team performs. "You don't take this job and think you're going to go in there and everything's OK. Every year you're being evaluated on what's happening with the team and everything else, and I think that's a fair assessment -- we all should be evaluated," Julien said. The coach then pointed out that the team has reached the postseason seven consecutive seasons under his tenure with most of the players on the current roster. "You look at the situation and you say, 'What is the real issue, and how do we deal with it?' It's going to be up to them," Julien said. "I have no issues. My job is always under evaluation. I evaluate myself. I evaluate my coaches. I evaluate the players. For [the media] it might be a big statement; for me it's not." From the players' standpoint, they already know what needs to happen, but when the message comes from the newly appointed CEO, it adds a bit more urgency to the situation. "It does," Bruins defenseman Torey Krug said. "It's coming from the top. I'm sure if your guys' boss said the same thing to you, you'd probably buckle down a little bit more. We understand what has to be done, and it's up to us to do it. It doesn't fall on anyone else's shoulders except the individuals in this room. We take that responsibility, and we're going to come together as a group and tackle this like we should." Nearly at the midpoint of the 2014-15 season, the Bruins are 20-15-6 with 46 points in 41 games. If this team does not earn a playoff berth for the first time in eight years, it will send ripples through the organization, according to Jacobs. "Incredible failure," he said. "If you think about what has been put in this team, in terms of -- discount all the scouting, all of the drafting, all of the money spent on the player personnel -- for us to be a team that's out of the playoffs is absolutely unacceptable. Everybody in the executive offices is fully aware of how I feel and they feel the same way, which brings us to this evaluation process and it's fluid right now. It would be an utter disappointment and a failure -- complete failure." Jacobs said not to read too much into the timing of the announcement, saying this shift in leadership has been in the works for more than 18 months. As far as the hierarchy now, Jacobs said the organization's structure, and the way ownership and management works, is "flat" and everyone consults in terms of decision-making. According to Jacobs, his father will be taking a step back from the CEO role but will remain the chairman and "quite active in decision-making." Jeremy Jacobs will have final say in any decision, according to Charlie, but the day-to-day responsibilities will fall on the new CEO.
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