Unnecessary Move

It looks as though the Boston Bruins have acquired a new goaltender.

According to the Pioneer Press, the Minnesota Wild have traded Manny Fernandez to the Bruins for forward Petr Kalus and a future fourth-round draft pick.

Not that I think Manny is a bad goalie but Boston's problems last season were not the fault of goaltending. This is a panic move by desperate a GM who really doesn't seem to understand the BIG picture. P.C. looks like he is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist instead of fixing problems that do.

Lets see what happens over the next few days (free agent market opens up today) to see what (if any) vision P.C. has for this team.

versus vs not versus

first, let me apologize. normally this blogger does not blog about anything other than my (ok our) bruins here. if i blog about the playoffs, it would be in relation to the bruins. if blog about issues of world politics, it would be in relation to the bruins. if i blog about my mom it would be in relation to the bruins. this particular blog is going to be about versus and its only tie to the bruins is my inability, through out this past season, to watch selected monday and tuesday night games that appeared on said station.

a little history. before the lockout there was no problem, all games on nesn and all games watched, or recorded and watched, by neb. then came the "new deal". with the nhl contract "vs" got 10ish games a season. this is where the problems starts. i live in a town whose cable contract was owned by adelphia. adelphia considered the V a digital cable channel. i thought about it but decided against spending an extra 25 bucks a month to get one single channel so i could watch one bruins game a month. for 25 bucks a month i could/should go to the game! plus, i get enough channels already. lastly i decided the problem would be mitigated, i would drive to my friends house in the neighboring comcast town were he had the V. the games would be seen there.

as you can imagine, i started missing games, as this was not a perfect scenario. but i did not sit idly by. i called adelphia, i wrote adelphia, i emailed adelphia, i emailed the bruins, i emailed dale arnold and dale read my email on the air during the dale and holley show. - sorry dale i know you couldn't really do anything but perhaps this helped others, also frustrated in similar positions, to hear that they were not alone.

back in the fall i thought my problems would soon be over. comcast had bought out the bankrupt adelphia. bankrupt i am sure by such idiot managerial decisions, such as making Vs a digital only channel. there is another hockey tie in here. the owner of adelphia i believe also owns or owned the sabres - another good reason i shouldn't of paid and extra 25 bucks, because indirectly it might be going to that diver briere's pockets. but i digress, this purhase of adelphia, i though, would bring me the V! how could it not. comcast in my neighboring town provided the V at the level of service i was at! my friend lived 4 miles away and there it was every tuesday night nhl hockey with the little round vs logo right there in the corner.

well game after game came and went and still no V. another season was lost. and now playoffs and games i would normally watch are just not available. the nhl plays its best hockey and my comcast house hold can not watch while my friends comcast household down the street could. already another round of emails and phone calls to comcast representatives had been made. many minutes were spent on hold.

then it happened this week, i got the letter. i was going to have the V!!!!

in june.

lotta good the F'ing V does me in june. o boy, i frankly can not wait for the the tour de france. this whole thing has left me a little empty. what is wrong with this world and now if you have gotten this far.... well ive wasted your time with all this drivel versus real insite. just a reminder, i apologized up front.

nebs 2008 dreamline up (that might be possible?)

1st line: kalus-savard-murray production 95 goals
kalus's cracks lineup and his continued preseason goal scoring lands him on the first line.
~coach tries to match this line up against oppositions second and fourth line.

2nd line: sturm-bergeron-bochenski production 90 goals
bergeron recovers from injury shines as defacto captain
~coach uses this line against other teams #1 as shut down and a counter-punch meant to take advantage of other teams usually defensively weak first line.

3rd line: axelsson-drury-kobasew production 66 goals
healthy kobasew re-invents his game and a penchant for knocking bodies.
~coach uses to start periods, after powerplays for and against.

4th line: reich-kessel-donovan - production 35 goals
reich and donovan teach kessel how to play tough.
~coach uses for energy to pump up crowd - kessel learns to hit and score while playing at top speed (who needs wings). the team really rolls 4 lines for first time ever.

first d pair: chara-ward production 18 goals
chara less minutes more physical
~coach uses to shut down top opposition forwards - on your butt sidney!

second d pair: ference-wideman production 11 goals
wideman breaks out as puck moving gem
~coach uses with 1st and 3rd lines to move pucks to forwards who are now moving fast with confidence through the neutral zone.

third d pair: alberts-stuart production 4 goals
steady, steady, steady
~coach uses to rest top 4 and after power plays for and against.

auxilary foward: mowers
chistov delt for future considerations in offseason
auxilary d-man: allen

auxilary and call up production 6 goals

goalies thomas-hannu production 0 goals
thomas given number one roll from beginning of camp. rask and toivonan battle for back up spot with hannu earning it.
~coach uses better defined rolls and overall improved team play to allow goalies to find their zones.

1st powerplay unit kalus-savard-murray-bergeron-chara
2nd powerplay unit bochenski-kessel-sturm-drury-wideman
~coach uses second unit first to allow for stronger line match ups after the kill and to potentially line up first unit against weaker or tired killers

1st penatly kill unit axelsson-drury-chara-ward
2nd penalty kill unit bergeron-donovan-alberts-stuart

total goals for 235 (improvement of 16 goals)
total goals against 201 (improvement of 88 goals)

overall record 41-31-10 92 points

improved team play and overall commitment to playing all over the ice improve team to 7th seed.

average game 3-2 win with each line getting a point.

Who is he setting up?

Just a quick observation from looking at our team stats. I noticed that Savard has 70 assists. Who scored the goals on these assists? Excluding his own goal scoring (which he can not have assists on) Boston's top 3 goal scorers are: Murray, Sturm and Bergeron with 28, 25 and 21 goals - a total of 74 goals. Has Savard been in on practically everyone of these goals? After these players the next top goal scorer on Boston is Bochenski with 12.

You expect for a 70 assist man to have someone with him on his line that would be close to a 50 goal scorer - Boston doesn't have a 30 goal scorer. Has Savard been setting up everybody and if he wasn't on our team would we have any goals at all this season? Has www.nhl.com made a mistake with their stats? For Savard to have 70 assists is amazing but it is even more amazing when you realize that no one on Boston has scored any goals. If Boston did have a goal scorer Savard would have had 100 assists!

Without Savard and Timmy on our team this season Boston might have ended the season with zero points. The rest of the team should be ashamed and hold themselves accountable and come back next year playing like Savard has been all season long. I think everyone in a Bruins uniform should apologize to both Timmy and Savard for letting them down this year.

On a side note Boston beat Ottawa last night 3-2. Hard to get excited over it but I still like winning no matter what.

Holiday Blues - What If?

I was pondering The Bruins loss to The Rangers on Saturday and I was thinking about the St. Patrick's Day holiday and I remembered The Bruins also losing on Thanksgiving (actually the day after) and on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). The B's have a young team and I was thinking that they might lose sight of their priorities and get all caught up in the spirit of these holidays. They have lost all 3 of these holiday games and 2 of these were to Carolina and The Rangers. If The Bruins were a more mature team and could handle the holiday excitement they might have been able to win these 3 games.

If The Bruins did win these 3 games the standings would now look like this:

7th - Bruins - 80 Pts.
8th - Carolina - 78 pts.
9th - Islanders - 78 pts.
10th - Toronto - 78 pts.
11th - Hated Habs - 78 pts.
12th - Rangers - 77 pts.

I might be totally out to lunch on this but there is a pattern to their holiday performances and they are a young team. Maybe if they were a little more focused around the holidays other teams would be chasing them instead of the other way around.

This is just a random thought that came to my head and I thought I would share it with you.