The Rangers put up some stupid post about "Women's Guide To Watch Hockey". Fuck that noise. Woman don't need a guide to watching hockey, but people new to the sport do. So welcome to DOY's "Newbie's Guide To Watching Bruins Hockey".
1. Boo this man:
And these guys:
2. Love this guy:
3. Destorychuk
4. Not tough:
Tough:
5. Merlot:
Not the right merlot:
6. Is Pie:
Eats Pie:
Rules:
Captain:
Also captain:
Also Also Captain:
Angel:
Devil:
Saint:
Youngins:
Also middle kid is unconfirmed to be Brian Scalabrine's kid.
Anyways, apparently it's not working out too well for Buffalo. Last night, Nathan Gerbe got boarded pretty bad by Hurricane Drayson Bowman. SOme of his teammates decided to have a little lip action with Bowman. And then he gets manhandled by NHL referree Dan O'Halloran.
Damn. Hey, Sabres, how do you feel about all that?
After the game it's rumored thatn goaltender Ryan Miller called O'Halloran a "piece of shit" and then wrote some bad poetry about it.
Must suck when NHL refs are pushing your team around. Where was Who is John Scott and Brave Steve Ott when the Sabres needed them? Weren't they hired to deal with this exact thing? Once again someone takes advantage of a Sabre on the ice and no one does jack about it.
We expect that to not happen again tonight against the NY Islanders. A Claude Julien team just doesn't have long stretches of awful defense like that. Expect tonight's defense to be a lot more like this:
The Islanders are currently doing pretty well. They're 2-1 and are 5th in the conference, 2nd in the Atlantic. They've lost to the Devils but beat Lightning and the Leafs and have netted 12 goals in three games -- most coming from Tampa and Toronto. They mustered just one goal against the Devils, so they've yet to put up great offensive numbers against teams with actual starting goaltenders and solid defenders.
Boston has won 3 of the last 4 games against the Islanders. In those three games the Bs put up six goals. Be nice to see more of that tonight and maybe a few PPGs to make us all feel better about life.
In net for the Islanders is expected to be old Boston resident Rick DiPietro.
Rick DiPietro makes his season debut tonight for #Isles against Boston.
The two big questions coming into this season was how his groin would hold up and could he perform at a high level with out seeing Thomas in the rearview mirror? The first bit is still to be determined (we think it'll be fine & Goalie Guild has a great post on how the injury can help Tuukka) but the second question is looking pretty good so far. Sure "het let in" four goals yesterday against the Rangers, but it's hard to really blame any of them on him since he was left high and dry by his defense on each occasion and some. To stop most of the goals would've been acts of god. Still, he made some fantastic saves to help the Bruins steal a point and half-improve to 2-0-1. Kid was making snow angels all night long.
Rask with the unorthodox T-bone save.
Bailing out another defensive screw up
More snow angels from Tuukka
And yep... more snow angels
This is why the Bruins traded Raycroft for Rask for way back when. They saw a talented goaltender who takes good angles and can make some athletic plays. You can't expect the chaotic Tim Thomas flopping from Rask, but you can expect some beautiful and athletic goaltending in his own way. Bruins lost last night but Tuukka won.
I wish I could come here and tell you that I'm disappointed in the Bruins 4-3 overtime loss in New York last night, but I can't. Honestly, Boston was lucky to come away with a point because they had absolutely no business going to overtime. Boston's defense played terribly for about a period and a half before they decided to wake up and even then...yikes. Outside of Dougie Hamilton putting on his big boy pants, no one was back there and left Tuukka Rask high and dry most of the game. I mean, watch the first goal by Gaborik:
if you stop the video at 5 seconds, Gaborik has already blown past Chara and effectively has put Johnny Boychuk in a 2-on-1 situation against Nash AND Gaborik. Let that goal be a microcosm for how the Bruins defense played in this game. They were constantly getting beat, turning the puck over in high scoring areas and taking awful penalties (looking at you Quaider) to put the Bruins in situations where they had to dig themselves out of holes.
The saving grace for last night was that Tuukka stood on his head for most of the game. Here's his FIRST snow angel of the game:
Again, defensive breakdown and Brad Richards (probably the hottest scorer on the team right now) is able to slide behind Boychuk and get a fresh stab at the puck. It's a good thing Tuukka is able to basically latch on to each pipe like Spider-man and not move from the red line.
Here's the save at the end of the game:
Oof. Nash absolutely poops all over Lucic and then creates another 2-on-1 with Gaborik, but Rask once again stands on his head. He carried the team tonight, no doubt about that.
You have to tip your cap to the Rangers because they came out and played like a desperate team, which I said they would have during the preview. I didn't think, however, that the Bruins would just let the Rangers top line walk through the slot uncontested all night. It was an absolute disaster behind their blue line for about 45-50 minutes of that game.
Regular Season(s): 2011-2012: 3rd in offense, 15th in PP% 2010-2011: 5th in offense, 20th in PP% 2009-2010: 30th in offense, 23rd in PP% 2008-2009: 2nd in offense, 4th in PP%
We miss you, Marc Savard.
This year hasn't been a great start either. Bruins are 0-9 on the PP after two games. Normally we wouldn't get too worked up about two games but it's more of the same from the Bs PP. Other teams are just as snake bitten but they have half the chances the Bruins have so far.
Sure, Boston is moving the puck better and creating some nice chances, but they've gotten nothing to show for it yet. We're hoping with Seguin playing with more confidence and going into the corners for pucks that this year will actually be different and we won't be hitting up the bathroom every time the Bs go on the advantage. One power play goal can go a long way to letting the guys relax and do what they need to do to put more in the net. When you're snake bitten you think too hard. When you're snake bitten for three years... whoa boy.
The Bruins are 2-0 on the season after curb stomping the Rangers and winning in exciting fashion against the Winnipeg Jets. A lot of people were worried that the team would come out to a slow start (like they did last year) and go on some sort of losing streak. Well fear not people because you're not the New York Rangers who are slowly becoming one of the most over-hyped teams to begin a season this short of the Washington Capitals. While the Bruins have a power play that wouldn't work with the opposing goalie pulled, the New York Rangers can't seem to get out of their own way. It's an amazing sight since the media was on their hands and knees giving mouth hugs to the Rangers because they signed Rick Nash.
Instead, the Rangers pooped their pants on Saturday's opener in Boston, wiped their bums with sensitive wipes and then pooped their pants again at home against Pittsburgh on Sunday. It was so bad that "all world" (and resident Titanic on my fantasy hockey team) goalie Henrik Lundqvist was pulled in the first period against the Penguins.
(Courtesy of Dooby and cblog)
We can only hope that #Stunnedqvist returns tonight.
Don't get me wrong, I expect the Rangers to bring it tonight. They're 0-2 and the city of New York is not forgiving when it comes to slow starts, slumps and anything related to Mark Sanchez. If they drop to 0-3, I'm pretty sure the citizens on New York will throw all of their trash on them from their 30th story apartment or whatever the hell they do, but it won't be pretty.
The best thing about this? Everyone talked about the Rangers offense and goaltending coming into this season. Where does New York's offense currently reside? 25th overall with 2.00 goals per game. Their defense? 27th with 4.50 goals against per game (thanks for that 6 piece, Pittsburgh) and Lundqvist? Only 38th (out of 43 goalies) in GAA at 4.77 and 35th in SV% with a staggering .865.
Their power play sucks (11.1% success, 25th overall) which is a little weird, considering that have players who can score goals (or actually, they can't).
Bruins-Thrashers was my first live game of the season and as one who's usually stupid enough to buy food at the Garden concessions because I'm always hungry at the game, I was pretty stoked to get some food vouchers from the Bruins. Three food vouchers to use on a limited selection of food items. Damn. I figured it'd be crappy things like a pretzal or a candy bar. Nope. It was for legit food.
Then I started thinking that maybe something like a slice of pizza would cost me two vouchers 'cause it's supposed to be bigger. Kinda like when you're at a carnival and you pay $5 for 4 vouchers but everything is priced in threes so you're always left over with a shitty food voucher you give to some kid on the way out. This is what I expect from a Jeremy Jacobs run business.
I was wrong. I was so wrong. He's even more devious than I thought.
I figured I'd order a pizza. Pizza is a pretty safe bet, right? I mean those pizza boxes are decent size and everything. The concession dude hands it over and I pick it up and think, "Huh, this feels kinda light." But I ignored it until I got to my seat, opened the box and was greeted with this:
Such a small, sad, pathetic slice of pizza.
@justindoy I'd tell you to get a make whole provision, but that pizza won't be great in 113 days
Whoa sorry. So many posts we started talking like Winnipeg's goal posts. Typical matinee start by our dear Bruins, not so typical finish. The game wasn't nearly as close as the score. The B's DOMINATED for long stretches and made Pavelec look good. They probably felt bad because he's kind of terrible and plays for the Thrashers.
Going 2-0 in a 48 game season is a pretty good start. When you factor in that the B's aren't even at their best yet... well, is that piss on the rest of the NE Divison's pants?
And still, how awesome is it having hockey back!?!?
