Off Season Dolldrums: Episode 1 - Trade Rumors

Are you at all surprised that we haven't put anything in this space for the last month? Well, you shouldn't be. In fact, until the B's extended Krecji, I couldn't stomach reading about them. Now...I'm ready to start making the summer pass a bit quicker. Maybe a weekly post or something to keep the overwhelming masses at bay. All three of you.

Let's look at what's coming up...

The Bruins have some decisions to make in the next week. They have multiple RFA's (Kessel, Bitz to name two) who they will be tendering offers to and they have the draft this weekend. With the 25th overall pick, the Bruins are supposedly looking to move up. They certainly have chips to do so with guys like Kessel and Bergeron who they clearly haven't committed to long term (i dont care what Bergy's contract says...they aren't sold on him past Monday).

And now as I'm writing this i read the following from the Boston Globe:

"Boston's interest in acquiring Tomas Kaberle, reported here on Boston.com last night, took an interesting twist here today when TSN.ca's Bob McKenzie reported that the Bruins have offered Phil Kessel to the Leafs for Kaberle and the Leafs' seventh pick in tonight's NHL draft here at the Bell Center."

I texted my brother this news and he said "Maybe i'd jump on it for a 5th rounder". No Mike, not the 7th ROUND pick...the 7th OVERALL!

Kaberle is 31. He averages about 8 goals and 42 assists per season and is a career +43. He has two years remaining on a 5 year, $21.5 million deal he signed in February of 2006. Interesting to note that Kabrele and Ray Bourque have something in common...they are two of the four players to hit all four targets in just four shots in the skills competition at AllStar Weekend.

Interesting...More to come...

GNH: Bringing it back home...

Bergeron sparks B's
To another win; which brings
the series back home

Now we're right back where we left off last year. Storming back from a 3-1 series deficit against a bunch of clowns with red in their jerseys. Let's look for this year to turn out differently in game 7 as we're a far superior team to last year and maybe, just maybe, this video will be all too appropriate...

GNH: Bruins show signs of life...

Physical effort

Leads to much improved chances

and they're not dead yet

A flood of emotions

That was an intense sports weekend. I'm not gonna lie, i spent the entire weekend thinking about what to write in this space, or any other, for that matter. Landing on substantive analysis just didn't seem like something i could pull off. And then the Bruins went ahead and lost their first playoff game of the year...let's just say that didn't serve my emotional state well. Thankfully, i'm a blogger (allegedly) and i'm damn sure that restrictions on bloggers overtly displaying emotion as a means of release are non-existent. Let's face it, Simmons does it every time he writes.

I went from a dominant Bruins win in game 1 (sort of unexpectedly) accompanied by a few Jager shots to a wierd Kentucky Derby that made me smile ear to ear (don't ask, Calvin Borrel just does something wierd to me) and a great Celtics victory in Game 7 to last night. What happened last night anyway? I spent over $150 to watch Game 2 in a suite with the girlfriend, Caveman, Mr Friday Night and a number of new friends in the Boston Media who shall remain nameless for the time being. Then an ominous sign came: As I watched the first period, i noticed Glen Wesley in the suite next to us - wearing a nice red tie to emphasize his affiliation with the Hartford Whalers, er, 'Canes. At that point, as i became momentarily starstruck, i realized we were boned.

No way were we winning a game in which the Robin to Ray Bourque's batman shows up in the opponent's colors. Then to boot, Patrice Bergeron nearly broke a scoreless tie with a shot that flipped inches over the crossbar of an empty net...shades of Mr. Wesley himself from Game 1 of the 1990 Cup finals. I felt like Michael J Fox was suddenly calling the game in my head and it was only a matter of time before Peter Klima would break the city's collective heart.

Well, i was right. From the Bruins skating in mud, to bad decisions by Thomas and Chara, to a hot Cam Ward, we simply couldn't muster a meaningful shot from there on in and fell 3-0 in anticlimactic fashion.
Thankfully, this is not 1990. This is just one game. This is still the beginning. The Bruins will rebound and i'm pretty sure that no team has ever gone 16-0 through the playoffs - so you could say this was inevitable. (Dwight Howard is huge and i want him to die)
Right now, i know that Claude is hammering the Bruins for not being more aggressive and will have them coming out strong Wednesday night, but frankly i'm still pissed as hell at the showing they posted last night. Hopefully, the Bruins are composed. Like Mark Recchi said, "Never get too high, never get too low"

Timmy Receives Vezina Nomination

As expected, Tim Thomas was announced as a finalist for the Vezina, awarded to the league's top netminder.

The Awards are to be dished out on June 18th in Las Vegas. I've already laid out my argument for why Tim should and will win and you can read my debate with the Caveman about it, and other awards, here.

Rangers, Penguins or Whalers?

Fun stuff coming out of these other series in the Eastern Conference. Just to bring everyone up to speed...

• John Tortorella was suspended for game six of the series against Washington. This guy has gone full retard. There is no way you can take yourself out of a potential clinching game on account of squirting fans with a water bottle, throwing said water bottle at those same fans, and then trying to get at them with a hockey stick. Bravo, John. And this is the same guy who expects Sean Avery to act mature.

• Oh, and Washington won 4-0 on Sunday in John's absence and now has all the momentum in the series.

• The Whale is beating Dirty Jersey right now by a score of 4-0 late in the 3rd period so it's looking like a game seven there, too. This is awesome because if the Whale can pull it off, and the Caps win that means the B's get the Whale and not the Penguins. I hate the Penguins and I think they're beatable ... but if we can avoid them I'll take it. Plus I get to break out my Kevin Dineen jersey.
  

• I shot a 113 today at Mount Hood in Melrose. I suck at Golf.
  

I'd Say We're Whores, But No One Paid Us

Thanks to Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness for helping me wade through the suck that is HTML and officially whore out some of our space to the good folks at Versus. Here comes the fun-cooker!

Yep, me and HTML go together like lamb and tunafish. Or Kovalev and effort.

Just watch the games, OK? As if you weren't going to already. I know. Shaddap.