Figuring shit out

I haven't really known wtf to say about either the 'Hawks or Leafs games yet. I mean, Krejci was amazing in the Hawks game, and wow that building is quiet during play. It only really got loud if there was a good play, a hit, or a goal.  Then in the Leafs game, the B's came out hard, and the Leafs seemed pretty willing to keep giving them the puck. But yeah, I'm gonna blame the past two losses on Stuart, Wideman, Morris (HALF THE D-CORPS!) being out. I'm not going to finger point any particular player and say step it up... OK yes I am. Marc Savard, step it the fuck up already. This time last year you had 29 assists. Right now you have 8. You gonna let Big Joe outshine you like this? That's so not right.

There's also a little something that's been nagging at me. Three games Schenn sits out, the Leafs handily win two. His first return he plays 19:44, the Leafs lose. Second game, against the B's, he played 10:48, and they won. Stats don't tell all the tales, and his physical play was definitely up to par (I particularly liked watching he and Sobotka go at it (btw, it's Suh-boat-kuh, not Soh-bot-kah)), but it's little things like that that make me curious. Can one defenceman make that much of an impact on a team's W/L record? I know THREE can. Or the absence of three.

Also: RE Boychuk's hit on Stajan... first off, Happy Birthday, Matty! Keep your head up. Secondly, yeah I can see how people would say, it was a headshot, Johnny should be suspended, but he shouldn't. Stajan had his knees bent, he was in a defencive crouch stature, his head was down, and Johnny's kind of tall. He didn't leave his feet until the contact had been made and STAJAN NEEDS TO KEEP HIS HEAD UP. Especially in the neutral zone, c'mon. That's where the greatest open-ice hits happen! I will say I'm confused why Chara didn't get a penalty after the ensuing melee, and it's always nice to see Komisarek bleeding. But that was just a game lost due to inexperience on the blue line. Hunwick, Chara and Ference can't do it all alone. Tuukka needs his guys in front of him knowing what to do.

In other news, what's the word on who's going to be in net for the Classic? Here is what I think. Timmy, I love you, I really go - GO CATS GO! - and I get that you're the current Vezina winner. But right now, last night excepted, Tuukka has the hot glove. Unless that goes downhill significantly over the next week and some, I really think Rask should start. Now maybe they can switch off halfway through? But that makes it more of a ... "we're not so serious about the 2 points as we are the novelty of being in Fenway." It's a tough decision that'll have to be made. And we'll see over the next 5 games who plays their way into the spot. But man I'd hate to be either of those guys right now.

Pictures later. I have windows to cover with insulating film (YAY SNOW!).

GOAL BY LUCIC!

In a beautiful win by the Bruins over the (division) 1st place Sabres, Milan Lucic [ME-lahn LOO-cheech. Idiots. I'm going to make a bingo card out of all the ways people say his last name wrong. All time favourite is still "Luke-itch."] scored such a pretty, pretty goal. Might be my favourite play of the season. Some Sabre shot the puck, Rask made a pad save, it made its way through a few Sabres, then Byron Bitz poke-checked it, used his loooong stride and quickly skated into the offencive zone with it, sending a sillllly pass beneath some other Sabre's stick to Looch, who just tapped it in.

LOL: Bitzy's face, and the 2 Sabres fans w/the crossed arms.

Tuukka Rask got his first assist in the NHL (his comment on that: "... I did? Really? Huh, I had no idea. I guess I made a save or something."), and Milan Lucic got his first goal of the season. As well as some AWESOME hits on various Sabres - the hurt he put on Tallinder in in the first comes to mind.

I have to collect my thoughts on this game, but bullet points. Some for laaaaater:

• Pominville taking Z's slapshot in the shin from 15'
• Blake Wheeler hunting a goal like his life is on the line
• Tuukka Rask's catch-and-hold
• Marc Savard's press-box attire
• "When Marc Recchi entered the NHL, Tyler Myers was... not even a fetus!"
• The B's jump in the 2nd
• Rask commenting that it was "kind of slow" for him in the 3rd. Dude, what? The 2nd wasn't?
  
• Milan Lucic and Byron Bitz - switch out Begin for Savard? 
• Jack Edwards' lessons in physics
• Jack Edwards getting nailed in the balls by a water balloon. Thrown by Mike Milbury. I KNOW!
  

Oh, yeah. If you're playing a "4 point game" and the game goes to OT? YOU CAN NOT CONTINUE REFERRING TO IT AS A FOUR POINT GAME BECAUSE THE OTHER TEAM GOT A POINT. RETARDS.

Photo courtesy Getty. You can click it. It gets bigger. (That's what she said.)

Bruins @ Thrashers - picture time!

Before we get into the photos, I want to congratulate the Thrashers on finally being an AWESOME team. That was an intensely great game of hockey last night. It might not have seemed it because the crowd just wasn't there, but props to the fans who did show up. That might go down as one of my favourite hockey games of all time. I'm really pleased and pleasantly surprised to see the Thrash coming into their own finally, and see them playing the way I knew they could all along. That said, I'm still waiting for Kari to return until I really start paying attention to the games. Fucked up? Probably. Will Kari even stay on the team? Who knows. But you know how I roll and where my loyalties lie. But well played, Atlanta Thrashers. Very well played.

These are only the first round of photos I was able to dig up. There were more obviously, but I based these on either the Bruins doing something awesome, or the absolute HILARITY of the fans in the background. Considering it sounded and looked like there was only about 200 people in the building, and 100 of them were Bruins fans, these pictures are high-quality entertainment. I shall point out my LOLs. The good photos are from Reuters. The shitty ones are from AP. All rights reserved, blahblabhblah.

LOL: Looch stripped Bogo of the puck in his first day back on the job.

LOL: Is that a wookie in the crowd over Little's left shoulder
(our left, his right)? And/or Johny Candy's ghost???

LOL: There is very little in this world I love more than a fan
giving a hockey player the finger. And this guy goes all the
way with a double-salute. What is he, a disgruntled former
Ottawa fan? Is the nice older lady behind Z smiling at him?
Is that my Aunt Donna?!

LOL: The look of "this isn't happening, I didn't
see it, la la la they didn't score" on the guy over
Wheels' shoulder. Also, A Krejci goal celebration! WIN!

LOL: There are so many I don't know where to start. I love the lady
in the front row trying to use her Jedi powers (or Harry Potter
protection spells) to keep that puck outta the net. The other big LOL
here is that I was praying Bergie did not go into the shootout. I
picked Ryder, Krejci and Wheels. I was 2/3 right. And lookit that,
Bergie deked Pony right out of his net, AND his jock. That
goal was a thing of beauty. Shame Wheels pulled the same
move and whiffed on the open net.

LOL: The dismay of the three Atlana fans in the audience, and Tuukka with
his best QB pose EVAR (4th-and-2 what?). What's even funnier is that he
was stumbling at the time, and falling backwards, so mad props
to the photographer of this one.

Also funny, I was talking to one of my friends as it went to the shootout (ok, talking is a stretch. I was just saying "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT" but whatever, it's communication), and look, the B's aren't really known for their prowess on the shootout (I keep typing that shoutout. Hilar!). And uh, hello? Kozlov, Afinegenov, (can't spell that to save my life), Kovalchuk? This was disaster waiting to happen. I told my girl that someone better make sure all the milk crates in Philips were tied down.

As Jack Edwards loves to say - Two U's, two K's and a big fat W.

I'll keep looking for more photo o'hilarity for you. Thrashers fans, you keep it funny. There may not be a lot of you, but I salute those of you that show up and make the game more entertaining.

Also of relevance to Thrashers fans, tickets for Casino Night are now available! The event will occur on 01/10/10. Someone please buy me a ticket so I can come mingle and meet all of you?

Halloween treats, and tricks.

TRICK: Pavelec honours Jacques Plant.
I might've given up on blogging about the Thrashers, but it is absolutely worth mentioning that last night, Ondrej Pavelec accidentally honoured the 50th anniversary of Jacques Plant storming off the ice and refusing to return without a mask. You know the part in Transformers 2 when Simmons is climbing the pyramid and is right beneath Devastator's swinging steel wrecking balls? Yeah, that's Pavelec. Had no choice but to take a shot, maskless, and made a shoulder save on it. Ondrej Pavelec, here's to you. Curious here, if he had stood up and moved from the crease, would the play be blown dead and/or the goal negated if one was subsequently scored? The Thrashers went on to, well, Thrash the Senators, 4-2. Well done,former team. Very well done!

TREAT: How's Looch doin?
Milan Lucic made a visit to the NESN desk to join Kathryn (irregardless is not a word, lady) Tappen and Barry Pederson this past Hallow's Eve. This might be the most charming and charismatic 21 year old I've ever ran across. Everyone calls/ed Crosby "poised" and "mature" but he's so wooden, as if saying his lines by rote. This guy has more than the standard 82 hockey cliches memorised. He's made up his own. Admirable, but the rapport with the press can be analogised as such; Lucic and Crosby equals Bill Clinton and Hilary. Looch glad-hands the cliches, I can't lie, but he adds in so much colour and humour into his answers. Check him out.

Also, two other semi-relevant points. #1 - Did anyone else see the "Big Mouth" segment where Jack and Brick joined the Philly broadcasters in the 2nd intermission of that painful loss? Jack and Brick were so natty and sharp-dressed-men in comparison to the Philly guys. And a lot more entertaining to listen to but I wouldn't know since NHL Network aired the Comcast feed. #2 - Looch is also so well dressed. He wears a suit well.

TREAT AND A TRICK: Pony shuts up the Habs cult.
The Habs were leading the Leafs by 2 (hardest lead to hold) with 4 minutes to go in the 3rd. The smarmy cult of Habs fans had begun singing the Goodbye song (na-na-na-na na-na-na-na hey-hey-hey, good byyyyyyye (one of the things I really do miss in hockey these days, I have to admit), when Alexei Ponikarovsky scored, and shut the fans up. The Leafs then promptly potted another, and the game went to OT. Then it went to the shootout. And the Leafs, being the Leafs, did not win. BUT! In their defence, how the hell are you supposed to focus on the shots you have when that butt ugly and dizzying striped jersey in front of you all night? I hate that jersey. That is THE WORST jersey in the NHL.

TREAT: Tuuuuuuks gets the S v Edmonton
A lot of people in the hockey world (although not Bruins or Team Finland fans) were really first introduced to Tuukka Rask when he lost his shit down Providence. Last night he tricked the Oilers and gave them a shutout for their efforts. The game was typical Oiler hockey, which is to say, fast, quick transition, constant line changes on the fly, few whistles, lots of hits, lots of back check, fore check and hip check! It was totally a game the Bruins were up for. As someone who's also a fan of the Oilers (OH GOD GATOR GET A JOB WITH THE OIL, SOB!), I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Bruins step right up and play in stride. A great 60 minute game with full effort.

TREAT: Wheeler and Sobotka are the shit
For what it's worth, Sobotka better stay up in Boston, and he, Wheels and Paille will be the Kessel-Savard-Lucic line of this season. The last 6 seconds of the 2nd period were breath-taking, heart-stopping, and fist-pumpingly awesome. In the most deliciously vicious cycle, Vladi made a point-blank shot on Khabibulin, Ryder sent the rebound to Wheeler, Wheels threaded it to Vladi, and again he shot on Twitchy. Three times in just seconds and the 4th one went in, popped the water bottle, and caused the fans to raise the roof in celebration. So loudly that few heard the period-over siren 0:02 seconds before the puck crossed the line. But Vladi and Wheels heard. And they made sure the next two counted. Wheel from Vladi, then Vladi from Wheels, and the Bruins sent the Oilers away with 0 points and a shutty.