After severing ties with problematic prospect Mitchell Miller, Bruins still have questions to answer

There is a lot the Boston Bruins have yet to explain, even after releasing prospect Mitchell Miller on Sunday night and after team president Cam Neely met with media on Monday morning.

Nothing team officials have said, in statements or in front of cameras, offers a satisfying answer as to why the Bruins, who are off to an 10-2-0 start this season, signed Miller, a 20-year-old defenseman, to a three-year rookie contract and open a gaping, entirely self-inflicted injury on an organization that was doing just fine.

Neely and general manager Don Sweeney brought all of this on themselves, and even after four days of outrage from Boston fans and the hockey community at large, they still don’t seem to understand why signing Miller was a terrible idea. This was a person who subjected a Black developmentally disabled classmate to years of racial and physical abuse and who has, according to the victim’s family, never shown true remorse for his behavior.

When even NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, a frequent piñata of media and fans alike during his nearly 30-year tenure for myriad unpopular stances and decisions, is on the side of keeping Miller out of the league for his “reprehensible, unacceptable” behavior as a teenager, the Bruins could not be more in the wrong.

But on Monday, there was Neely at the team’s practice facility, passing the buck when it came to why there hadn’t been communication with the family of Mitchell’s bullying victim, Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, before the Bruins signed Mitchell, and solemnly rueing that they’d ever made the deal given the significant backlash the team had faced.

In his statement Sunday night to announce that the team had “parted ways” with Miller, Neely said the Bruins made the decision “based on new information.” The reality is, all the information…