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Love it when two fighters loose their hooks on each other in the middle of a scrap but the refs still let them go dukes up.
Jay Rosehill was stepping in on some rough stuff from earlier between Milan Lucic and Mike Komisarek that goes back to the old Bruins vs. Habs rivalry. Rosehill handled himself a little better than Komisarek.
Jay Rosehill and Milan Lucic: Fight of the Week
A turnbuckle hit.
Not at anywhere near the pace of the Chara hit, and it looks like Doughty held up at the last minute, but it is pretty wild that this happened so close to the upcoming “protest” that Montrealers have organized for their own self interests.
It is embarrassing that police lines were “flooded” regarding the Chara hit, calling for him to be arrested.
My thoughts on the hit.
It was a dumb play in a dangerous part of the ice. As per what Carey Price said, players are aware of their surroundings, and so I do believe that Chara was aware that the stanchion was in between the benches.
That being said, do I believe that Chara was looking to injure Pacioretty or that he should “never be allowed to play in the NHL again”?
Ridiculous.
Great bout between two tough SOB’s. Lucic throws a heavy, heavy right, but you don’t get much tougher than the Vandermeer family.
“I just saw a pig fly past my window!”
This was the classic quote my buddy Tom K. used to describe his experience watching the Leaf game last night when he saw Mr. Phil Kessel score his first goal in the last 15 games, but also his first goal ever against the Big Bad Bruins. I replied that he must have seen two, as Phil came back with a pretty impressive one to tie things up in the third.
.
Rejoice Vancouver fans. It has been a while since you have been favored to win the Cup.
No real surprises here.
(NOTE: +400 is the same as 400%, so a bet of $1 pays $4)
From Bet365.com
Interesting to see the changes from the odds posted before the season.
Read More
I’m not going to lie; yesterday was the greatest day of my life….for 2011.
Total debauchery in Boston last night. Fourteen goals and over 3 hours of PIM’s. On top of it all, we have our third goalie showdown in just over a week.
For a look at what the penalties looked like:
Kyle Clifford is quickly making a name for himself in the tough guy category.
This is one of the players that was eligible to make the Canadian World Junior Team but the Kings wouldn’t let him go.
He has 8 points in 45 games with 81 PIM’s and is currently tied for 8th in the league with 11 fighting majors.
He turned 20 on January 13th.
There is nothing uglier than hits like this.
I’m not real big on this whole “Players Lack Respect” train that has been cruising around the main stream media rails the past few years, but THIS, is definitely a lack of respect.
A slower player doing a dumb move to make up for his ineffectiveness.
Although he is one of my favs, Jody Shelley: Jackass of the Week.
Tim Thomas is not only the leading candidate for the Vezina right now, but he is also now getting Harp Trophy consideration for the league’s MVP.
The stats:
GAA – 1.49 (Rank #1)
SV% – .955 (Rank #1)
SO – 6 (Rank #1)
Wins – 14 (Rank #3)
Found a good article by The Hockey News on the Top 10 Power Forwards of all time.
Gives me that warm tingly feeling to see who is number one.
.
As for active players included on the list, there is only one, and his name is Jarome Iginla. Well deserved. Maybe not the same force he once was, but can definitely still fire the puck.
Interesting to see that two of the players, Eric Lindros and John LeClair, played on the same line together, aptly named the ‘Legion of Doom’. Whatching Philly play back in those days was always a special occassion.
Makes me wonder what names would be included on a list of Top 10 Power forwards for this season.
Seeing as Mr. MacIntyre is effectively my editor, I figured I would write an article that would suck up to him….an assessment of why Mr. Kessel just can’t solve those big bad Bruins!
.
Since the Phil Kessel trade prior to the 2009-10 season, the Leafs have faced off against the Boston Bruins 7 times in the regular season. Their record?? Not particularly good, although not as bad as one might have thought. 2 – 3 – 2 for 6 points in 7 games. Aside from 2 blowout games at the beginning of last year when they were outscored 12 – 4, the Leafs have actually played Boston pretty tough. In the last 5 games, the Leafs were outscored only 10 – 9.
So what has been the difference?
It was a big build up in Boston on Thursday night for the first show down between Tyler Seguin and Phil Kessel; probably more so for Boston fans than it was for Toronto fans.
This is a clip from a fan inside the arena after Seguin scored.
For the history on this – things didn’t work out between Boston and Phil Kessel, and so he was traded to Toronto for two first round and a second pick.
As Toronto tanked last year and finally finished near the bottom of the league. Boston was able to draft highly touted Tyler Seguin with the first of the three picks.
Bruins fans were sure to let Kessel and the Leafs know.
For a clip of the Seguin goal:
Nathan Horton getting some flack from his old teammates and Milan Lucic decides he’s had enough. Horton’s probably not too used to having this kind of muscle on his line from his playing days in Miami.
Milan Lucic vs. Triston Grant: Fight of the Week
As per Joe Haggerty on Twitter, the plane that was taking the Boston Bruins’ equipment to Europe was too heavy to take off from their normal air strip in Hanscom.
Actual picture.
Of equal importance, word on the street is that Bruins’ players refer to their plane as ‘Bear Force One’.
Awesome.
On a side note; if anyone is thinking of buying me a Christmas gift….
Larry Kelly took a preemptive strike against the NHL this week.
With everything that has been going on with the Ilya Kovalchuk negotiations, the league has gone out and given notice that other contracts are also under investigation.
One of those belongs to Kelly’s client, Marc Savard.
Too late to void.
The Bruins are guilty of tacking on two extra years to the Savard contract at the league minimum, thereby reducing the average salary of the contract aka. the cap hit, with the assumption that Savard will retire prior to those final two years.
While it’s pretty easy to say that these contracts also circumvent the cap in the same way that the proposed Kovalchuk contract does, Kelly brings up some good points (as per the Ottawa Sun):
“If the league were to arbitrarily do something, it would be a very, very serious issue. Marc Savard had a very serious concussion last year. He came back in the playoffs to try and help his team. He was not anywhere near the player he had been. If Marc is without a contract and is a so-called free agent after missing the free agency period, you can imagine the lawsuit that would ensue.”
Hard to argue with that.
A quick look at what the Bruin’s line combo’s could look like if no moves are made before the season starts.
1st: Lucic – Savard – Horton
2nd: Seguin – Bergeron – Recchi
3rd: Wheeler – Krejci – Ryder
4th: Paille – Campbell – Thornton
Not a bad second line.
On deck: Marchand, Hamill
Injury: Sturm
Chara – Seidenberg
Stuart – Hunwick
Boychuk – Ference
On deck: McQuaid
Lot’s has been said about the cap crunch in Beantown this summer.
If you don’t believe me, just go check out some hockey forums where Leaf fans are out dreaming up magical trades where Burke exchanges a late round pick for a stud player off the Boston roster, for the purposes of “cap relief”.
Photo courtesy Boston.com
Another player has been added to Boston’s cap. Young Bruins winger and former Coyotes first rounder Blake Wheeler, was awarded a $1.325M raise by an arbitrator yesterday.
For how that affects his paycheque:
Weekly Paycheck Prior: $16,827
Weekly Paycheck After: $42,308
Wheeler will basically make the average annual income, every week of the year. Not bad for a guy who is given hoards of prime minutes but doesn’t do a ton with them.
For those of you who don’t know what arbitration is, it is the NHL’s version of the People’s Court. Read More
The benefits of the Phil Kessel deal just keep rolling in for the Boston Bruins.
Future is Bright in Beantown
For a quick peek at how the details are rolling out:
Bruins lock up Shawn Thornton for another two years at $812K per.
As I’ve said before, Thornton may very well be the most underrated heavy weight in the league. Most people have no clue how many big names this guy has taken down.
Working the hockey skills.
As per Bruins’ GM Peter Chiarelli:
“Shawn has been a terrific soldier for us in the time that he’s been here and he always amongst the leaders in fisticuffs, I’ll use fisticuffs instead of fighting because it’s an art for Thorny,”
Check out his career fight card at HockeyFights.com. Not many heavy weight opponents that haven’t been fought by Thornton.
Also, a few good scrap clips for your viewing pleasure:
Some pics of the Bobby Orr statue. These things for some reason, always turn out a little creepy looking.
I’m sure it will make babies cry but either way, I’m looking forward to getting my picture taken in front of it.
The statue.
Reports are that Dave Krejci broke his wrist on this hit and is done for the season.
Massive loss for the Bruins.
Injuries piling up for both teams in this series.
PHILLY: Carter, Gagne, Lapieriere, Emery, Leighton
BRUINS: Krejci, Sturm, Seidenberg, Stuart, McQuaid
Just wanted to show a quick clip of a Tuuka Rask meltdown from last season when Boston was grooming him in Providence.
Now that you all know who he is, it may be of more relevance.
BTW, the Leafs traded Tuuka Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft. Straight up.
After being out with a horrid concussion for the past two months, this was Marc Savard’s first game back.
OT. Could it be any sweeter.
Couldn’t happen to a better guy.
Savard spent the first 3 to 4 weeks of the concussion having to be in a dark room fighting off nausea. Read More
Zedeno Chara and Derek Boogaard: Top two scariest dudes in the league.
Check how many Sabres come to jump on Chara when he drops the gloves. I love this picture.
Photo courtesy ESPN.com
Things almost got real ugly at the end of the Bruins vs. Sabres game. Read More
