West Coast Trip - Win One Lose One

Two games out of three are out of the way on the Bruins west coast swing. All things considered, I'll take the results and I'm betting Claude Julien would agree.

On Wednesday the Bruins fell 4-3 to the surging Anaheim Mighty Ducks (I still call them that, fuck Disney). Then, in what has to be one of the worst scheduling breaks of the season for any team, the banged up Bruins had to hop up to San Jose last night for a tilt against the NHL's best team (they finished the night tied with Chicago for the points lead). Oh yea, for those east coasters out there, SJ isn't a 45 minute flight from LA, its a real plane ride.

The Bruins somehow managed to withstand a 42 shot barrage from the Sharks and thanks to Timmy and a flurry of good forechecking by, well...I don't know what the hell line they are anymore but - by the Whitfield-Paille-Thornton line, the Bruins snuck into a shootout where Chara bombed a slapshot 5 hole on Nabokov for the 2-1 win.


Chara logged something like 27 minutes of icetime last night and frankly, i don't know how he's going to be upright after the Olympics at this rate. I can't believe i'm saying this, but we need Mark Stuart like Haiti needs purified water right now. Fortunately, both appear to be on their way to their respective destinations.

If the Bruins pull a Kurt Russel and snake their way out of LA on Saturday, they'll have managed 4 out of 6 points against 3 very solid teams in 4 days, all with a blatantly depleted roster.

Paging Mr. Chiarelli - trade deadline is less than 6 weeks away. More thoughts on that later, especially since NESN seems to think the B's brass has interest in an aging PP specialist with no PP goals this year (no, i'm not talking about Sergei Gonchar, we did that once). James Murphy...why the blank would we want an overpaid Sheldon Souray (3-9-12 in 30 games and no PPG)?

A Trade has happened...It's Montador

Chiarelli provided this update to Bish just a few minutes ago:

"Well, we made one trade that we can’t announce yet, so you’ll get that. It’s, again, it’s a depth trade, that trade, and we’re working on a couple of others right now. I think noon was a big turning point because waivers expired then, and some teams picked up guys and wanted to see if they picked them up or not. So that’s where we are right now, and we’re continuing to be in our War Room, and we’re plugging away here."

Well now it's been announced. I just received a text that the Bruins have acquired Steve Montador, defenseman from Anaheim, in exchange for Petteri Nokalainen. I'll analyze this more later, but on the surface i like the add. Montador has 4G 16A and a +14 in 65 games this year. He's also only 29.

Also, Leopold is heading back to Colorado and the Coyotes have sent Tellqvist to Buffalo for a 4th rounder. (Correction, Leopold was sent FROM the Avs to Calgary)

Calgary has also added Olli Jokinen from Phoenix, who are having a fucking fire sale.

Just the tip...

Just for a second, just to see how it feels. It's a new segment i'm trying out, named after the ever-clever line in Wedding Crashers...Only here we're talking about a news tip.

Today's tip:

Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli guests on 'NHL Hour with Commissioner Gary Bettman on Sirius and XM radio. From NHL.com:
"NHL Hour with Commissioner Gary Bettman broadcasts live on Thursdays from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET on NHL Home Ice (XM Channel 204 and on SIRIUS Channel 208 as part of the "Best of XM" programming package) and NHL.com. The show will re-air on SIRIUS XM Radio, with archived shows available for download via podcast on NHL.com. "

Now i know what you're thinking. You're saying "this bonesaw clown thinks telling me about something 10 minutes after it's begun is a 'tip'? Screw him!"

Hey, look, depending on your age and disposition, that might be something we could look into; but for now consider this a friendly heads up that you would've stumbled onto sooner if you weren't reading my half ass-ed writing while killing time at work.

Since its already 4:10pm...go get the podcast!