Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Extended Holidays

The Boston Bruins are enjoying an extended Christmas Vacation. However, the league only gave them one night off. The Bruins (all except Tim Thomas) decided to take Boxing Day off also (to my American friends - Boxing Day is December 26th in Canada). Even with taking the night off Boston still almost won this game if not for 2 boneheaded penalties in the final minute and a half. The Bs' were sitting on a 4-3 lead and with the Bruins' 2 penalties, Columbus decided to pull their goalie (Norrena???) for a 6 on 3 advantage and poor Timmy was left out to dry. The 2nd of the penalties came from our supposed leader and franchise player who took a hooking penalty because he never kept his feet moving (rookie mistake by a veteran). Anyway Columbus tied it up and eventually scored the winner in overtime.

Game Notes:
- Boston were outshot 42-26!
- Columbus scored 2 even strength, one shorthanded, one powerplay and one overtime goal (what! we didn't give up a penalty shot goal for the cycle).
- Timmy played amazing and almost stole a game we had no business being close in.
- Chara took a bad hooking penalty to put us 2 men down with less than a minute left - he then complained about it being a bad call (same call that we have seen consistently made since October - by now he should realize what the refs are calling).
- Sergi Federov looked like he did 10 years ago with Detroit - most jump out of everyone on the ice on this night.
- overtime winner was scored on a breakaway on the worst line change in the history of professional hockey!
- Boston must have had some of that turkey again for Christmas. They came out as flat and as tired as they did against Carolina the day after American Thanksgiving (please no more turkey meals until after the season is over).

Hopefully this was just one of those games because Boston has been playing great hockey as of late. I think that they will bounce back and use this as motivation to totally destroy Chicago on Friday!

Go Bruins Go !!!

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8 Comments:

Blogger neb said...

this was a vs game which means, i didnt get to see it....kinda...

for nevets this point puts them tied for 8th and into the playoffs..if they started today!

personally the 1 point for overtime losses sure has taken the OT loss sting away for me...i used to have such a hallow feeling in the pit of my bowels from the lost two points, but nowadays...oh well we moved into the playoffs!

12:26 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger neb said...

also i dont know if you remember, but i theorized pj would be out until he qualified for longterm injury exemption cap relief.... i did some research reading the old collective bargaining agreement and sure enough ten games and 25 days needed on IR to get cap relief... pj out 10 games (hmmm)...

coach and peter freed up a little cap from pj being out....

12:29 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger jimbuff said...

neb:
I hate losses of any kind. Get a point or not it is still a loss. Sucks even more that it was to a piece of crap excuse for a team like the Bluejackets!
Still to early to say we are in playoffs. Standings have to be looked at sure but the most important thing is to keep winning games to be in the top 8 at the end of regulation. 8th place on Dec. 27th means squat!

1:55 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger neb said...

i hate to dissagree but 8th place means they have gained about 7 places in the last 2 months... just the way i see it. i know it does matter much, but its a trend i like.

overtime losses do not sting me like they used to that for sure... and like i said i didnt get to actually watch this one thanks to my local cable provider, which makes it hurt even less, thanks comcast!

3:52 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger jimbuff said...

neb:
I agree I like the improvements in the team over the last little while and it is shown in their placing. However, they still have to keep this pace up to make the playoffs.
I personally think they have the ability to finish probably 5th in the conference.
It may be a cliche but one game and one win at a time and don't worry about where they are now but rather where they will be come April.

Maybe just me but I still hate overtime losses and the point for it is great for the standings but it does not ease my competitive nature of hating losing. I hate to lose no matter what!

3:58 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger jimbuff said...

Also losses like this piss me off because of how bad they played. Columbus should be an easy 2 points but instead we played bad enough that we were lucky - very lucky (thanks Timmy) to get one point!

4:04 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger Doobie said...

This was one of the few Bruins games I was able to TiVo since it was on Versus.

What really stung about this loss (1 point or not), is how they did it. They had two penalties late in the 3rd period, which enabled Columbus to have a 6-3 advantage when they pulled their goalie. Thomas had no chance.

And *then*, they lost the game when a weak clearing pass during a line change never made it past the Columbus bench, which enabled a breakaway for David Vyborny. Game over.

But even in the third period, their game play was misleading. They played their balls off on defense, constantly breaking up Blue Jacket attacks, but they never got anything going in the BJ side of the ice, getting outshot 20-4. If they were able to generate any kind of offense, even simply to keep Columbus away from the B's net, they might have won this game.

Still, this was an extremely entertaining game. Watching the 3rd period was like watching playoff hockey. Very intense.

4:49 p.m., December 27, 2006  
Blogger neb said...

just to be clear...i do not like losing... but when i dont watch and they get a point it doesnt seem so bad as it used to(to me)... this is crazy but you could win 12 games and lose 70 in overtime and shootouts and make the the playoffs...(this would make jim lose his mind, but i would take this scenario over last season (i think(just wanting to pull off the triple paranthetical here))). ;}

5:58 p.m., December 27, 2006  

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