Posted in Transactions October 14th, 2008
Yesterday, the Bruins traded defenseman Andrew Alberts to the Flyers for minor league forward Ned Lukacevic and a conditional 4th round pick in 2009 (a 3rd rounder if Alberts re-signs with Philly).
You always hate to see someone go, and especially a young prospect who never got to blossom. However it appears Alberts hasn’t fully recovered from the head & neck injuries caused by now-teammate Scott Hartnell and didn’t appear to be in the Bruins plans for this season. Therefore, off to the Flyers he goes, where he’ll have a better chance of cracking their injury-depleted defensive core.
Lukacevic doesn’t appear to be much of a prospect, but at least the B’s were able to free up 1.25 million dollars of cap space with this move.
Posted in Recaps October 11th, 2008
I’m happy to say that, grades be damned, I was able to pull myself away from my Cisco textbook to watch some (okay, most) of the Bruins opener Thursday night. Unfortunately, most of the 1st period was marred by lingering images of Def Leppard from the pre-game concert (which I suspect was actually from before the Wings-Leafs game as it was in Detroit and Darren McCarty came out with the Stanley Cup). It took about three songs to realize that, holy shit, that 275 pound mass of humanity really WAS Joe Elliot and not some replacement singer. It’s a shame that it wasn’t some YouTube replacement especially after Elliot pulled THIS Stanley Cup travesty.
But enough about washed up bands, here are some bullet points on the game.
- Overall game play was sloppy, but then again, it *was* the season opener. The first period was especially scary considering the Bruins played most of it in their zone, being outshot 20-5. The defense started to gel after that, but overall Thomas spent way too much time sprawled on the ground doing damage control in front of the net.
- Two of those five shots actually went in, especially a beautiful Kobasew-Krejci-Wheeler goal where they caught the Avalanche in transition. That was especially sweet. There’s a lot of potential here to become an excellent third scoring line. Wow!
- Only two power play opportunities, but Savard scored on one of them. I’ll take the 50% conversion rate while it lasts.
- Maybe I just don’t watch enough hockey (hey, I worked 2nd shift for most of my life) but something happened in the 2nd period which I’ve never seen before: after an Avs shot broke the glass behind Tim Thomas with under 3 minutes left to play, the refs stopped play and called for the intermission then. Don’t know if that’s a new or old rule, but that makes incredible sense. Why stop play for an extended period of time twice within five minutes? So they all went to the locker room while they fixed the glass and drove the zamboni. They came back with 2:47 left on the clock and when the period officially ended, they took a brief break while they changed sides to start the 3rd.
- Michael Ryder and Blake Wheeler with their first goals as Bruins (and Wheeler with his first NHL goal ever). Nice!
- Thomas held his own but gave up a bad rebound in the 3rd period that led to a game-tying Jordon Leopold goal midway through the 3rd period. Manny Fernandez will more than likely get the start Saturday.
- Vs. scared the crap out of me with what I originally perceived to be lack of an HD broadcast. I have DirecTV where they share an HD channel with the Golf channel. According to the DirecTV online guide, the hockey games were only being shown on the standard definition channels. The shared “VSGFHD” channel was instead rerunning a PGA golf event. That’s right, they were choosing to rerun a PGA event (the season ended a few weeks ago) instead of the unofficial start of the hockey season (don’t get me started about last weekends games). Fortunately, it appears Vs. came to their senses between the time they released their planned schedule to DirecTV and the start of the game as when I checked that channel on a whim midway through the 1st period, the Bruins game was being broadcast there in hi-def. Hey, I didn’t spend $1500 on a Sony Bravia to watch the season opener in crappy standard def!
All in all, the Bruins start the season with a road victory. I’ll take it!
Posted in Uncategorized October 7th, 2008
…and I get to spend the Bruins season opener…sitting in front of a text book. That’s right, yours truly has committed himself to a Cisco network class this week and will probably miss most of the game because I’ll be studying (although I’ll probably sneak an occasional peek). And since I’m working on my CCNA, I’ll probably only be able to catch an occasional game over the next few weeks.
What’s that you say? Why such piss-poor planning, Doobie? How could you do this your dedicated masses and throngs of adoring fans? Well, you can blame my company who decided to outsource our IT department to India leaving your humble host out of a job and scrambling to pad his resume with certifications! And perhaps the oddest thing is that, while you’d assume I’d have a hell of a lot of free time on my hands, I actually now have less since I’m spending all of my free time studying and with family commitments, now that I’m not on a 3rd shift schedule. Yay!
But all of you long distance fans (like myself) with access to the Vs. channel can enjoy the game this Thursday (<—shameless plug, but nothing compared to the sidebar over there!–>). They’ve got the Leafs-Wings game at 6:30 PM, and Bruins-Avs at 10. Tune in!
Posted in Bruins History, Trivia August 5th, 2008
(NOTE: this is a repost from March, 2007 from back in my old “Ghosts of the Garden” days. That’s right, slow Bruins news days (weeks?) means you get “best of” around here. Enjoy.)
When you visit the TD Banknorth Garden, you see the numbers of the Bruins immortals hanging from the rafters, probably still caked with those stalactites of dust that gripped the ceiling of the old Boston Garden.
#2 - Eddie Shore
#3 - Lionel Hitchman
#4 - Bobby Orr
#5 - Aubrey “Dit” Clapper
#7 - Phil Esposito
#8 - Cam Neely
#9 - Johnny Bucyk
#15 - Milt Schmidt
#24 - Terry O’Reilly
#77 - Ray Bourque
But something odd is missing there. Where the hell is #6? You figure that the first nine numbers on this team would HAVE to be retired by now, right? Alright, the fact that there hasn’t been a #1 retired is odd too (why NOT HOF’er Tiny Thompson?), but wearing a #1 on a team has a sort of stigma to it…perhaps an overt implication that you’re the best player…so I can see why that number might be avoided. Either that, or a goalie sucked it up.
But why #6? You’re going to tell me that throughout this team’s storied history, there’s never been a player donning numero seis that’s worthy of having his number retired by the team? Happily, I recently discovered that The Internet Hockey Database now has jersey numbers logged on their website. Now I can finally go through the archives and scroll through the mediocrity associated with that number. So, tonight, let’s you and I take a whirlwind tour of Bruins players past who have worn the cursed 6.
First, a disclaimer. I’m limited by the stats posted over the IHDB and not every season has jersey numbers listed. In fact, the jersey numbers for the Bruins don’t even start until the 1929-30 season (which, actually, is pretty impressive itself) so some years I needed to make some assumptions. Sometimes they’re easy and a player’s jersey number is only listed once or twice, but he’s on the team for a dozen years. But other times I was staring at large gaps with no idea as to who was wearing the dreaded jersey.
So, let’s see who the culprits are…
1929-1934: Percy “Perk” Galbraith
1934-1936: Charlie Sands
1936-1937: Reginald “Hooley” Smith
1937-1939: Ray Getliffe
1939-1940: Unknown
1940-1950: Jack Crawford
1950-1951: Unknown
1951-1952: Walter “Gus” Kyle
1952-1957: Unknown
1957-1961: Bronco Horvarth
1961-1963: Unknown
1963-1972: Ted Green (famous for his Wayne Maki stick fight in which he fractured his skull and suffered brain damage)
1972-1973: Nick Beverley
1973-1978: Darryl Edestrand
1978-1982: Dick Redmond (thanks to an anonymous commenter!)
1982-1991: Gord Kluzak (the ultimate cursed player…almost a decade with that jersey and only 299 NHL games to show for it)
1991-1994: Glen Featherstone
1994-1996: Alexei Kasatonov (Russian legend who ended his career with the B’s)
1996-1997: None
1997-2000: Joe Thornton (changed his jersey in 2000! Was he feeling the curse?)
2000-2001: None
2001-2002: Gord Murphy
2002-2004: Dan McGillis
2004-2005: Season canceled
2005-2007: Brad Stuart (thanks #4bobbyorr!)
2007 - present: Dennis Wideman
So there you have it. At least since the “Percy” and “Reginald” years, they’ve toughened up a bit name-wise (Bronco). Funny how in the last couple of decades Sinden & company have WANTED someone to step up and claim that #6 for the rafters. Kluzak was taken 1st overall in 1982 and Thornton 1st overall in 1997. I’m sure it was no accident that both started out wearing #6.
Thornton would have been the closest to finally get that #6 up in the rafters, but a funny thing happened…he changed his jersey to #19 and his inability to meet management expectations got him shipped off to San Jose.
Posted in Uncategorized July 31st, 2008
Wow, it’s been three months already? The last I checked in, I was a cautiously optimistic man, hoping, praying, that something good was in the cards for the Bruins. But then reality, that ultimate killjoy, set in. It was the Canadiens, the goddamned Canadiens, that they were up against in the playoffs…fate was not on the Bruins’ side. But then after the game seven loss (which was at least painlessly one-sided), I went into a self imposed hibernation. Partly because of the depression of losing yet another series to the Habs, but also because I’ve been a damned busy guy recently. (I’m that Dziubek guy who pops up periodically on the podcasts…specifically, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night).
But enough about my excuses, back to the Bruins and Habs. Despite the heartbreaking loss, the Bruins still gave them one hell of a fight in the series. The youth of the team, like Lucic and Kessel, gained invaluable playoff experience…something to build on for the 2008-09 season. But for yet another year, it’s going to have to be enough as the front office did only light spending in the offseason (see Michael Ryder). Sadly, the team parted ways with Glen Murray, but that wasn’t without warning (performance vs. contract), and the team also extended the contract of Dennis Wideman (who’s better, but is still seriously lacking defensively, IMHO).
There’s a lot of optimism for 2008. This is a team that played without Patrice Bergeron (concussion) and Manny Fernandez (knee) for the bulk of the season. Reports are that Bergeron has been symptom-free all summer and, barring a setback, should be ready to go at the beginning of the season. Fernandez’s return will be welcomed, but Thomas’ performance last year may have put an end to any further goalie platoon talk…or at least until Tuukka Rask is ready. You know, because we just can’t go a season without questioning Tim Thomas’ #1 goalie status. (I plead guilty as charged)
Well, I’ll leave it at there right now. I don’t want to rush right back into this blogging thing after a three month vacation…I might herniate something.
