When the puck drops past 7:30 EST you know that it's time for one thing...the dreaded West Coast trip. The puck drops in Calgary tonight at 9:00pm which means by the third period we'll be fighting sleep on my couch. God we're old.

This will be the first time and only time the Bruins and Flames will face one another this season. As mentioned in our previous post, the Bruins have a 2-6-2 record against the Western Conference and will look to take down the Flames to improve on that record.

 

The biggest questions tonight are who is starting tonight in net for the Bruins and if the Flames will one again go all Ronald McDonald on us. We suspect Tim Thomas in net for the good guys and Mayor McCheese in net for the McDonalds.

 

More clown related jokes after the jump...

Add a comment

Welcome to Grinding Gears. Last time Angry Bruins Fan, Greg, ranted about how the defense sorely needs some help. This week, he talks about the lack of consistency on the Bruins team while trying to make as many Rock references as possible.

For more Greg, follow him @PezDOY.

---

Finally....Greg...HAS COME BACK...to Days of Y'Orr [Rock reference: 1]

Today's article is brought to you by the letter C.

We will be focusing on a C word (but not the C word): Consistency. Many of you may be sitting at your computer saying to yourself "Gee whiz Greg, what is consistency?" Well I'm here to address these issues.

Dictionary.com describes consistency as:
Add a comment

Per our morning ritual, we headed over to Boston.com to see what they had for Bruins news.

Kevin Paul Dupont had a story on possible last-minute acquisitons Chiarelli might be looking into. It was good story until he wrote this bag of crap:

It’s a long shot, but ex-Bruin Matt Hunwick, dished to Colorado at the end of November, could be a target, although Chiarelli’s deals on Friday would make Hunwick’s cap figure ($1.45 million) a difficult fit. The advantage to reacquiring Hunwick would be that he knows Julien’s system and most of his fellow back liners. A slow start out West made Hunwick a favorite target of Avalanche fans, but he has been less of a Mile High Piñata of late, picking up an assist in three of Colorado’s last four games. A workable swap could be Danny Paille ($1.017 million) and perhaps a draft pick leaving Boston.

There are about 100 things wrong with that graph. From bringing back Hunwick to what KPD thinks Matty's worth (Pie and a draft pick!?) because of a mere three assists in last four games. Hunwick lost his power when he lost his spleen. We'd like to say we're surprsied but this is the same writer who said Savard was going to start against Buffalo last playoffs because Savard was seen skating on the ice one morning.

This is just.... wow...

...We're going to go drink now... Add a comment

DOY Reader Shannon hunted down Johnny Boychuk at the Bruins Casino event last night. He had a few words for us.


Us.


Edit: Yea, we're totally having a 100%, Grade-A fangirl moment with this.  Add a comment

Back in early January we got an email from reader Leanne that we published in one of our recaps. She had a nickname idea for Mr. Adam McQuaid:


We came up with this in our January Bruins-Habs recap (scroll down toward the bottom)...

Today we saw several tweets about "Darth Quaider." It looks like the nickname has spread to the Boston Bruins locker room via Andrew Ference.


And now other Bruins blogs are picking up on the nickname, acting like it's some brand new concept. 

* Matt Kalman has a post on which nickname is better -- Darth Quadier or Lone Wolf
* DJ Bean did a post on the Big Bad Blog about Ference's t-shirt and Kalman's nickname. Totally disregarded our post that debuted the Darth Quaider name (we assume he never saw our post)

So, we emailed Leanne to learn more about the idea. Did she actually come up with the idea or did it originate somewhere else? Did Ference also come up with a nickname (great minds think alike)? Or did he somehow hear it from fans. Here's Leanne's story.

 
So there you have it. DOY Reader Leanne came up with the nickname and got the t-shirt made (via DOY buddy Colleen Keenan, we hear). She wore it to a Bruins-Red Wings game where Andrew Ference saw it and pointed it out to Quaider. One week later, boomperiodshakalaka, Ference is walking around with a customized Darth Quaider t-shirt.

Time to give credit where credit is due. Good nickname, Leanne. Looks like it is catching on.  Add a comment

Two U's, Two K's, Two road wins to start the six game road trip. Rask got a much deserved and needed back to back start and he played his balls off. The Bruins came out flat. The Senators AHL team was all over them. Rask kept them in the game long enough for the Bruins to explode.

Kaberle and Kelly debuted for the Bruins. Both looked good, especially considering it was their first game with the team and they've barely had time to meet their teammates. Big changes came to the Bruins today and it was nice to wind down with a victory.

Brad Marchand continues to impress. What a beast that kid is. He is oozing confidence. Seguin got another point, assisting on Marchand's first goal. Rookies hooking up the B's! Bruins are going to need those two to continue to pitch in if they want to make a long playoff run. 

B's didn't explode until the third period against a bad Senators team, but two wins to start the road trip is fantastic. Bruins off until Tuesday when they face an improved Flames team. Bring it.


After the jump.... Marchand is awesome, Rask is awesome and power outages suck......

Add a comment

TSN's Bob McKenzie is reporting that the Bruins have traded Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart to the Atlanta Thrashers to reunite with former Bruins assistant Craig Ramsey.

Joe Haggerty has a good break down here.

In return the Bruins are getting Boris Valabik and Rich Peverley. Valabik and Chara are already familiar with each other:





Add a comment

Well... it only took three years and waaaaaaaaaaay too much "will they, won't they" crap from Brian Burke and Peter Chiarelli, but the Bruins have finally obtained Tomas Kaberle from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Bruins sent prospect Joe Colbourne, their own first round pick (not Toronto's!) and a conditional pick back to the Leafs.


Colbourne was the Bruins first round pick in 2008 (16th overall). Providence Bruins were already pretty bad and this certainly won't help. Bruins prospect farm kind of looks like this apparently:


We'll have some thoughts/opinions on the move this weekend. Bruins are going to look different when they come back home!
Kaberle has three goals and 38 points (22 on the powerplay) for a pretty bad Toronto team and is expected to help boost a Bruins powerplay that has struggled mightily at times this season.

What does this mean for other Bruins players? Well, someone has to get traded now. Too many defensemen and not enough ice. Joe Haggerty reported yesterday that the Blackhawks are interested in Mark Stuart and the Bruins may ship him to Chicago for a draft pick to free up some cap space.

Add a comment

Add a comment

Keep checking back to this page as we update it with new information on what's going on during the night. Updates at the bottom of the page.

Ugh, so you might remember a while back us asking about a potential viewing party and which games would be best. You might've also noticed nothing really came from that.

Until now!

We've completed disregarded all those matchups we listed (which were Feb games) for what should be an exciting game with playoff consequences between the Bruins and Canadiens next month. We're teaming up with our pals over at Boston Sports Then & Now and The Place in downtown Boston to present our first Bruins viewing party. Joe Gill over at BST&N was able to secure the VIP lounge for us, so we'll have a nice room to hang out in. We'll also be raffling off prizes that are currently TBD (A Rancourt Fistpump t-shirt is in the mix). It should be a fun night and a great game and we hope to overflow the VIP room into the bar area, so let's make it happen, folks.

And if it goes over well maybe we'll throw another one.

Here's the Facebook Event Page, so you can get any updates about the event and reminders.

Where: The Place (2 Broad St. Boston)
When: Tuesday, March 8th. Game starts at 7:30, doors open at 6:30
Who: You. That's right you, mo'fo. As long as you can get into Boston and are 21+ (sorry to our underage readers!) 
What: Bruins vs. Habs game (duh). Also, we'll be raffling off some prizes (TBD).
Cost: None. It's free, so you can spend that money on booze.

Below are the official viewing party posters. Click any of them to bring up the full size. Feel free to save it, print it out, share it. Etc. Whatever floats your boat.



2/24 Update:
 We'll be raffling off t-shirts and possibly other prizes during the intermisissions. Tickets for the raffle will be $1/each. Up for grabs:

*  "Rancourt Fistpump" t-shirt from us
* "Super Boychuk" t-shirt from Colleen Keenan
* "Seguin" t-shirt from Bottom Line Appareal

Also, there's heavy rumors floating about that Patrice Purrgeron will be in attendance at the viewing party. As long as we don't have to send him out on assignment the rumors are true. Patrice Purrgeron will be at the viewing party.

Time to Go! Add a comment