This time its all about Peter Chiarelli. We Bruins fans knew with all our heart that there was no way the Bruins were going to land the only person out there who can thread a need with his stick and score goals at will. Ilya Kovalchuk would never see what the Zakim Bridge looks like at night all lit up. Despite all our hopes and dreams, admit it, we knew it was just that. A pipe dream.
Chiarelli said that he was not going to trade the Toronto draft pick he acquired for Phil Kessel. He said he was not going to mortgage the team for a rental. All those cliches to NOT do something. Well, Mr. Chiarelli, it’s time you tell us…or better yet show us what you ARE going to do. We’ve had enough of what isn’t being done to improve this joke of a team, please give us something, anything that will give us hope of what the local hockey product claims to be a professional hockey club cuz right now I don’t see it! Did you hear Claude Julien say that this team “dominated” the Washington Capitals on Tuesday? Is management on this team really thinking that the team is good? Granted they have played the last two games with more intensity that the past two weeks, but they are in 12th place in the Eastern Conference. Twelth place! They could have given up that Toronto pick for Ilya Kovalchuk (there I go dreaming again) because they are gonna have their own top 5 pick.
So now the General Manager needs to tell us and show us exactly why we should be laying down good money to watch such pitiful games. Why we should even care about the Boston Bruins. (because we will always care..its what we hockey fans do) And that’s the rub. We watch every game, we root for the team to do well even though we know in the end that this organization will do its damnedest to break everyone’s heart. Chiarelli tells us he’s not going to do this and that and meanwhile he is doing absolutely nothing which means wait till next year!
The Coach has rose colored glasses on if he thinks this team is playing well with nothing to show for it.
I and the fans should be used to this but because we care it really does hurt. Especially since this goes on constantly. It was pretty much the same in Harry Sinden’s later years and the Mike O’Connell years were just tragic.
Now we have the “Outsiders” who don’t seem to know what they are doing to rescue the B’s from oblivion. There must be reason Julien was fired twice….once with an overall first place team with 2 games left before heading into the playoffs! Last years over achievers have left us with the Chicken Little syndrome.

-Diehard

Ya know, sometimes there comes something from someone that is truly right on the money. My friend Coop sent this missive about hockey which shows he is not only a good writer but as passionate about hockey and our beloved Bruins as anyone. Here is what Coop says about hockey in general and I really could not have put all these thoughts in one sitting like he did. So enjoy!

“Enough with the shoot out. End it. 4 on 4 for 5 minutes, 3 on 3 for 5 minutes. No goals? A tie. The shoot-outs BORE me. It’s fun to watch a guy on a breakaway, only if a defender is busting his ass to catch him. Do you think in a million, yes a MILLION years we would see a move like Kopitar’s in a game with someone racing after him? Never. The fights are stupid, the shoot-out is stupid, give me 60 minutes of hockey, 10 minutes of modified hockey, no winner? Tie game, one point each. See you in the playoffs. Why aren’t the players credited with a goal on their records if they bury one in the shoot-out? I am so disappointed with our guys this year. I give them my heart every season, and it gets crushed like an abandoned car at Stinky’s Auto Salvage. I remember when a fight excited me, now it’s just absurd. Some guy lays a great hip check on Joe Schmeaux coming into the offensive zone, a perfectly legal, hard check, Schmeaux is floored, and 4 of his teammates rush over to fight the guy that checked him. CHECKING is LEGAL in hockey. Shmeaux should get up, take a number, and throw a check, or score a goal to burn the player (lets call him Murray Hamilton *look it up*, and his team later.) Two guys with face shields wrestling for a minute is about as thrilling as watching my puppy dog. Hockey is never going to get better TV ratings than CSI-Brighton, but there are hundreds of thousands of fans that live and breathe hockey, think about them (us), hockey is WORLDWIDE, there is a league in Russia that can lure layers away from the NHL, paying them millions. We have a great sport, bleep the salary cap, the best teams should be able to get the best players. If that means Bah-Bye to Columbus and Nashville and Atlanta, so be it . If your pond don’t freeze in January, you ain’t a hockey market. The Bruins are NEVER going to win the cup with Jeremy Jacobspenis owning the club. They don’t try to market sailing in Nebraska, so don’t try to sell hockey in Nashville. We need a 24 team league, 12 teams each conference, give us the best you can offer. I love the Bruins and want them to win, but if you give me a dynamite playoff series with Toronto against Los Angeles, I will watch every minute. (I know I said “pond freezing” earlier, but LA is the one warm weather exception to the warm weather rule, we can live without Anaheim, San Jose, Florida and Tampa Bay, put a club in Seattle-former home to the Metropolitans, or Portland, if you have to, and see what transpires). With the HD TV, the game looks GREAT on TV, even though I’m a die-hard, the biscuit was a tad hard to pick up on Ch. 38 back in the day, squinting was not optional, it was mandatory. Not everyone likes Def Leppard, not everyone likes hockey, let’s try to make the game good for the people that like it like us, and try a bit to recruit the people hanging on the fence. There are millions and millions of folks who love the game of stick and puck, so let’s make them happy and excited, if our efforts reinforce their love and get a few folks hanging on the fence over to our side let’s do it. Remember, once you have seem a hockey game in person, LIVE, you are a fan, FOR LIFE. Teams should give FREE tickets out to groups in their areas, offering them seats at a game, GOOD seats. Once you have seen a game live, you are on board, you know it, I know it. Sitting in the stands, hearing the sounds of the game and leaving your seat when the locals score is the nucking futs, you WILL be hooked for life on hockey. One other thing that has to change. GOALS. It is complete bullsh*t when a goal is waved off because it was “kicked in”, that is complete bullsh*t. If you have the skills to direct the puck into the net with your skate, your nose, your swinging johnson, your knee… Outstanding – it is a GOAL!!!!!”. Awesome!!! Line up for a face off. Same thing with a leg, a hand, an elbow, anything. Like soccer, if you have the skills to get the puck in he net, it is a bleeping GOAL. Testes, heads, ankle, chest. faces, (Andy Brickley, anyone?) bums, shoulders, hands…. If you’ve got the skills to knock it in, well, then…. It is a …. G O A L. , yes … A G O A L! …. Yay! (the fans do not leave their seats yelling….. “Wasn’t that an outstanding wrist shot???”, “Wasn’t that a really great dump and chase play???? (AHHHHHHH, on that one!! ) direct it in with the shaft of your composite material hockey stick… G O A L!. Crash the net and blast the goalie and the puck into the net, G O A L, (I know that you will hate that one RICARDOAVACARDO, but too, bad, you should have played left-wing then you wouldn’t be biased towards the crease resident), if you can get the puck over the goal line, more power to you! I am not saying you should cross-check the gardien de buts in the head to score, but good a smashing of puck, body, ice shards, equipment, the full Sex And The City DVD Compilation, mouth piece, CCM’s, an autographed 5 X 8 of the great man tucked in your shin pad, banana cup, Gold Bond powder liberally applied to the crotch area, laces, skates, appropriate hockey undergarments, a serious knob on the top of your shaft, your shaft, the realization that while you are falling into the net, you are participating in the greatest sport on the globe, f*ck what Latin America says about Futball (soccer), what those tea-sipping florists in India and Australia say about cricket, you know I know that there is hockey, and there is everything else…… And!!!!!! It is better to have played hockey and lost….. than it is to have played basketball. Do not even get me started on golf. Here’s to ya my puck loving chums!!!!!!! God bless both of you…. You hockey enthusiasts! I love both of you. G0 Bruins! Your chum, B. Scot L. Cooper, currently with fingers crossed, hoping for a Bruins victory, Tuesday evening against the Washington Crapitals.

Well Done Coop!

-Diehard

OK Boys and Girls. Are we ready for another trade deadline passage where the Bruins do little or nothing. We have seen this before. Last years trade deadline brought us Mark Recchi and that’s all! The last trade of any significance was in 2003 when they traded some guy named Jeff Jillson for Brad Boyes! Between then and now, we have been forced to see them stand pat with the team they began the season with. I don’t expect anything less this year! Another lost season for the hard working folks who fork over thousands for the right to see this team score more than three goals just once in the New Year which amounts to 14 games.
Lets face it…last season was a pure and simple over acheivement for the Boston Bruins. From Coach of the Year, to Vezina and Norris. Yes they all played well, but it was a perfect storm and you had reason to believe that it would be a learning process for the players and they woould be better this season. Instead, tons of under achieving by this team. Listless play and looking like they haven’t a clue on most fundamentals. And of course, there are the injuries. But sorry, this team, injuries aside is just a horrible team. No one shows accountablilty for themselves and it sure seams to me that the coach isn’t holding them accountable. The players still have the ice time despite the no emotion figure eights they are doing out there. How long is this supposed to go on. Are they looking for their own top three pick to go along with the one they may or may not get from the Toronto Maple Leafs? The Leafs went out and got a solid 24 year old defenceman in Dion Phaneuf and what I think is the key to more winning is former Conn Smythe winner Jean-Sebastien Giguere as their goaltender.
So we have 31 days to see if your Boston Bruins have the fortitude to go out and do something that will improve the team to where they make the playoffs or as is usually the case, do nothing and tell the fandom too bad we have your money and we know you are not gonna give us up….yet!

-Diehard

They’ve been off four days that speared on lots of talk about trades and who is to blame for this current awful month of what is supposed to be professional hockey. They get back to work tonight up in Buffalo to face the third place in the conference Sabres. The Bruins have won the two games against Buffalo but we know trends really mean nothing in sport. You have to go out there and bust your butt every game otherwise you wind up being 5-in-a-row losers and 10th in your conference and out of the playoffs.
Lets examine a possible trade and what the Bruins would have to give up should they actually want to pursue the best next year unrestricted free agent.
When last we looked at a major trade with the Atlanta Thrashers, in 2008 they were sending their soon to be unrestricted free agent that they knew they could not sign and he did not want to stay in Georgia to Stanley Cup Finalists. They sent Marion Hossa to the Pittsburgh Penguins for forwards Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen, highly regarded prospect Angelo Esposito and a first-round draft choice to the Thrashers in that deal.
So, in my little pea brain, you cannot fall in love with players you THINK might be the greatest thing since Cam Neely made his way here from Vancouver. The biggest thing that the Bruins could do would be to somehow sign and trade for Ilya Kovalchuk. In this era, the Boston Bruins have never had a player that could just about score at will. Kovalchuk is that player. The problem is do they want to rent Kovalchuk. And want do they want to give up to get him! I don’t ever think I am a hockey General Manager although I play one here and in our Stoneham locker room, I do think that the recent history of the Thrashers would or could allow the Bruins to acquire Kovalchuk without giving up that number 3 pick that they have courtesy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. There are enough players on this team that don’t seem to be able to play up to the level that they did last year that Peter Chiarelli should be able to put a decent deal together without out losing the good nucleus of the team.
But, being a fan of this team for 40 plus years, there is no way any of that happens! It has never happened and I don’t think it will this year either.
All I know is that management is having problems with the cap and its all their fault. Tim Thomas…6 million a year. Michael Ryder, 4 million…Marc Savard & Patrice Begeron 5 million. Dennis Wideman 3.7 million to name a few. These contracts are killers and especially when the players aren’t playing even close to last years efforts. David Krejci 3.5 and Blake Wheeler have been complete 3rd years busts! Not good! Marco Sturm….HA! and has Derek Morris really made a difference with his 3.3 mil salary. I don’t think so.
Its time for the Bruins to take the bull by the horns if they want Kovalchuk and get rid of some of the flotsam and jetsam that are filling up this roster with efforts like the last time we saw them in Carolina!
The February schedule is full of games and none are easy for the B’s. I say make the trade NOW. Sign him and get that Spoked B on his chest promptly, and you will have your sniper that you’ve never had!

-Diehard

Earlier in the year, the Boston Bruins weren’t winning because they lacked scoring. They couldn’t put the puck in the ocean if they fell out of a boat. Now that little infection has spread like a flesh eating disease. Every part of the Bruins game is abysmal. From coach to goaltending and everything in between. I haven’t seen a Bruins team this bad since the dark days of Pat Burns and Dave Lewis and boy is this team in trouble. First of all half the regulars are hurt and out of the lineup. And if what is brought up each time from Providence to fill in, well this organization is in deep doo doo. From being on the verge of something nice and special two seasons ago, to being hapless, listless and wondering which way do we go, once again it seems we have been fooled by the Bruins into believing this team could just compete…..never mind compete for a Championship. Maddening and frustrating is all I get when I sit down to watch them. What happened to the fight they had earlier and even though they would lose..it would be a competitive game. Now they seem to just be going through the motions and NO ONE is picking up any slack or to use that awful cliché, “step up”. The lose to Carolina showed the coach looking like he had been hit with a brick. He had that clueless face look that says it all when you get routed by the last place team in your conference. I would say this is getting ugly but it already is putrid!
Four days off to wallow in their losses and then up to Buffalo to face the first place Sabres. How could things get any worse you ask? How about after the Sabres, they face the Caps, and the Canadiens twice in the next couple of weeks and then four road games heading into the Olympic break.
They are out of the playoffs right now and unless something dramatic happens, it’ll be another non-playoff year as 38 years seem to fly by. Oh by the way, not to kick a man when he is down, Dennis Wideman an amazing minus 4 against the Hurricanes!
Yeow!

-Diehard!

For me it all started on Wednesday. Temperatures in the teens and the wind blowing but I was one of many that got to skate on the Fenway Park Ice. I’ve skated on the TD Garden ice, and the old Montreal Forum ice, but skating on Fenway ice was quite the experience. Cliché as it is and has been used, it was like I remember skating on the ponds here in Massachusetts. Just remarkable and awesome to be able to do it! Skated the entire hour and took pictures of Pie McKenzie, Derek Sanderson, Ken Hodge, Joe Watson and Dave (The Hammer) Schultz. It was a great day for us old time hockey fans.
On to New Years Day and what a spirited day it was. From the moment I parked my car, for as far as the eyes could see were Bruins fans and Flyers fans. As I walked from Mass Ave and Boylston to the Ballpark, the street were slushy and traffic was a mess. Except for the weather, this could have been a baseball game in July. However, this was a unique event that I’m not sure will be around here for a very long time.
Lots of pomp and circumstance preceding the game with Bobby Clarke on the ice as Honorary Captain for Philadelphia and the Greatest hockey player ever, Mr. Robert Gordon Orr serving the same for your Boston Bruins. The Ballpark belonged totally to the Boston Bruins on this first afternoon of the new decade. All of the usual Red Sox Signage was no where to be found. One of my favorites was where the usual Gulf sign was in the left field bleachers was the great Black NHL insignia.
It was just a great place to be. One of those, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else days and I was one of the fortunate few to be there. And although I could have been up in the press box, I sat with friends outside so I could experience it all.
The game itself was a bit contentious with U.S. Olympian Tim Thomas crosschecking Hartnell while the only Philly goal was being scored. The Bruins were still having their usual problems of scoring goals and on this day of celebration, you had the feeling that once again, the Winter Classic would belong to the road team. The Pittsburgh Penguins had beaten the Buffalo Sabres in a shootout in the first Classic in Orchard Park, NY. Likewise the Detroit Red Wings over the Chicago Blackhawks 6-3 at fabled Wrigley Field. But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the game. Mark Recchi tipped in a Derek Morris shot to tie things up and just under two minutes into overtime, Canadian Olympian Patrice Bergeron would throw a pass to the net that German Olympian Marco Sturm would tip in for the game winner. And Fenway became the scene of bedlam. This scenario could not have been drawn up any better. Gary Bettman and the National Hockey League got what they wanted. A great day weather wise and a game that went into overtime and the home team shining brightly at the end.
Wow. I love this stuff!

-Diehard

That’s what everyone says when a teammate goes out of the lineup and its expected for the next level of players to step into the shoes of the better player.
Well, that’s all hogwash. And if you take off your black and gold glasses, you can see the “step up” hardly ever works.
Your Boston Bruins have had several major injuries to its top players and everyone expects those second tier players to “arrive” and give the Bruins that umph that teams need when others go down.
Well, sorry…there has been none of that step up from this edition of the team.
The only players that have been consistent in their game this season is Patrice Bergeron who has lead the team in scoring for much of the season and is tied for second in goal scoring. Your Captain, Zedon Chara, after what I consider a slow start, has been pretty sensational as a Norris Trophy winner should. OK…I thought that they should not have kept the ancient Mark Recchi this year, but he has been pretty valuable with his eight goals also. Marc Savard… with only 17 games under his belt, what’s up with his scoring more goals (8) than assists which really explains the B’s lack of proficiency in the goal scoring.
According to the team, Marco Sturm and Michael Ryder should be in the upper echelon of the team and should not have to “step up” but my goodness, these two have been virtually non-existent. Sure Ryder has eight goals but he has played 32 games. And can you really tell me that he was a factor much so far this season. Same for Sturm. He has played every game and leads the team in goals yet a lot of time he looks invisible.
David Krecji, Blake Wheeler are no longer “kids” and it really is their time for the big “step up”. Now is the time for those two to get what its all about and bring their game to the next level like they did in their rookie season. This is year number three for those guys and they have been given enough ice time to show just what we fans can expect. Right now it’s a mixed bag of not much more than average!
The rest of the roster is just not gonna be much of a factor. Role players at best. Two of the Bruins best players – Milan Lucic & Savard – have been hurt much of season. But when in the lineup have produced admirably. Now its time for those second tier players to “step up” and show us that they belong on this team and can produce with regularity.

-Diehard

So the young prodigal son makes his Boston return. Not since the Carolina Hurricanes dispatched the Bruins in last seasons playoffs have we seen Phil Kessel. And I just wonder what kind of reception he will get when returning to TD Garden Saturday. Especially after Peter Chiarelli said he never wanted to play in Boston. I don’t really know, but I think there is a lot more to those negotiations, or lack there of, than the Bruins brass let on. Anyway, The Toronto Maple Leafs are a pretty abysmal team right now. They had one win in the month of October. Their goaltenders are ridiculous sieve’s and although they can beat you up, they cannot score. Except for guess who. Bingo! Former Bruin Phil Kessel.
Since returning from injury he has played in 15 games and is second in goal scoring with 10 behind Niklas Hagman with 13 who has played in all 27 of the Leafs games. I’m not gonna whine and say the Bruins made a mistake in letting him go, but at the time, I said where are they gonna get those goals he scored last season for the B’s. Kessel critics pointed to several Bruins still on the roster. Well right now, the Bruins have struggled all season long to score goals and coming within a pulled goalie of getting shutout 3 games in a row.
Kessel has more goals than any Boston Bruin player. He has more points (15) than all Bruins except two, Patrice Bergeron (21) and your Captain Zdeno Chara (16). No Bruin has double digit goals.
So, until those draft picks that Boston received from Toronto for singing Kessel materialize and how the Bruins make those picks which is the big thing, I guess I have to just hold my judgement on Boston letting him go. I will always say that now is better than later and wished that Kessel was still part of the Bruins but hey, Boston is in first place in the division while Toronto is in last.
We’ve seen what happens in the playoffs despite Boston’s positioning but it’s a long season.

-Diehard

It seems to me that signing Marc Savard to a long term contract is a good thing…and a bad thing.
The good part is that a very good player will remain with the Bruins for a long time. Savard has been a catalyst for the Bruins to score. He’s sometimes remarkable when the Bruins are on the power play. He makes pretty much all the right plays and where would Boston be without him. He’s led the team in scoring the last two seasons, is a team leader and a magnificent passer hence all those assists.
The fact that he will be in Boston for what looks like the rest of his career is simply, on it’s surface, a really good thing.
Now, as it stands for the Bruins and future travails of the team trying to get players, in my humble opinion it handcuffs them dramatically. After studying this “capology” and reading various reports, for the length of the contract, the Bruins will have a 4 million dollar cap hit. Savard will be making 7 mil in his first few years. (nice work if you can get it). Which brings me to the Boston management and its dollars.
For years we fans have said the Bruins do not spend money to bring a quality team to the garden. Now they seem to spend money like a drunken sailor only they can’t figure out the right mix of players to spend it on. In the tail end of Mike O’Connell’s tenure as GM he brought in the likes of Martin Lapoint for 5 mil a year, Alexei Zhamnov…ALEXEI FRIGGIN ZHAMNOV….for 4mil per year.
Then the first year of the current Chiarelli administration, they hired Dave Lewis as coach. Now I know that doesn’t go against salaries, but its to show a point. Your Captain, Zdeno Chara will make 7.5 mil this year and next. If you think he has been worth it, you need to look harder. He has had one good year since coming to the Bruins. That was last season. The other years have been mediocre at best.
Traded away was someone that can put the puck in the net, Brad Boyes for Dennis Wideman another mediocre defenseman that has a really hard time not getting his shot blocked repeatedly. Again, like Chara, had a good year last season…..all other…meh.
My biggest disappointment was Chiarelli trading prospect Kris Versteeg for Brandon Bochenski. You have got to be kidding me!
So now they have tied up more money in a few players, which won’t leave much for the other players that you need to sign each year.
Just think, if they had wanted to sign Phil Kessel this past off season, they certainly wouldn’t have had the money to do it without the lineup being a bunch of stiffs from Providence.
These are just a few examples of the current Boston Bruins leadership that are doing things that I think will not bring a Cup to Boston.
It’s been such a long time and we fans have been filled with teases that the B’s were getting better and it seems that, to paraphrase a quote from Syl of the Sopranos, “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in!”

-Diehard

Your Boston Bruins started out like they were involved in a tractor pull. Out of the first games game this month, the B’s had lost six. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the four game road trip. The won all four of them. Eight points out of the eight available. Three of those wins were overtime or shootout wins which means that somehow they finished the job.
Boston has managed to stay alive in the conference with some superb play from backup goaltender Tuuka Rask who is making goaltending decisions for Claude Julien much more difficult. Tim Thomas is on the bench with the ever popular upper body injury. But the return of Milan Lucic and Marc Savard is a good thing for the Bruins. But the best part of this trip was the return to the kind of play he had as a rookie and before the head injury…Patrice Bergeron has been hockey born again. Bergeron leads the team in goals and points and his all around leadership while Lucic and Savard were out of the lineup is what has kept Boston afloat and in fifth place in the conference.
The traditional Friday after Thanksgiving noontime start is a game that is usually a killer for the Bruins. They take on the New Jersey Devil who are three points ahead of Boston and usually give the B’s fits. They finish the month on Saturday with a home game against the Ottawa Senators. They could be better than .500 for a month that started ugly. The Bruins haven’t been very good on home ice so far this season, so let’s hope that the road warriors come back to the Garden with that same spring in their step that propelled them to their four straight road wins.
One personal note, my Stoneham hockey group had our Annual Turkey Day Skate and despite the score, it was an outstanding two hours of hockey for us 40 to 50 year olds with yours truly playing one of his best games in goal and came away with the one goal win! The postgame was pretty good too!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Go B’s!

-Diehard