Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Injury Update - Savard Out 4-6 weeks
Savard was placed on long term IR (means he has to miss 24 days or ten games, minimum) with a broken left foot. 4-6 weeks is the expected timetable for return. Great. We're officially snake-bitten this year with the injury bug.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Trade News: Bruins Acquire Daniel Paille
This news just hit my text inbox. The B's have dealt a pair of draft picks (3rd in 2010 and conditional 4th in 2010) to Buffalo for 25 year old forward, Daniel Paille. Paille has 35 goals and 42 assists in 195 career NHL games, all with the Sabres. The 20th overall pick in 2002, Paielle did most of the above damage in the last two seasons and has only played in 2 games this year (i'm not yet sure why) but was a second liner in Buffalo and figures to take Kobasew's slot on the third line in Boston at first glance.
Interestingly enough, bostonbruins.com reports that this is the first trade EVER between the division rivals.
More to come...
Interestingly enough, bostonbruins.com reports that this is the first trade EVER between the division rivals.
More to come...
Goon It Up Tuesdays
Welcome to a new segment dedicated to the day of the week on which the Bruins play the least hockey games (i think). Since we never seem to have anything to write about on Tuesdays, except the occasional night game, we're starting a segment dedicated to highlighting the Goons of the NHL.
Each Tuesday we'll provide highlight reel (usually courtesy of HockeyFights.com) of one of the previous weekend's top bouts. Feel free to submit ideas in case you think you're better at tracking these down than us. Or just video tape yourselves helmet boxing drunk and send that in too. At the end of the first half and second half of the season, we'll vote on the best, if you're well behaved.
This weekend's submission is Rick Rypien (Canucks) and Zach Stortini (Oilers). Rypien clearly wins this one. Enjoy.
Each Tuesday we'll provide highlight reel (usually courtesy of HockeyFights.com) of one of the previous weekend's top bouts. Feel free to submit ideas in case you think you're better at tracking these down than us. Or just video tape yourselves helmet boxing drunk and send that in too. At the end of the first half and second half of the season, we'll vote on the best, if you're well behaved.
This weekend's submission is Rick Rypien (Canucks) and Zach Stortini (Oilers). Rypien clearly wins this one. Enjoy.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Good, The Bad, and the newfound cap space
Goodbye Chuck, BC Sucks and you'll be playing golf somewhere else next summer.
The Bruins ended an eventful (and very up and down) weekend with a trade that may be telling of things to come. In what this writer deems an obvious cap clearing move, the B's sent Kobasew to Minnesota for the rights to two players and a draft pick. With Kobasew a $2.3 million cap hit this year, the B's just went from $700k to $3 million (ammortize that to about $2.4 for the remainder of the year) in space under the cap. Remember, we're still being hit by 3 guys we are paying, but not getting the benefit of their sucktitude (Murray, Schaeffer and Eaves). What's this all mean?
Multiple sources of rumor and conjecture are spelling out the future that we'd all LOVE to see happen: the Bruins are clearing the way for a run at Ilya Kovalchuk. Let's face it, his best goal scoring season was in 05-06 playing alongside Marc Savard, so there's virtually no reason to argue with a trade run at a guy who's 26 and already has 300 career goals.
However, i'm advising cautious optimism. While i do believe this has been in the making since the Bruins began stiff arming Phil Kessel, it's far from a foregone conclusion that Atlanta is even going to trade their captain. I know from a source inside the Atlanta organization that they are very high on their young talent and with Ilya only 26, they'd have to consider throwing the kitchen sink at him in contract negotiations. The bigger question is Ilya himself, i.e. will he WANT to resign.
Think about all of that. It's not simple because the Bruins will have to dump other $ before this becomes a reality, too. I'll be back with further breakdown of trade possibilities and some cranky writing about the inconsistency of the play our boys put forth on their short southwestern roadtrip this weekend (3-o win in Dallas and 4-1 loss in the desert that is hockey purgatory). Oh, and Lucic was placed on long-term injured reserve. Fuck.
The Bruins ended an eventful (and very up and down) weekend with a trade that may be telling of things to come. In what this writer deems an obvious cap clearing move, the B's sent Kobasew to Minnesota for the rights to two players and a draft pick. With Kobasew a $2.3 million cap hit this year, the B's just went from $700k to $3 million (ammortize that to about $2.4 for the remainder of the year) in space under the cap. Remember, we're still being hit by 3 guys we are paying, but not getting the benefit of their sucktitude (Murray, Schaeffer and Eaves). What's this all mean?
Multiple sources of rumor and conjecture are spelling out the future that we'd all LOVE to see happen: the Bruins are clearing the way for a run at Ilya Kovalchuk. Let's face it, his best goal scoring season was in 05-06 playing alongside Marc Savard, so there's virtually no reason to argue with a trade run at a guy who's 26 and already has 300 career goals.
However, i'm advising cautious optimism. While i do believe this has been in the making since the Bruins began stiff arming Phil Kessel, it's far from a foregone conclusion that Atlanta is even going to trade their captain. I know from a source inside the Atlanta organization that they are very high on their young talent and with Ilya only 26, they'd have to consider throwing the kitchen sink at him in contract negotiations. The bigger question is Ilya himself, i.e. will he WANT to resign.
Think about all of that. It's not simple because the Bruins will have to dump other $ before this becomes a reality, too. I'll be back with further breakdown of trade possibilities and some cranky writing about the inconsistency of the play our boys put forth on their short southwestern roadtrip this weekend (3-o win in Dallas and 4-1 loss in the desert that is hockey purgatory). Oh, and Lucic was placed on long-term injured reserve. Fuck.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
No game till Friday?
Thank God. Those boys need some practice. After pounding Patron shots during the third period/OT comeback win on Saturday with the Caveman and then watching the Bruins sleep their way through a 4-3 loss to the Avs on Monday, I could use the practice too. That doesn't make any sense.
Look, the B's are flat - plain and simple. They seem to be in the same type of shape they were early last season where they only get up for one period a game. This doesn't bode well for a team that's already played 5 home games and zero on the road. I'm not ready to rant at all but suffice to say i hope Julien is beating the pulp out of the boys this week. Dallas and Phoenix suck and there's no reason we shouldn't take four points home this weekend, three at worst.
Check back Friday for more thoughts.
Look, the B's are flat - plain and simple. They seem to be in the same type of shape they were early last season where they only get up for one period a game. This doesn't bode well for a team that's already played 5 home games and zero on the road. I'm not ready to rant at all but suffice to say i hope Julien is beating the pulp out of the boys this week. Dallas and Phoenix suck and there's no reason we shouldn't take four points home this weekend, three at worst.
Check back Friday for more thoughts.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Game Day Thoughts
Let me ask you this. How sorry a state is the NHL in when not a single fucking bar in the Causeway Street area carries the Bruins opening night tilt against the Capitals and the best player in the league? Let's put it this way: there's a reason you're reading my blog right now. Ahem.
So there I am, last Thursday night, rushing to get downtown to meet my brother and a few friends at Greatest Bar for some boobs, beers and what turned out to be a hockey game I barely saw any of in the end. I get through traffic just in time to roll up to the bar at 7pm.
"Holy shit, this place is dead", i think as I order a pitcher for the table we've taken over right in front of the biggest tv on the first floor. Within a minute, our waitress comes over with the beer and my brother asks her if they plan to turn the channel to Versus.
"No", she replies in a coy manner.
I immediately berate my brother for not recognizing her sarcasm.
She repeats herself. I fall off my barstool at this point.
Are you fucking kidding? You're not? Why? Direct what? Direct TV doesn't carry Versus?
We proceed to leave a two dollar tip on a twenty five dollar tab, pound two coors lights each and storm down the street looking for a new bar. Ten bars, a ciggarette and a string of expletives unloaded on scalpers and hobos alike, and we're rounding the corner to Johnny' on the side mad as rattlesnakes.
Sure enough, no game. All we found at every bar in Causeway was a meaningless Red Sox game with Chris Woodward starting at Shortstop. Yea, Chris Woodward. That's who i want to see right now (jabs eyes out with parking cone). If i'd seen that Hummer, it would be a charred pile of metal right now.
Anyway, needless to say, my blogging this year started off the way my hockey viewing did. Slow and uncoordinated. But I'm back!
A few thoughts before getting to tonight's matchup (yes, the cavemen will be there).
First, John Buccigross can kiss the fatest part of my ass. I love the man. For my money, Bucci is not only the last bastion of hockey knowledge at ESPN, but he's a man cut from the same cloth as me (New England boy, builds a rink in his backyard, longs for the original 6 teams - a true aficionado of the game). However, in his season preview, he lambasted the Bruins Brass for the Kessel trade. Here's an excerpt.
"Instead of feeding off last season and building momentum, the Bruins hit a speed bump after strange negotiations with their best pure goal scorer, Phil Kessel. Kessel is a soon-to-be 22-year-old whose career arc looks to be peaking toward a 40- to 50-goal annual turnaround. How this didn't turn into an eight-year contract extension with about a $5.5 million cap number I will never understand."
Excuse me? 8 years? This isn't Rick Dipietro we're talking about (insert any Garth Snow jab here). What the hell is Buccigrass smoking? Can i have some?
Kessel has had one, count 'em, one good year. He has one, count 'em, one mother fucking move. By mid-December, every defenseman in the Eastern conference had figured out the "off wing, top of the circle toe-drag quick release" and was simply poke checking his shots high and wide. Let's see how he does in Toronto without a center the likes of Savard, or even Krejci, to feed his stick in the slot.
Oh wait, there's more.
"You just don't let players with this kind of skating and release go. And during his young career, he has shown he can take his game into the postseason."
Really? Like that time he was benched? BENCHED. Against the Canadiens? Look, i'm not living in a cave (sort of) and i understand that he got better after that experience, but you're not really bringing a huge body of work to the table here. Phil is not someone who makes others around him better. He's not someone who plays two way hockey. There's a reason that despite 36 goals and a spot on the top line, he only had a +23 last year. Compare that to Krejci's league leading +36? Now you tell me that Kessel's worth a full million a year and double the contract length more than Krejci? They're both under 24!!!
"These players sell tickets and jerseys. Oh, and win games. Red Wings fans have Datsyuk; Penguins fans have Malkin and Crosby; Caps fans have Ovechkin; the Hawks have Patrick Kane..."
That does it. Pull this truck over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike. If your argument goes so far as to compare Kessel's meaning to the franchise and city to the likes of Ovechkin and Crosby, then you need to take a nap. Phil may have sold a few jerseys (more because he became a fan favorite by surviving cancer and winning some exciting shootouts - didn't he go 7 for his first 7 attempts at one point?), to me included, but he's not even the third best player on the Bruins.
Let's play a game. It's called: "List the best players on the Boston Bruins 09-10 roster"
1. Chara
2. Savard
3. Thomas
4. Krejci? Bergeron (if healthy)?
Did Kessel go here? Maybe. But does that warrant locking him up for 8 years with only one full season of history to go off of? Hell no. We don't know where the cap is headed and if Chiarelli's shown us anything, it's that he's loading up on two kinds of players:
- Guys that play two way hockey
- Guys that want to be here
Phil didn't fit either and what's worse, he had a skewed perception of his market value. Just because Toronto paid him something, doesn't mean he's worth that.
Am I dejected by this trade? Yes. Do i know it was the smart business move for the team long term? Yes. Can we make up for his "offense" and "lack of defense"? Abso-god-damn-lutely.
Now on to tonight. The Ducks are in town which means only one thing. Emilio Estevez photo moments! I think this is a tough matchup for the Ducks. They're no longer the defensive team they once were, especially without Pronger. For the record, I completely agree with Bucci in his assessment of the Ducks, ironically.
They rely on scoring now, and the Bruins have a perfectly structured defensive core to stop their not-so-small forwards. If the B's get out to an early start against whichever interchangeable keeper is in net tonight, The Ducks will be reeling. Plus, they're in the midst of one of those not so fun cross-country road trips; Meanwhile, the Bruins are at home and well rested.
Prediction: Bruins win, 4-2. Enjoy the game!
So there I am, last Thursday night, rushing to get downtown to meet my brother and a few friends at Greatest Bar for some boobs, beers and what turned out to be a hockey game I barely saw any of in the end. I get through traffic just in time to roll up to the bar at 7pm.
"Holy shit, this place is dead", i think as I order a pitcher for the table we've taken over right in front of the biggest tv on the first floor. Within a minute, our waitress comes over with the beer and my brother asks her if they plan to turn the channel to Versus.
"No", she replies in a coy manner.
I immediately berate my brother for not recognizing her sarcasm.
She repeats herself. I fall off my barstool at this point.
Are you fucking kidding? You're not? Why? Direct what? Direct TV doesn't carry Versus?
We proceed to leave a two dollar tip on a twenty five dollar tab, pound two coors lights each and storm down the street looking for a new bar. Ten bars, a ciggarette and a string of expletives unloaded on scalpers and hobos alike, and we're rounding the corner to Johnny' on the side mad as rattlesnakes.
Sure enough, no game. All we found at every bar in Causeway was a meaningless Red Sox game with Chris Woodward starting at Shortstop. Yea, Chris Woodward. That's who i want to see right now (jabs eyes out with parking cone). If i'd seen that Hummer, it would be a charred pile of metal right now.
Anyway, needless to say, my blogging this year started off the way my hockey viewing did. Slow and uncoordinated. But I'm back!
A few thoughts before getting to tonight's matchup (yes, the cavemen will be there).
First, John Buccigross can kiss the fatest part of my ass. I love the man. For my money, Bucci is not only the last bastion of hockey knowledge at ESPN, but he's a man cut from the same cloth as me (New England boy, builds a rink in his backyard, longs for the original 6 teams - a true aficionado of the game). However, in his season preview, he lambasted the Bruins Brass for the Kessel trade. Here's an excerpt.
"Instead of feeding off last season and building momentum, the Bruins hit a speed bump after strange negotiations with their best pure goal scorer, Phil Kessel. Kessel is a soon-to-be 22-year-old whose career arc looks to be peaking toward a 40- to 50-goal annual turnaround. How this didn't turn into an eight-year contract extension with about a $5.5 million cap number I will never understand."
Excuse me? 8 years? This isn't Rick Dipietro we're talking about (insert any Garth Snow jab here). What the hell is Buccigrass smoking? Can i have some?
Kessel has had one, count 'em, one good year. He has one, count 'em, one mother fucking move. By mid-December, every defenseman in the Eastern conference had figured out the "off wing, top of the circle toe-drag quick release" and was simply poke checking his shots high and wide. Let's see how he does in Toronto without a center the likes of Savard, or even Krejci, to feed his stick in the slot.Oh wait, there's more.
"You just don't let players with this kind of skating and release go. And during his young career, he has shown he can take his game into the postseason."
Really? Like that time he was benched? BENCHED. Against the Canadiens? Look, i'm not living in a cave (sort of) and i understand that he got better after that experience, but you're not really bringing a huge body of work to the table here. Phil is not someone who makes others around him better. He's not someone who plays two way hockey. There's a reason that despite 36 goals and a spot on the top line, he only had a +23 last year. Compare that to Krejci's league leading +36? Now you tell me that Kessel's worth a full million a year and double the contract length more than Krejci? They're both under 24!!!
"These players sell tickets and jerseys. Oh, and win games. Red Wings fans have Datsyuk; Penguins fans have Malkin and Crosby; Caps fans have Ovechkin; the Hawks have Patrick Kane..."
That does it. Pull this truck over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike. If your argument goes so far as to compare Kessel's meaning to the franchise and city to the likes of Ovechkin and Crosby, then you need to take a nap. Phil may have sold a few jerseys (more because he became a fan favorite by surviving cancer and winning some exciting shootouts - didn't he go 7 for his first 7 attempts at one point?), to me included, but he's not even the third best player on the Bruins.
Let's play a game. It's called: "List the best players on the Boston Bruins 09-10 roster"
1. Chara
2. Savard
3. Thomas
4. Krejci? Bergeron (if healthy)?
Did Kessel go here? Maybe. But does that warrant locking him up for 8 years with only one full season of history to go off of? Hell no. We don't know where the cap is headed and if Chiarelli's shown us anything, it's that he's loading up on two kinds of players:
- Guys that play two way hockey
- Guys that want to be here
Phil didn't fit either and what's worse, he had a skewed perception of his market value. Just because Toronto paid him something, doesn't mean he's worth that.
Am I dejected by this trade? Yes. Do i know it was the smart business move for the team long term? Yes. Can we make up for his "offense" and "lack of defense"? Abso-god-damn-lutely.
Now on to tonight. The Ducks are in town which means only one thing. Emilio Estevez photo moments! I think this is a tough matchup for the Ducks. They're no longer the defensive team they once were, especially without Pronger. For the record, I completely agree with Bucci in his assessment of the Ducks, ironically.
They rely on scoring now, and the Bruins have a perfectly structured defensive core to stop their not-so-small forwards. If the B's get out to an early start against whichever interchangeable keeper is in net tonight, The Ducks will be reeling. Plus, they're in the midst of one of those not so fun cross-country road trips; Meanwhile, the Bruins are at home and well rested.
Prediction: Bruins win, 4-2. Enjoy the game!
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