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Just yesterday I said in my Facebook status that it would be really nice if the Bruins were able to nab 6 points on this road trip.  Obviously this task is much easier said than done with such opponents as the suddenly hot Ducks, the league leading Sharks and the rejuvenated Kings.  So what part of my brain was telling me “hey, they might be able to pull off a 3-0-0 road trip despite the plethora of injuries and poor play as of late”.

Call me the ultimate Bruins optimist if you must.  Always have been, always will.  Back in my high school days I took a lot of heat from my fellow Red Sox and Patriot rooting classmates.  With the exception of a few, no one really understood why I followed the red headed step child of Boston teams with such passion year after year of mediocrity.  I remember the 2004 playoffs being a particular stand out moment during my 4 years at Saugus High, when the Bruins barreled through teams during the regular season and were heavily favored against a much weaker Montreal squad in the Eastern Quarter Finals.  I was on a trip to Washington D.C. during the series with my Aunt but still found the time to watch the two ancient rivals square off.

The night before I departed for D.C., Glen Murray (my favorite Bruin at the time) had just picked up a loose puck left astray by two Habs colliding, and guided it into the back of the net promptly ending the double overtime and sending the Bruins to a commanding 3-1 series lead.  I was overjoyed that it seemed I would finally be seeing my Bruins advance in a playoff series for only the first time since they had knocked off the Canes in 1999.  What happened next was this, Joe leaves for Washington and by the time he returns the Bruins are out of the playoffs.  Huh?  Yes, my team had managed to cough up one of the toughest series leads to come back from in any sport and ultimately lose the series.  Yes you guessed it, my phone rang off the hook following the Game 7 loss from friends back home kindly asking me what in the world happened, I really had no answers.

But being a passionate fan for “your team” is all about staying with them through the ups and downs throughout the course of the franchise.  The losing streaks, the scoring droughts, the porous defense, the swiss cheese goalies.  Because when they finally do put together those winning streaks, scoring a handful of goals a game, goalies taking over and keeping the rubber out of the net it will all be worth it to say you were there in the stands or at home rooting for them when.  In my lifetime of 21 years I have only seen the Bruins advance to the Semi Finals of the Eastern Conference 3 times (1999, 2004, 2009).  Last year probably being the most heartbreaking seeing for the first time in a long time I actually liked all the players on the team and wanted nothing more than for them to go all the way.

Today, in present day 2010 we have the Bruins sitting in 5th place in the East with 51 points, good enough for 2nd in the Northeast Division (10 points behind Buffalo) and to be completely honest with you, with all the injuries and questionable play on some nights I can’t believe we are where we even are.  Despite finally getting Lucic back and hopefully he can stay healthy this time, we are currently without key players such as Savard, Bergeron, Stuart and Ference.  It’s pretty amazing to watch how different this team really is without Savard in the lineup, it completely changes the outlook of the offense in a dramatic fashion.  Not to mention the absence of Bergeron who is finally, and I am more than happy to say, looking like the Patrice of old.  I haven’t seen him take a night off thus far this season and it comes as no surprise as he has always been known for his superb work ethic.  Our “Iron Man” Mark Stuart finally proves to be human when he went down.  I have always been a huge fan of Stuarts, he plays with a lot of grit and as Jack Edwards would put he is “strong as an ox”.

As can be clearly seen, the Bruins are in a rough patch right now, and the revolving door to the hospital is not helping.  Regardless, for you Bruins optimists out there, stick with them as i know you will.  Your not alone.

Put together this video from a handful of clips taken at the Legends Classic on Saturday:

A Black and Gold Day at Fenway from matt despres on Vimeo.

Along with Mk, Kristin and fellow writer/brother Joe D., I headed out to Fenway yesterday to catch the Legends Classic. These pockets weren’t deep enough to attend what turned out to be one hell of a Winter Sturm the day before, but no worries - it was a joy to see Fenway decked out in Black, Gold and snow. Below are some highlights; a link to the full set appears below.

The Green Monster, complete with fresh Northeast Division standings:

The man, the legend - Rene Rancourt pumps up the crowd:

The park:

Check out the whole set here:
Legends Classic @ Flickr

Merry Christmas Bruins fan’s!

So what are Bruin’s fan’s asking for Christmas this year?  What would we want to find under the tree the most?  Well for one I would love to find a go to super sniper under my tree, IIya Kovalchuk anyone?  Just visualizing Savvy setting him up time after time again would put just about anybody in Boston in a elated, Christmassy (yes, im making up word’s now) championship winning mood.  Although we know his above average sniping skills would certainly add a whole new offensive dimension to this team, it would probably take quite a bit to acquire him.  Not to mention it would all depend on the Thrashers playoffs hopes right now, as they currently sit in 6th place in the Eastern Conference a mere 3 points behind Boston.

Various reports are saying that the Kovalchuk contract talks have hit a snag, although Atlanta would love to lock up their star winger to a long term contract.  NESN.com was reporting that the Thrashers might be interested in a combination of Rask or Wheeler and possible draft picks.  If I was Chia, I wouldn’t let any team touch Rask with a 10 mile hockey stick, but Wheeler on the other hand I wouldn’t mind including in some sort of a package for the superstar winger.  Another thing I would take into consideration is if he would agree to a new contract with the Bruins upon being traded here.  If the B’s are going to be giving up a lot to get this guy, they should at least get him to agree to stick around for a few more years (ala Phil Kessel in Toronto), and unlike Marian Hossa whom the Pen’s gave up an arm and a leg for the guy, they went on to lose in the Cup Finals and Hossa then departed to the Red Wings on a 1-year contract.

Savard used to play with him in Atlanta, so maybe he can do some sweet talking to get him to come over here, kind of like how Kessel tried to sweet talk Savard into coming to Toronto in which he responded with signing a 7-year extension with the Bruins.  Regardless of wether the Bruins can acquire Kovalchuk or not, they need some sort of addition to their offensive corps in order to do any damage in the postseason whatsoever.  But you can’t tell me Savard and Kovalchuk wouldn’t look scary on the first line together.  Get it done Chia.

Anyway, now that I’m done ranting about adding offense, didn’t the Bruins just score 6 goals last night?  Three of those goals coming in a 1:08 span in the first period, and another 3 being power play goals.  Yes, lot’s of goals and a successful powerplay!  We haven’t seen an offensive outburst like this from this squad in awhile and it was sure fun to watch.  But just when we thought it was going to be a blowout, Atlanta switched up goalies and ended up scoring the next two goals, cutting the Bruins lead down to 1.  Here am I thinking it was to good to be true, we finally score a pile of goals but now we can’t keep them out of our own net.  But the B’s managed to hold them off, despite chipping away at two different Bruins leads they never managed to tie or go ahead in the game.  With the B’s up 5-4, I was nervously awaiting the pulling of Hedberg, the tieing of the game, and the eventual shootout loss that would follow.  The unfourtanate pattern that the Bruins have fallen into more times than I would like this season.  But they switched things up and Bergeron netted an empty netter to seal the deal at 6-4, giving the B’s 2 points and holding their 5th place slot in the Eastern Conference, only 4 points behind Buffalo for the Division lead.

Despite two wins in a row, I’m still patiently waiting for the Bruins to sharpen their two way game and actually play defense and offense at the same time, maybe even for all 60 minutes too!  Hopefully when Stuart and Morris return from injury and Lucic makes his way back, we can finally find our stride and start banking some points in the standings.

P.S - Boychuk deserves a permanent spot on this team.  Big guy who play’s big, passionate and has a killer slap shot.  Having him in the press box is a waste and shouldn’t be happening.  Keep this guy suited up and on the ice.

Hope you all have a great Christmas!  The B’s return to action on the 27th against the Panthers.

A battle of the netminders is taking place in the Hub of Hockey this season.  Who doesn’t love a good ol’ battle between goaltenders fighting for the true #1 role?  You can say that is not a bad thing by any means and most likely a problem most teams and their coaches would love to have.  Though having a duo of masked men of this caliber is few and far between but we are lucky enough to have just that here in Boston.  They remind me a lot of another masked men duo I used to watch on TV when I was young, although they fought crime in the city of Gotham instead of keeping pucks out of the net in Boston.  Batman & Robin.

Batman (Tim Thomas) is the aging hero who has proven his worth to the team by stealing games, bringing home the hardware (Vezina), and knocking out some of the Jokers henchman err the Kostityn brothers.  But TT is getting older and can’t hold this workload on his back alone anymore.  Queue in the entrance of Robin (Tuukka Rask).  The young up and coming hero who rips onto the scene and begins chipping away at Thomas’ #1 role.  Just like Robin, Tuukka is in the shadow of his “superior” until he proves he has what it takes and with every passing game Rask steps further and further away from that shadow.

When you look at it, it’s actually quite amusing to look at all Thomas’ previous competitors who were supposed to take his leading man role from him.  It all truly began on September 14th, 2005 when the Bruins signed Tim Thomas to a 1-year deal while dealing with our one year wonder Calder Trophy winning Andrew Raycroft.  Only two days following the Thomas’ signing, “Razor” decided it was silly being a holding out, sophomore jackass and signed a 1-year deal as well.  After completing a solid 29-win rookie campaign, Raycroft followed up with a sad 8-19-2 record the next season, posting a 3.71 GAA and a .879 save percentage.  Thomas went on to be the first goalie to win 30 games in a season since Lord Byron and immerged as the new Bruins #1, along with being rewarded with a brand new 3-year extension (Thanks O’Connell, least you did something right before you got canned).

Oh and incase if anyone was wondering what happened to Razor after his dismal season, he was traded to none other than the Maple Leafs for our very own Tuukka Rask, who then was still only 18 and currently ranked as the #1 Goaltending prospect in the world.  The next couple of contestants to challenge Timmy included Hannu Tovionen who looked impressive until he went down with an injury and needed ankle surgery in which upon his return he never really was the same.  Tovionen was eventually traded to the St. Louis Blues for Carl Soderberg, who has yet to play a single game with the Black and Gold, oh and he’s blind in one eye.

On May 5th, 2007, Tuukka Rask was signed to a 3-year contract.  Yes, the coming of Rask is drawing near.  But not before another veteran goalie is dubbed as “the one” to knock Timmy off his #1 thrown.  On July 1st, 2007, the official day the Free Agent Market opens its doors, the Bruins decided to go down a different path and make a splash via trade.  This trade brought in none other than Manny Fernandez, our new “#1″.  Man if we didn’t have like 25 picks in the first two rounds in between the next two drafts I’d really want that 4th rounder back.  Anyway the first year Manny was here, he was absolutely horrid but I sort of let it slide because he still had a lingering knee injury.  Though I won’t say I wasn’t “displeased” when he had to be put on IR following knee surgery.  Enter: Tim Thomas as our #1 yet again.  Ill give it to him, the following season Manny looked nearly brilliant in stretches, especially in the months of November and December, this was the Manny we were supposed to get, the Manny that won the Jennings in Minnesota, the Manny that was supposed to knock TT into his “rightful” #2 spot.  Instead, it all went away with a blink of an eye when Manny went down with yet another injury and never really got his performance back up to where it was prior to that.  Ah… Timmy wins again, oh and I think he won the Vezina trophy that year as well.  Yeah, he did.

Ok so where are we?  TT is 3-0 when predicted to be the backup goalie, but this is the first season in which our very own Tim Thomas was slotted to be the #1.  Did you hear that Timmy?  Your are #1 guy now, and it only took 3 years of consistently improving #’s, two all-star trips and a Vezina to earn that honor from our Boston Bruins.  But wait!  A challenger approaches.  The “future” is arriving early and his name is Tuukka and for a 22-year old is playing like a veteran.  Everything we have seen so far this season has the makings of a Thomas downfall, and while he is down there he will roll out the red carpet for Mr. Rask who may be more than willing to assume the #1 duties.  Goal support has been an issue for Thomas for some reason, I am not placing all blame on that of course because I have seen most of his starts this year and he has looked shaky at times.

Thomas’ unconventional style has earned him nicknames such as “The Flopper” and “Timmy the Tuna”.  Although according to Jack Edwards he probably should be doing 30 to life for all the times he’s committed grand larceny.  There is no doubt Rask has looked more confident and sound in net than our reigning Vezina winning goalie, but have faith.  Thomas’ is the most competitive goalie we’ve had in years and he hasn’t lost a battle yet.

Rask is the future of the Bruins, and someday he will be taking over this team but if Thomas has anything to say about it, it won’t be in the 2009-2010 season.  So B’s fans, sit back and enjoy a fantastic goalie duel unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Calling all Bruins fans!  What is wrong with our beloved B’s?

We are now through the first 20 games of the season and the Bruins stand at a 8-8-4 record, good enough for 2nd in the Northeast Division.  Although it is certainly not the worse record in the world, but not exactly what fans in the Hub expected after last years dominating season.  When the “Big and bad are back” banner was raised and hung on the outside of the Garden, everybody expected our team to return with a chip on their shoulder from getting knocked out of the playoffs last year by the Hurricanes who this year sit dead last in the East with a 3-12-4 record.

Putting blame on various players or even CJ or Chia is the easy part.  It’s always easy blaming certain people when your team is struggling.  Being a Boston fan, it’s almost like we enjoy getting angry and frustrated at our team and don’t we feel great after expressing that anger at our “co-fan’s” or possibly our television.  I took a Public Speaking class a few years back and to ease the fear of speaking in front of my class I based all my speeches around the Bruins or hockey in general.  That year they didn’t do so well so most of my speeches turned into a rant but it got the class interested to say the very least.

So WHO is to blame for the slow start? It’s pretty tough when in the beginning your goalies look sloppy and losing games for you when your scoring goals, and then finally TT looks like the Vezina goalie he is and Rask settles down but we lose our goal scoring touch, it’s a lose-lose situation.  Tim Thomas currently holds a .918 save percentage with a 2.33 GAA yet his record stands at 5-6-3.  Our two top point men?  Patrice Bergeron with 13 and Derek Morris with 11 and they are both a -3 on the season.

At first it seemed it was a case of a good team that for some reason just didn’t show effort on certain nights and wasn’t playing hard 60 minute games every night, thus the extended Win-Loss pattern to start the year off.  But now they are showing consistency, consistent sloppy play and some bad luck on the side.  With the exception of a game here or there I haven’t seen anything from this team yet this year that has given me any reason to believe they can rise to the occasion and start playing how they should.  All I have to go on is my knowledge of the game and the players wearing the B which is why I keep my faith.

Losing Savard to a broken foot was an enormous blow, and it brutally shows in our goal output and especially the power play.  It really is amazing how Savvy gives our PP a whole new look when he is on the ice feeding the puck to his teammates.  Thankfully he is expected back in a few short weeks now that he is back on the ice skating, along with Lucic who is said to be back by as early as this Thursdays game against the Thrashers.  On another note I have absolutely no problem calling out Dennis Wideman.  His play has been brutal to watch and I’m not sure how many more times I can watch him botch an outlook pass or fall down skating back to retrieve the puck in his own end.  Really Dennis?  Your a professional hockey player, start acting like it, and paying you 4.5M per season makes it all the more offensive to the city of Boston.  You know it’s bad when the whole team struggles yet Widemans play still sticks out like a sore thumb.

This is a negative blog coming from one of the most optimistic Bruins fans you’ll ever speak with.  But don’t get down on it folks, like I said in the beginning of the blog we are only 20 games in and it could be worse.  When Looch and Savvy come back and we still struggle then feel free to sound the red alarms.  Until then, stay with us and keep rooting for our boys to turn it around because I know they have the talent and coaching to do so.

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(Image by: Stuart Cahill)

Well let’s sum up what’s been going on in the world of the Bruins lately.  After last night, our B’s managed to keep their Win-Loss pattern alive by staging a double comeback win against the Preds to even their record at 4-4-0 on the season.  They didn’t look so hot in the first period, but it was great (finally) to see them play the physical, gritty brand of hockey in the 2nd and 3rd period that they deployed ever so often last season which claimed them a top spot in the league.  Lets take a look at some of the activity that’s been going in the Bruins locker room and the Front Office.

The Injury Bug
Marc Savard - (out 4-6 weeks, broken foot)   Although Chia has been quoted saying he will be out the minimum 4 weeks.  Well, this is a tremendous loss to us no doubt, actually I thought I might have even shed a tear when I received news that Savvy, our top performer this season (who was apparently skating on one leg) would be on the shelf for an extended period of time.  Having your elite playmaker go down is going to hurt, but now is the time for others to step up in his place.  The last time Savvy went down, Krejci emerged and threw his play into beast mode, lets look for him to do that again along with Bergeron who had a great game last night in his absence.

Milan Lucic - (out 4-6 weeks, surgery on broke finger) It’s no secret that Milan has not been altogether himself so far this season.  Although not playing poorly by any means, I just want to see him go out their and start murdering people for even having thoughts of entering his zone.  C’mon Looch, show us that mean streak that made all us Boston fans fall in love with you.  Don’t that let that new contract get to your head.

Other injuries to note: Thornton (minor undisclosed injury) Dennis Wideman returned to action last night against the Preds.

WINDS OF CHANGE

Chia did a little wheeling and dealing over the past few days to mix things up… let’s take a look.

Kobasew traded to Minnesota for Weller, Fallstrom, and a 2nd Round Pick
This was a bittersweet moment for me, as I have been a big fan of Chucky since he was sent over here in the Flames trade.  I will no doubt miss his passion, semi Brad Pitt resemblance, and his neat goal from his knees which I’m still convinced is where EA got the idea from for it’s game NHL 10.  He was having an under welming season for sure, recording only one assist in first 7 games, but never took a shift off.  For you Minny fan’s out there, you are going to love his passion and work ethic not to mention his friendly cap hit at 2.3 per.  From our end, we cleared his 2.3 off our bloated cap and somehow managed to get a player, prospect and 2nd Round Pick for the 3rd line grinder, way to go Chia.  My take on this is that Bruins management obviously feels that they have guys in Providence ready to go that can do his job equal to him or better for about 1/3 the price.  Marchand anyone?  Chucky, you will be missed.

3rd Round Pick and a conditional 4th Round pick traded to Buffalo for Daniel Paille.
First off, after all the picks that Chia has been hoarding, would anyone even notice if we got rid of any?  Also here’s a fun fact, this is the first transaction made between these two organizations in their history, neat!  Anyway, after watching last night’s game I think that Paille will be work very well in Bostons system.  He is quick on his feet and seems to posses some forechecking skills, not to mention some offensive upside as he almost scored 20 goals 2 years ago in Buffalo.  Oh, we aren’t done with fun facts yet, he was also a former first round pick by Buffalo and the man responsible for that is our current Assistant GM, Jim Benning.

CALLING ALL BABY B’s!
It’s a youth movement!  With all the injuries the Bruins had to make a few calls to their AHL affiliate which resulted in the recall of Brad Marchand and our little SOB, Vladdy Sobotka.  Marchand looked good last night as he recorded his first NHL assist in his first NHL game.  Hopefully he continues the solid play not only for the good of the team but to create some competition for roster spots.  Of course I am more than excited to see Sobotka has returned, this guy is like super glue you can’t knock the puck away from him despite his little size.

So, as you can see the Bruins have been through a few changes here so hopefully they can fight through this and become the elite team we all know they are.  Watch tonight @ 7 P.M. to see if the B’s can finally break their Win-Loss pattern by defeating our Winter Classic opponents, the Flyers!

(Photo by: Matthew Healy)

During the course of a regular season, your team always has that one game that you can look back and say, “that was the game they found their identity”.  Most good teams will have that game early on in the season and run with that momentum and excel because of it, mediocre teams will find it maybe by the All-Star break or in this year’s case the Olympics, and some never do experience it but at least they get a high draft pick out of the deal, see Toronto no need to worry about your 0-3-1 start… oh wait.

Anyways, if you recall last season the Bruins played a game against the Dallas Stars very early on in the season in which they manhandled them physically and on the scoreboard.  During this game we had the pleasure of watching our boys stick up for each other in way’s we haven’t seen in awhile.  It’s games like these that truly brings a team together.  The Bruins united after the beat down of the Stars and never strayed from that for the rest of the season.

I realize that last nights game was nothing like last year’s Dallas smack down, but I believe the message is the same.  This time there wasn’t any major brawls and the score gap was much tighter than that of last year’s game but here is what I think…

In the first period, Savvy was decked into the boards in what looked like a cheap from behind hit.  With no hesitation whatsoever, Ference chased down the trouble maker and ripped him down to the ice following with a nice little punch that got the attention of both teams.  It was a brawl by no means but it’s always feels good to see one Bruin stick up for another.  Another minor detail was when an Islander took a shot at Thomas when clearly the whistle had blown and Mark Stuart immediately got in his face to let him know it wasn’t ok.

Although neither of those were the story of the night.  It was the fact that the Bruins played a style of hockey for the final 8 minutes of the 3rd period that was just to much for the Islanders to handle.  Give us 60 of that and this game isn’t even a contest.  Also, a big shout out to Rask who started in his first game this season and looked superb.  Standing tall in his net, he play’s an excellent positional game and only has to move slightly to make the stops needed to keep this team in the game.  Of the goals he allowed past, I don’t place the blame on him for any of them.  Although after the Tavares snipe I was getting ready for him to whip out his milk crate and chuck it at the New York bench.

Going into the third period, my spirits were down once again and really couldn’t believe we were losing to the Islanders who hasn’t beat us since 2007.  Then in a blink of eye, the tables began to turn.  Savvy pot’s a goal and all of a sudden the crowd is alive and oh wow.. the Bear is awake!  A few minutes later Savard earns an Oscar nomination for “Best Dive” and earns the Bruins a 2 minute powerplay, in which they didn’t capitalize on but kept up solid pressure.  Just under a minute after the powerplay expired, Lord Byron Bitz (sorry Dafoe) barreled through the offensive zone and buried a sweet back hander past old man Roloson to make it 3-2.

Ok, so now i’m officially excited and fully back in this game, and so was the crowd.  On the edge of my seat, I pray for them to add just one more to at least force an overtime session.  Well the hockey gods must of heard me and before you know it, a puck Hunwick threw towards the net made it through 45 players and the Isles goalie, tieing the game at 3.  Overtime consisted of a few good scoring chances for both teams, but neither could capitalize thus forcing a shoot out.

Wheeler and Savvy were the goal scorers for the Bruins with Savard with an almost Axey esq move minus coming in at a ridiculously wide angle.  Bergeron was the other shooter for Boston but came up short after beating Roloson but sending one bouncing off the post.  On the other end, Rask stopped 2 of the 3 shooters for the Islanders thus completing this outrageous come from behind win.

So there you have it.  No brawl, no blow out win but there is something to be said by this team who pulled it together in the third period to come back and steal this victory in a shoot out.  Although we may not know just yet wether this was one of those games that pulls this team together, its certainly got my vote.

Here We Go Bruins!
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Ever hear the saying “Don’t wake up a sleeping bear”?  Well the Capitals did it and the Hurricanes paid for it dearly.  Now once again the Bruins have been awakened from their deep sleep by our feathery west coast friends and the Islanders look to be their next victim.

As awesome as it sounds describing your team as an angry bear ready to pounce on his next opponent, is it really that awesome?  The bear is angry because once again he was woken up from his sleep, in which the Bruins were caught doing for the second time this season, both resulting in blow out losses.  I would much rather have them just stay awake and play a solid, motivated game rather than become pissed off and stomp a team every other game because they got slapped around the night before.  Keep that up all season long and you got yourself a .500 hockey club, missing the playoffs.

I sat there and watched them absolutely dominate the first period, coming out with a 19-11 shot advantage but only a 1-0 lead due to a fantastic performance from Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller.  It had seemed the energy from the Carolina game had spilled over into the first period of this one and that would only mean bag things for Anaheim if the Bruins had held on to that energy for the 60 minute tilt.

But, in the end that was a little to much to ask.  From the beginning of the second period, things immediately started to go wrong and it began with Hunwick and Sturm committing penalties only 52 seconds apart from each other.  At first I didn’t mind the Hunwick foul so much because I watched the battle between him and Artyukhin and it was pretty humorous watching little Hunwick going out of his way to knock him off his skates.

But the smirk was quickly wiped off of my face when seconds later Sturm committed a hooking penalty that would lead to a 5 on 3 and what would mark the beginning of the collapse.  A hot few seconds into the 5 on 3, veteran Teemu Selanne put a slapper through a screen by Thomas to tie the game.  Sturm went into the box with the Bruins up 1-0 and would come out with them down 2-1 as Selanne scooped up a juicy Saku Koivu rebound for his 2nd of the night.

Ok so really at this point I was depressed but in no way were the Bruins out of it… at least on the scoreboard.  After they fell down 2-1 something went off in all their heads that there was no way in a million years they could ever climb back into this.  A period and a half was not nearly enough time to unbury themselves from that steep one goal deficit.  From then on they just stopped skating, the effort had just completely disappeared.  The powerplay just disgusted me, most of the time it was the Ducks somehow keeping it low in the Bruins zone with one Duck on the puck and three Bruins on him, yet somehow the puck would stick to him.  After mentally breaking the Bruins (for some reason) they broke them on the scoreboard, padding their score to a comfy 5 goal lead by the time this disaster ended.

Wake up Bruins.  I know pounding New York on Saturday will take a lot out of you…but just stay awake please.  I know not all of those goals were Thomas’ fault and it’s been a collectively bad effort by the team that’s lead to the pair of blowout losses but who wants to see Rask tomorrow?

Quote: “Right now there are a lot of guys that aren’t giving the effort that we need to get out of them,” said Julien. “Sometimes you try to get too cute instead of doing the dirty work, and our team has risen in the past two years because of our work ethic. We’ve ground teams down, we’ve outworked them and we’ve given 60-minute-type of games where it’s hard for other teams to stay with us.

Here We Go Bruins!
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(Photo by: Stuart Cahill)

Well you can’t blame the Bruins marketing team for the rally towels given out that read “Hibernation always ends in October”. Clever indeed, some will say very inaccurate after last night but if those thoughts come into your mind, tell you brain to slam on the breaks. The towel states the month of “October”, not specifically October 1^st. So our Bruins could be waking up anytime between last night and the final game of the month. I’d think Saturday night’s tilt against the Hurricanes would be ideal, because they clearly were still in their cave last night, and Papa Bear Julien can’t be to happy about it.

At first thing’s were looking up for the Black and Gold, as they came out flying, looking enthused and ready for their first real action since Scott Walker sucker punched them out of the playoffs last spring. (Oh c’mon, enough time has passed for me to make that joke) I was sitting on the end where the Bruins shot twice, which was great at first because all the action was down my end with a few notable offensive chances by Krejci coming in from the right side with a few nice shots, but neither went in. On a side note, Krejci looked really good out there, skated well and had the only couple of solid scoring chances for the B’s early on.

It’s a shame too, because the crowd was electric in the beginning, booing AO every time he touched the puck, chanting “Looooch!” every time Lucic touched the puck, chanting the usual Bruins chants. Not to mention the awesome free advertising on the jumbo tron every time they showed “Here We Go Bruins, Here We Go!” thanks TD Garden. It almost seemed when the Bruins first goal was taken back because of a quick whistle, which is when the momentum was turned in the Cap’s favor. A lot of people around me stood up to cheer the goal when the red light went off, but I had heard the whistle despite staring at a loose puck the entire time and knew it wasn’t going to count. Good job refs. Whether if this goal had counted would have made a difference in the Bruins play for the remainder of the game will forever remain to be seen.

Alexander the Great, who apparently doesn’t like any player in the league but himself because he is self proclaimed “selfish” had a huge night with 2 goals and an assist. Hate to say it, but AO looked great last night, flying around the Garden ice all night busting through our entire lineup of D-men. Except for one specific play by Derek Morris who made him take a seat when he was trying to plow over our blue line. Thank you Mr. Morris for giving me something to cheer about. One of my friends who went to the game last night, was his first ever and was looking forward to hearing the goal horn after I told him what a rush it is to hear the horn go off and for to see the Boston fans rise to their feet. Into the 3^rd period, I felt like a jerk as the Bruins hadn’t scored yet and was afraid he would be sent home without experiencing it. With that being said I’d like to extend Patrice Bergeron a special thanks for backing up my words.

Overall, after the first 15 minutes or so, the Bruins simply decided to take a nap and retreat back to their cave where they had come out of hungry and motivated not to long ago. Shake off that summer rust boys, and blow away the Canes tomorrow to earn your long awaited revenge.

Quote of the Day: This will not be the team you’re going to see night after night this year,” said B’s coach Claude Julien. “That much I can guarantee. This was one of those nights where we had too many good players probably at their worst.”

Just like I stated in my websites status last night, expect a different Bruins team Saturday night.

GETTING THE JOB DONE: Shawn Thornton. Skated his butt off all night and dropped the gloves. Least he was able to fire up the crowd when there wasn’t a whole lot to get fired up about.

SEE YA IN THE PRESS BOX: Milan Lucic. Not a terrible game, and Milan I understand your finding your soft touch but remember what got you here, starting punishing people like we know you can.