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!).

The B's took out Big D

My personal 3 stars of the game (having not seen the official ones):

1. Marc Savard - two awesome goals, great PK work, a lot of hustle and instant chemistry with Mike Ryder proved to work to his advantage. And Savvy is now 1 goal away from 200 career goals. Who was hoping for a hat-trick? This girl! And apparently Coach, since he had Sav out at every opportunity in the last 5:00.

2. Tim Thomas - do I really need to explain why?

3. This one was hard, so I'm awarding a two-way tie to Andy Ference and Matt Hunwick. Andy for his hustle, great forecheck, endless work on each PK shift, throwing the hits out like rubbers at a bachelor's party, and just irritating the Stars in general. Matt for basically the same reason AND trying to play goal when Timmy was caught out of net. Once a year it seems one of the D-men doubles up as unprotected goalies, and I think they should starting giving extra hardhat consideration for that. Particularly considering THEY'RE NOT WEARING CAGES.

Now that those are out of the way, onto the game.

Obviously I'm not going to be the first person to say BEST GAME OF THE YEAR despite that 7-2 blowout over the Canes. But with Bergeron taking the first penalty of the game :18 into the 1st, my heart sank. And then... and then... THEY KILLED IT! With APLOMB! And as the seconds ticked by I stopped wanting to chew my nails and throw things. I wouldn't let myself be optimistic though. I kept checking the time, I kept checking the PK time, but most of all I really liked watching the boys playing in the attacking zone most of the night. I'm thinking the NHL's "Event Summary" stats are somewhat incorrect as they're listing Ference with 1 hit and Hunwick with 0, and I saw them hit a lot more than that. This was an awesome, hit-filled game played with confidence, played with consistency, and played by the Bruins everyone is used to seeing play. I was also very impressed with Johnny Boychuk, who did NOT impress me too much in his first NHL game, but this time out, he made well-timed plays, had some nice hits, was a lot more calm and collected on the blue line, and was only caught out of place once or twice. Very worth noting - NO ONE on the team had <10:00 TOI, so no bike riding for anyone last night.

In the end, the boys in black and gold walked (flew) out of Big D with the TKO. And Timmy's first shutout of the season. Well done, boys. Keep it up in Phoenix.

I was going to post some photos, but neither Getty nor AP have any really great ones. What's up with the weak photo representation there, photographers? I'll put up flickr feed on the sidebar to rep the fans that are picking up the slack of the professionals.

Lastly, I don't get anything out of this, no discounts or anything, but Chowdaheadz has a new Bruins shirt. I ordered one last night, and at the low-low price of $12.99, you should consider it too, cause how wicked cool is this?

Click the image to go to the purchase page.

The B's keep winning; Atlanta Spirit sucks

And really, thank god about the B's, because if they'd lost to Habsy and his cult, I'd be distraught.

Here's the awesome front page of NHL.com - Z being the lead story!

So here's Stu talking about his throw-down, which I thought was awesome. Way to step up and fill in for Luc!

And here's the fight, along with the rest of the highlights. Hopefully including Timmy popping Andrei Kostitsyn or whoever the hell it was that banged Ward into the glass:



ETA: Here's Timmy taking out Andrei:



I think Timmy is my new hero. And I think ALL goalies should start banging more players. You want to make the game more exciting? LET THE GOALIES HIT!!!

Now for those of you who still come here for Kari and/or Thrasher stuff... I'm breaking up with the Thrashers until the organisation gets its head out of its ass and starts running the team like, I dunno, A FUCKING NHL HOCKEY TEAM, and not, let's say, a beer league run by a bunch of cokeheaded drunks who love to sit around and talk about the good old days when they were relevant. You know what would help the team a lot? A GOALIE COACH. IT'S JUST A THOUGHT. SINCE EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THE NHL HAS ONE YOU FUCKING LOSERS. Marting Brodeur, arguably the best goalie of this generation, HAS A GOALTENDING COACH. You can't expect ANYONE to get better at what they're naturally good at, without coaching in guidance. You get to the NHL the same way you get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, practice, practice. And that practice, learning, and improvement has to continue. Which it won't, without proper coaching. Way to go, Atlanta Spirit, you cheap bastards. You have now become the model for how NOT to run an NHL team.

And I have a bunch of pictures of Mistah Lehtonen from Casino Night, but I've gotta be real with you here. He's miserable in every fucking picture. Every smile is forced, I have not seen one photo of him yet where he's actually looking at the camera, and has a real smile. So I'm not posting them. I'm not spreading the misery around for all to see. You my faithful readers, are smart smart people. If you want to see them, I'm sure you can find them on ye ol' Intarwebs.

No wait, I lied, because I wanted to show this one picture, because (A) It's the closest Kari comes to a real smile, and (B) this is the most awkwardly uncomfortable photo I have ever seen in my life. And I've seen and been in many. But this photo could not be any more forced (photo courtesy TammyMoose):

It looks lovely at first glance. A very nice photo of the Johan Hedberg and Kari Lehtonen, the team's beloved (?) goaltending tandem. And then you start reading the body language, and it all unravels verrrrrrry quickly.

Get it together Atlanta Spirit. If you don't know how to run a fucking hockey team, I'll buy it off you for $50 and some BBQ ribs. Because I am about 1,000,000% certain that I could do a better job of owning a team than this group of don't-give-a-fucks. You know how? I'D HIRE A FUCKING GOALIE COACH TO START!

Anyway, B's are flipflopping at the top with the Sharks, who need to go on a damned losing skid already, Luc might be back for the next game (fingers crossed!), Bergie's skating again and feeling good (toes crossed!), and playing with Marc Savard appears to make ANYONE look good.

Tonight is the first Thrash game since that clusterfuck on ice that was the Kittens game. If there's a time for redemption, and a team against which to find it, that time is now, and that team is the Sens. Get it done, boys.