Injury Ward

I just like the clever title, do not let it mislead you. I like yesterdays reported 2.5 million a year deal for Aaron Ward. He does have a tendency to get hurt, hurt giving every inch of his body for his team. This is worth the extra .75 mil (in my opinion) he received. To me he was a stabilizing force on the blue line, seldom noticed for the bad and often laying bodies to the ice. Welcome back Mr Ward.

Now What!!!???

These are the bleakest days, of the bleakest month, of the bleakenest season of my hockey discontent. What o what do we think about, blog about, scratch down on paper or call our hockey buds about? What? The new coach is in place. No one knows if he will turn another new set of helmets into something to really route for. The new coaching staff is in place (yawn). The new free agents are signed (O-boy?). The returning free agents are signed (not typical). The goaltending seems to be poised to be a mature tandem with some expectations of being reliable (boring!). The forwards well you can draw up lines all day but there do not seem to be many surprises coming from these 12-14. Defense? Also mostly the same. Anyone really care to discuss Z’s partner; should it be Ward? Or maybe Alberts is Z’s partner. OH! Who cares when they have sweat on their brow while typing! Rehashing last season, were all set with that right? How hurt was Bergeron (he better have been)? Pj is back on the third line (not as big a deal as people made it out to be)? Now what! I hate August Seventh.......

BAH!!! - I Hate The Habs!!!

Last night In La Belle Province The Bruins fell to The Habs 1-0. This was a two fold hurtful loss in that it makes Boston's quest to the post season more difficult and the 2 extra points help Montreal in their own playoff aspirations.
Both goalies put on a clinic and were superb between the pipes. Just like most of the season Thomas was once again our best player. The only shot to get by him was when a Habs forward La ten undressed Aaron Ward with a beautiful move and got in alone to score.

The Bruins will now host Montreal on Thursday in the second part of this home and home series. Out of all the 79 home and home series between these two teams there has only been 23 sweeps. The last time there was a series sweep was in December of 1981 so a Bruins' victory on Thursday has statistics on their side (but I hate stats. - The Bruins have to play hard and earn their victory). The Bruins also have to stop squeezing their sticks so hard. They need to relax and have fun out there - in last nights game they were way to tense and worried more about making a mistake than creating a chance.

Game hilights:
- Great move for The Habs goal.
- Both goalies were fantastic.
- Bochenski hit the post.
- Tenkrat had a breakaway but got forced outside for a bad angle shot because he had to avoid a hip check from the ref(???).

3 Stars as picked by me:

1 - Latendresse
2 - Halak
3 - Thomas

This loss hurts The Bruins chances of the playoffs but they are still not done yet!
They have 10 games left and if they win 9 or 10 they will be in and if they win 8 they still have a slim chance. Lets not give up on them yet. I encourage all fans to send good vibes and happy thoughts their way and hopefully they can get on the winning streak they so desperately need.

Go Bruins Go!!!

Flyers @ Bruins - 01/03/07

The Boston Bruins will be taking on the suddenly revamped Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow night in Boston. In a surprise move Philly traded a second round pick for goaltender Martin Biron. While this is a no-brainer move for most teams with poor goaltending, Philly has been virtually eliminated from the playoffs and Biron is set for free agency this summer. I would have to believe that the Flyers will be pushing hard to resign Biron before June, otherwise they will be right back to where they were.

The Bruins were also busy yesterday picking up two new defencemen, Ward and Wideman. Most people are happy to see Mara go but the jury is still out on the Boyes-Wideman deal. I see a lot of potential in Wideman, but Boyes may have been just having a bad year. I don't envy PC though, you have to make tough decisions as a GM and this was his first big one. As our great friend from WFS pointed out Wideman has had his problems. Now if I could draw your attention away from his finesse game, I would like to show you a better video. Wideman's not the only one with good fists, as you will see in exhibit B. Enough of the fluff though!

Tomorrow's game might be tough as Biron has beaten the Bruins in his last five starts. Yeah it is only Philly, but the last game (Boston won 6-3) was closer than the score would indicate. I would expect Timmy Thomas will be in nets for Boston, and hopefully the new look Boston defence will stand tall in front of him. I might update this post after lunch tomorrow when I know more about the projected line-up.

I just took a look at one of my comments yesterday and noticed that my link to a spreadsheet I made did not paste in correctly. Here are some numbers I did up quickly for the players involved in yesterday's trade deadline.

Mara Shipped to Broadway

Paul Mara was shipped to the NY Rangers this afternoon for defencman Aaron Ward. This is nothing too exciting. It will save the Bruins $250,000 in cap space for next year, and will make the Bruins better defencively. Mara, although better lately, has never lived up to last years offencive output. This fact was amplified by his poor defencive play in the first half of the season.

Ward, on the Bruins, will likely be a top four defencman. He is not a power play specialist, but should see a lot of time on the penalty kill. The key with Ward is that he has played 78 career playoff games and has three Stanley Cup rings (2 Detroit, 1 Carolina).

I will post tonight after everything dies down, to discuss the other trades in the NHL. At them moment I believe the Bruins have improved, but other teams like the Islanders, Buffalo, Atlanta, and Ottawa have improved more.