Flying in under the radar

Last night in the bottom of the 11th as most New Englanders suffered and wondered about their teams World series chances, a group of Boston Bruins prepared to catch a flight home. They would be flying home under the radar as most of the region worried about the teams that play with their respective balls. These puck heads could hold their heads high as they debarked for their own New England homes, they had finally also played with some balls.

The seasons first real milestone has passed and unlike previous seasons where milestones were also marked with disappointment, with this milestone these brewing Bruins could mark the seasons first and only west coast road trip as a positive, the proverbial something to grow upon, not the learning experience to take to heart in hopes of better results next time.

A 3-2 start to the season while most were expecting a 0-5 or 1-4 with the optimists amongst us predicting 2-3, well 3-2 this is more than acceptable after last year. Especially when you see how they lost last year and how they won the last two in this road swing. Giving up late leads is something we had become accustom to. Rallying back and winning these games, well this, this is something good teams do (somebody hit me I just used good and team in reference to the Bruins in the same post!).

Where the team goes from here will depend on how well management and the coaching staff can fix or mediate the issues revealed by these first 5 games. In no particular order.

Face offs, face offs, face offs, they are not winning enough of them.

Offense. If you throw away the LA game as the obvious anomaly that it was, they are scoring at 1.75 goals per game clip- not enough. Struggling to score in part stems from playing some pretty good teams, but is also something that will need to be addressed. The team looks like it can generate chances when it needs to but in the early going seems to stop generating chances once a lead has been garnered. Good teams learn to keep the foot on the pedal while also playing responsibly with the lead.

Manny being Manny, we will need Manny to be a reliable back up to Thomas, especially with his salary hit. How well he adjusts to be being a back-up (or split duty) will be one of the biggest keys to the season.

The Lucic decision, make it before the home opener. No more needs to be seen to decide. Reich and Bochenski are not better options and none are coming up route 95. Give the kid a stall, sign him up long term now, have him sleep at Cam's house, maybe they can bunk together, welcome to Boston Milan. Can you win a face off too?

Nice work boys, keep it up. Tampa Bay Thursday will be a tough game as Tampa has started out hot and has had good performances from their centers Prospal, Lecavalier and Richards with 6, 6, and 4 points respectively in four games.

A style is developing

Last night against the Cup champs the team looked pretty darn good; for 7 minutes. For 30 minutes they looked liked they belonged on the same ice as the champs. and for 23 minutes and two costly and or unfortunate mistakes they looked like a work in process. These are a few of the things I took away from the 1-2 loss. Here are some other statements based on last nights performance.

Thomas played well and could not be faulted on the two duck strickes.

What and why is the message of no ice time being delivered to Bochenski and is it good that he looked perturbed on the bench?

When will Muzz get a point, as one of our top forwards we should be seeing more production!

Savards health is going to be critical to the above.

Face off specialist, will one emerge?

Outshot again, not a good trend.

Bergeron looks like he is on the verge of breaking out, but needs to find chemistry with someone in this line up. Same can be said for Kessel.

Lastly if they can take one of the two upcoming games to go 2-3 on the road trip, I think they have done as well as could be expected. If they take the next 2 well then we have set some potential for actually becoming excited. If they lose both, well perhaps we are looking at another long year. My prediction is they will take the game from the Kings and lose to Big Jose. So far I like what I see but for a succesful season some of these peices will need to really start clicking.

The new Bruins not like the old Bruins

"What's changed is our management approach to this from the executive level," Lattimer said. "The old regime was 'if we win they will come' and it was that black and white. There wasn't support for this kind of thing because they thought in Boston you had to win."The above is from a Globe article by Keith Reed from July 12, 2007. It comes from an article were the bruins marketing department is pulling some “new tricks” to put fannies in seats.
“they thought in Boston you had to win” this statement has been running back in forth in my head for the last 10 days, and its killing me! First ice girls and now....to paraphrase “we do not have to win!” I am disgusted! Perhaps for the first time in a long time. This is your 2007 bruins, new logo, new marketing, new management and now winning has become second to the product.
I have had a tendency to be forgiving but this is as disgusting as Kovalev shaking his hand as Murray skates in for the game winner and then losing the series! This is Buckner letting the ball role down the first base line (behind him). This is too many men on the ice!
I for one will take the old management approach in a heartbeat. No wonder Harry Sinden is talking about a grandfather position with the hated Leafs!

state of.....

hello hubbards,

to those of you who enjoy reading my take on alls things black and faux gold, sorry for the lack of posting and commenting. for those of you who really hate my thoughts im very very sorry i have not been posting or commenting much. its summa! i got a puppy! i don't think there has been much to say! whatever reason you like, but ill be back when it counts.... you can count on it. speaking of faux gold can we agree it is now time to call them the black and brass?

so the reports have us getting another manny in town. this move i do not mind. let tim and manny battle it out, or split the time if there is no clear winner. let hannu and rask battle or split in providence see you guys in two or three seasons. moog and lemelin made splitting it work...thomas and fernandes can too. the point is a strong back up pushing the other guy on both clubs can only be a good thing. that said we will probably see one of these 4 shipped out of town eventually so do not get attached to any one of them (sigh).

the new coach- please o please, for the love of dogs, let the reason he got fired in nj be that he wanted to play a little offense (sigh). secondly peter c give the guy a chance (roll eyes). a coach is going to need more than one season. we need some continuity. you want guys to fight for the spoked b, you want fans to be behind them, give us a freaking chance to get to know some of these guys, we will teach them what we expect (anyone else notice the other manny diggen
down the first baseline more than not lately?). lastly i read that claude will not tolerate his system being played incorrectly, this is a positive(woo hoo), that we did not see last year from the coaching staff. i hope its true(roll eyes).

draft- who knows....they are just kids talk to me in 2-4 years (sigh).

free agency- would still love to see a snarling wing... actually i have said before, get drury if you can, but that doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar...(sigh again)

on the good news front, this team was able to put together a nice little run in the middle of the season last year (roll eyes). this year, with two goaltenders they believe in, a system that is enforced, a nucleus that is a year older and has some familiarity and a deeper (marginally, sigh) d crew, there is reason to believe they could string several more runs like last seasons this season.

oh, and treebob, thanks for holding the fort that last month!

playing with the kids

you heard the bumble b's buzzing about playing with the kids all year. at what cost? hannu got to play. he failed miserably. kessel looked like a boy among men for large sections of the season. wetting their feet at the ultimate level may pay dividends down the road, but it may have also stunted their growth. perhaps the k kids, lashoff, the mark stuarts should be allowed a couple seasons with the p bruins to get ice time, form bonds and get cracks at the cup light.

funny thing about the handling of the kids. almost ten years ago when pat burns road joey thornton's bottom on the bench - he was marked a skilled coach, as he nursed the youngster into a real nhl player. meanwhile this year as kessel was asked to earn his ice time just like joe was many years ago, there was a much larger contingent screaming for the kid to play and the coaches head? people seemed to not notice that in his home debut kessel missed his check in the slot and maybe cost his team a game and certainly a goal. why couldn't these mistakes be made in providence or practice where the price is not so high.

would the idea of being out of the playoffs this spring be more palpable if we had seen the likes of kessel, lashoff, kalus, karsums, m. stuart and krejci lose game after game, instead of the likes of b. stuart, donovan, mara, murray, axelsson and tenkrat? personally if i wanted to see the first group lose - i would have been driving to providence all winter.

do not get me wrong i would love for all these youngsters to bring tremendous skills and energy to this line up at low prices. but lets not forget this is big boy hockey. inexperience like kessels costly defense lapse early in the season could be even more costly. krejci i seem to remember being nearly killed in buffalo (while his barely know him teammates politely watched). sure it was cheap shot from behind, but his youth certainly did not protect him either. lets let the kids play sure but down in the ahl until they are ready to contribute to our team not the competitions. ill take a roster stocked with nhl caliber talent please.