Bruins Lose Right on the Heels of Yet Another 'Maybe They Figured it Out' Win

Game Notes Haiku: On the Upswing

Depth begins to show
The boys are becoming men
Tuukka does the rest

Next! The Hated Oilers of my childhood

Who here remembers 1990? I do. That was the all time most memorable season of Bruins hockey in my lifetime. I remember individual games from that year like people their kid's Christenings. Not to mention the fact that the whole season was burned into my brain over and over again by the immortal "Reach for the Stars" video, narrated by the one and only Michael J Fox (yes, i mention this at least three times a season). That season was ended by a sweep in the cup finals at the hands of the then Gretzky-less Edmonton Oilers and highlighted by one of the most heartbreaking finishes to a game in Boston sports history. Petr Klima's triple OT winner will forever stain my brain like a lemon party.

So, let's get past last night's loss to a team that's 6-0 on the road this year (gulp) and move on to tomorrow's Halloween tilt with a team that i hate as much as my cohort hates the Devils (we've been over that recently).

The Oilers come in to town on the heels of a 6-5 SO win over the Red Wings last night, at home, in which they led 5-1 in the second period. Let's just note - this team can be scored on. Also fun is the inclusion of Zach Stortini (pictured, right, in a rendering from NHL '10) who is single-handedly helping them average over 14 PIM per outing. I hope Shawn-O takes a few knuckles to his face tomorrow.

The more i think about it, the more i love the way we played last night. Guys like Sobotka and Bitz really played good hockey consistently throughout the night. Sometimes the puck just doesn't go in for you.

Finally, a special treat, courtesy of my brother, is the below Jack-O-Lantern (in honor of Jack Edwards, of course).

In Game: Bruins/Devils

I feel like giving some end-of-period, in game thoughts tonight, so you are the beneficiary of those.

After a period of play the Devils hold a 1-0 lead which, frankly, doesnt at all represent the way play went in that first 20 minutes. Outside of the last 60 seconds, it really felt like the Bruins took a lot of aggressive and smart play to the Devils, keeping the puck in the NJ end for most of the game so far. Unfortunately, a bad decision by Shawn Thornton who was covering for a step up by Andrew Ference led to a three on one and a goal for the Devils.

What was really encouraging was our fore check and puck control in the offensive zone both even strength and on the PP. The Devils play a collapsing form of defense and this places the oweness on the offense to have awareness of open areas and quickly move the puck there to capitalize on excess space left by collapsing defenders. If you can also join this with a physical puck control style, you're in good shape to counter the Devils style of play. Overall, we did a great job of this, but none of the bounces went our way.

Props to Byron Bitz who looked like a dervish out there. It's too bad he got stuck with a minus one as the fourth line gave up the goal, because he played as well as anyone on the ice, particularly on a couple of shifts with his own possession displays down low (tiring out the Devils defenders).

One last thought on the first: Our PP may be turning a corner. Granted, when you're 2 for 27 in an 8 game stretch, calling a turnaround in that trend is the same thing as predicting that a pitcher will throw a strike on a 3-0 count (it's bound to happen eventually). Now that you're past that, let's see if the B's carry over the differences that they seemed to apply in their first man-advantage tonight to the next. For weeks they've been stuck in a rut, not willing to move away from the wing to D pass on the high point and playing a far-too-predictable drawn up play with no movement away from the puck. Tonight, they moved away from the puck, and were willing to drop passes down low opening up the high slot alot more. Let's hope this is a sign that practice is helping (otherwise, i'm gonna start blaming the coaching staff).

End of Second Period: Tied at 1 a piece.

You can see I'm running a diary of "Devils Suck" photos tonight. It really soothes the soul. Another very good period of hockey. A bit more even, but ironically, the Bruins get a goal back following another decent powerplay with Bergeron scoring his fourth of the year. Thomas is looking very good tonight, and necessarily so, of course. It goes without saying that they need him to be on top of his game for the next 4-6 weeks until Savvy and Looch return.

The B's outshot the Devils 13-10 that period and its 25-23 overall now. For a game between these two teams, that is a helluva good dip, er, i mean a helluva lot of offense. Speaking of offense, the three Bruin forwards on the ice for the goal were Ryder, Bergeron and Sturm. I'm sure i'm not alone in saying i really like that line and would think that we could benefit from seeing them together alot more in even strength situations.

One other though, Bob Sweeney just made Kathryn Tappen look retarded, twice. The first time, he hadn't even spoken yet. I'm pretty sure she took that granny outfit off for him before the game.


After Game Thoughts: That guy up there really sucks. Yikes. Can you imagine what his kids look like?

Just a tough loss. I thought we outplayed NJ all night. Sometimes that's not enough. We just missed a number of opportunities, none closer than Chara's deflection that rang off the cross bar with about 40 seconds to play. Forget about the fact that the Linesman just blew a call like he was trying hard to get into an amatuer porn. I won't even begin to say that we'd have scored, but it's a kick when you're down, nonetheless.

This is a team coming together though. Remember, coming out of October last year we were 5-3-3 and then went on a tear. I don't think they're about to do the same, but there's signs of hope.

Reasons I Hate The New Jersey Devils

We all have teams that we hate.

Some are universal: Red Wings, Yankees, anyone who employs Mike Ribiero. Some are more obscure: Canucks (seriously, that old-school sweater looks like what this kid is about to crawl into), Panthers (ridiculously stupid stadium growling noise - NHL & NFL), Hurricanes (the in-excusable discontinuance of the Brass Bonanza).

I hate the New Jersey Devils for a varierty of reasons. Some pretty obvious, some less so. Allow me to elaborate ...

1.) Ruining offensive hockey and creating the lock-out (maybe). Ask anyone to name reasons that hockey was no fun to watch for a good portion of the pre-lockout years and they will will say "not enough scoring". Some of that can be attributed to the clutch/grab stuff but more of it can be attributed to the pervasive neutral-zone trap. Who brought that into the limelight? The Devils. It's easy to do, doesn't require skilled players, and chokes the shit out the offense.

2.) I drafted Patrik Elias in my fantasy league in the fall of 2005. Immediately after making the pick I was informed that he contracted Hepatitis A while playing in Russia, thus making him a perfect waste of space for the majority of the season, and making me the target of many a joke. Thanks, Patrik.

3.) The team is named after this thing. Yes, people think it's real - and maybe it is. But more likely they're just idiots. For comparison's sake, the Bruins are named after a bear. An actual animal, and according to trusted national news agencies, the animal we really need to be worried about.

4.) My good friend, and scribe of Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness, used to beat me a little more often that I beat him in NHL 00 back when we were in college. His weapon of choice? The Devils. Nothing can make a man more irate than having his best players injured after the whistle by an out of control Scott Stevens. He contends that this is allowed for within the rules of such a contest - we disagree to this day.

Enjoy the game, everyone. I'll have my Elias voodoo doll on hand, so when he goes down in the 2nd holding his groin for no apparent reason you only have me to thank.

GO B's!

10 Games Deep: Report Card

Peter Chiarelli, I hope you get home before Mom does because you're going to need to take this report card out of the mailbox. You've been a bad monkey.

10 games in and, the final minute of last night's game not withstanding, the Bruins have a lot of work to do. In grading this year's team I'm trying not to take into account the high expectations that we all had (have) for the team. Let's try and take a step back and look at numbers instead of just acting off of shear emotion. Mmm-kay?

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Forwards: So far we haven't seen a consistent effort from these forwards with respect to offensive zone pressure or the 2-man fore-check we all heard so much about. We've heard forwards tell Naoko in between periods about 'getting too cute', and needing to 'getting pucks to the net'. What that tells me is that these attackers seem to think they have the midas touch and that defenses will simply pull the parking cone defense, let them skate past (we haven't played against Hal Gill YET) and score the goal they apparently earned through virtue of a good record last year. Yes, you still have to TRY, guys. I know it's hard, we'll get through this together. Try cycling the puck once in a while, good things will happen.

We're averaging 2.8 goals per game and 29.1 shots per game, good for 17th and 21st in the league respectively. So, way to get those pucks to the net, fellas! The Bruins are winning 49.4% of their face-offs, also good for 17th in the league. A little bit less than average across the board. Very Meh.

Everyone needs to look at Steve Begin - he's one of our best guys thus far. Injuries happen, so I'm not being lenient just because of Savard and Looch. Suck it up.

Grade: C

Defensemen: So far these guys have likely been our best players - even with all the moving parts and new personnel. Derek Morris is looking like the guy that we thought he was and Chara has been the leader that we need him to be. Shit, he's tied for the points lead on the team (7 points) with a guy who has a broken foot.

The team as a whole is allowing 31.3 shots per game, good for 21st in the league. Not good. Blocked shots? Well, Morris is our best player there too - tied for 35 in the league with 18. No one else is even close (Ferrence is next at tied for 44th). His predecessor, Aaron Ward? Oh, he's tied for 11th with 24. I'm just saying, it's interesting, ok?

There have been breakdowns, but they haven't been completely terrible. I've seen a couple of bad pinches, but overall I think they've been better than the offensive counterparts. But not by much.

Grade: C+

Goaltending: Look we all like Timmy, but last night not withstanding - he's been suspect. GAA is 2.97 with a .902 save percentage. Tuuka, for all that we love to hype him, hasn't been lights out either, posting a 3.17 and .899. They both had some great saves (Tim last night, absolutely filthy stop against Alfredsson). But no one has been consistent yet, which is what they need to be. I heard Kluzac say last night that Tim would go 20 games without a stink-bomb last year and so far he's thrown up 2, maybe three.

Small sample size? Yes. But that's why we speculate, because what else would I be doing on a Sunday morning? Are they good now? Not really, will they play better - almost definitely.

Grade: C

Special Teams: Oh, they've been special all right. How special you might ask? Think 'Ralph Wiggum in English class' bad. How about killing power plays at 83% and scoring on them at nice even 15%. Those are both shitty. Very shitty. 24th and 27th in the league shitty.

And, oh by the way, they have 3 short-handed goals on their watch too. Where does that land in the old statistics pool? NUMBER-FUCKING-ONE!

Grade: F-


Overall Team Grade: C

I just re-read what I wrote and I've decided that we're pretty goddamned lucky to be 5-4-1. Given the injury situation,the poor to mediocre performances by the front and back lines, not to mention to complete disaster that has been the power-play - I'm feeling good. Not like George Jung in the 70s good, but good.

If there is something to be excited about it's that they have a lot of room for improvement and they seem to be coping alright without Lucic and Savard. No doubt they responded well to the adversity of the injury bug, but we hope that this doesn't start to fade as they move forward.

Marchand looks like a guy who can really skate and move the puck. No question, he is making all the rookie mistakes but this kid looks to be a regular contributor down the road.

Lastly, if anything could be a springboard for building some identity and momentum it was last night's game. As my co-conspirator already wrote this morning, they turned it around in about 1 minute thanks to timely goals and great goal tending.

OK, it's football time. I'm starting Michael Crabtree - that's how bad my receivers are. FML.

Recipe for win: 58.5 minutes of sloppy hockey + Tim Thomas

How did the Bruins manage to escape Scotia Bank Place with 2 points you ask? I am asking the same question this morning. Let's face it, we some some terrible individual performances last night and while i enjoy watching the home town 23 skate every day, I'm damn glad the next 5 days will be practices under coach Julien's supervision.

After fifty eight and a half minutes of terrible hockey, overall (Wheeler's goal was a brief bright spot), the Bruins looked like they were this guy:

Tim Thomas had singlehan- alright, Chara played very well -dedly kept Boston within two goals. All this after the third Ottawa goal went in off one of Thomas' teammates. Dennis Wideman and Derek Morris both played the game as though they were skating in mud or simply didn't want to be there (i was SCREAMING at Wideman to get motivated, i don't think he won a single one on one battle to the puck and YES i saw his helmet come off - he still sucked).

To make matters worse, our coaching staff apparently is more comfortable with a 6 on 5 than they are with a 5 on 4 (more on this in a second). Every Bruins power play was the same predictable pattern. 3 guys stand still down low, while Bergeron and Morris play catch and turn the puck over in a small space at the blue line. We really don't seem comfortable using motion to create space (something we're highly vulnerable of on the PK, so you think we'd have come to recognize it by now!). I can't say enough about how baffled I am that we had so good a PP last year and so bad a PP now. I may have to go research this and then eat a shotgun barrel.

So that brings us to the 6 on 5. Improbably, we spent the last 96 seconds of the game skating as though our lives depended on it and won every conceivable battle to the puck in that timeframe. Derek Morris (previously noted for NOT being a puck moving defenseman) suddenly assumed the form he was advertised to possess and before I knew what was happening, we were tied. NOTE: with 8 minutes to play, i turned my XBOX on. Something, and i don't know what, kept me from turning off the game though. Between this game and the Islanders game, if we're down 2 goals, i'm not changing the channel. They're reaching '04 Red Sox status in my head right now.
A solid overtime period and more heroics from Timmy (who had the save of the year in the second period - i'll post it later today) and a patient shootout goal from Bergy equaled the 2 points.

Phew.