Does P.K.'s move to Sweden harm his chances at Olympic glory?

Editor's note: This was translated from an article by frequent commenter "sleza," who lives in Europe and follows the Swedish Elite League. This is translated from an interview with P.K. Axelsson by Henrik Lundgren on the swedish hockey site hockeybladet.se. (Click the link to get the original Swedish.) P.K. won a gold medal with the Swedish National team in 2006.

After 11 season in NHL and Boston Bruins it's homecoming time for Per-Johan Axelsson - a year too early. When contract with Boston ended, he hoped to get an offer from other NHL team to avoid to risk his place in Swedish Olympic team.
- There was few teams to choose but none of them were so "hot". So it was better to move home to Frölunda.

How does it affect to your Olympic chances?
-I have no idea. Bengt-Åke Gustafsson (Sweden's head coach) has just so many player where to choose and I don't play in the small rink any more. On the other hand, he has more oppurtunities to see me play live. But the Olympics are now season's maingoal for me.

In the preliminary Swedish hockey group are Pebben and new team mate in Frölunda, Joel Lundqvist, the only players who don't play in NHL
- I simply have to play great in Elitserien (SEL). That's my only chance.

Bengt-Åke Gustafsson gives him hope.
- It doesn't matter for me that he and Lundqvist play in Elitserien again, besides it spices Swedish hockey in very positive way.

Thanks again to sleza for translating this, and if they're not too busy hopefully they'll be sending us more stuff to keep track of "Pebben." We're hoping to follow him and his team (Frölunda HC - GO INDIANS!) through this year.

Because we're just not ready to let go.

GO BRUINS!

Thanks!

Not much to write about as far as the B's or hockey in general right now. But, I didn't want to leave that last post hanging out there without putting anything up myself.

Anyways, welcome to me I guess. Get ready for some semi-regular posting/ranting on the B's and hockey in general. Glad to be here, thanks for the support on the poll and the comments.

Please welcome new contributing author Caps!

Ok, so it looks like there was overwhelming support (100% yes in the poll and 5 yes comments on the post including 2 out of like 3-4 regular commenters) Caps is going to officially become a contributor to the Hockey Blog Adventure.

I look forward to seeing what he's got to bring to the table. As long as its not more sentence fragments and nhl.com videos, he'll be bringing the quality up.

Let's all welcome Caps!

And that's why I took my name off the title. WOOOOOOOOOO

GO BRUINS!

With the 36th pick in the CLtS re-draft, the Boston Bruins select...

...Kentucky Thoroughblades alum Evgeni Nabokov

Old school jersey above, older school jersey below:

Possibly my favorite minor league team, ever.

Link to the draft board here.

Once again, I am filled with post-pick regret. Let's see what the next guy picks up that I should have taken...

GO BRUINS!

New Writing Prospect: Caps

Editor's note: My solicitation for Frolunda HC writers hasn't gotten any Swedes* on board (and if anyone would like to write about it - ideally in English - please drop me a line at hockeyblogadventure at gmail).

*being a Swede not required. Apparently, in European countries it's not uncommon for people to speak more than one language. Crazy.

Anyhow, I did get this submission from a reader who goes by "Caps" but would rather be known as "Cam Neely's Jock." I'm going to put his submission up, and let you, the reader, decide whether you'd like to hear more from him. Here it is:

"Axelsson, career Bruin, signs in Sweden."

As far as I'm concerned, Fluto could've stopped after the first three words. PJ, Per Johan, Axe, whatever you want to call him, personified Bruin. Not the strongest, not the flashiest (by a long shot), and not the fan favorite that other Bruins were during his tenure, PJ, nonetheless, was a Bruin in the purest sense. Hard work, a defense-first mentality, and grit defined the man. From the moment he came on in camp as a rookie, PJ flew under the radar. The duo of first round picks, Joe T and Sergei Samsonov, overshadowed him. We didn't know then, but PJ would outlast them both in Boston, and everyone else on that '97-‘98 team, or anyone until Patrice in 03-04 for that matter. In between then and now, he skated in 851 regular season and playoff games wearing the spoked B. He was a player who could slot in the 4th line and the 1st. Man up, man down, it didn't matter, PJ would be there for Burns, Ftorek, O’Connell, Sullivan, Lewis, and Julien to send over the boards.

On July 27, 2009, however, it was time to say goodbye. In ‘08-‘09, surrounded by a great cast, PJ looked a step slow in the offensive zone, a move behind the opposition on the PK, a second late to get to Savard's passes on the PP. I cringed when injuries forced him onto a scoring line for parts of the season...

The Bruins could have opted for the player they knew best over what was best for the Bruins. But, when I read that PJ was going to Sweden, I was relieved. He had nothing left to prove here. I wish PJ good health and success playing for Frolunda and hope he has no regrets.

So what do you think? I've put a poll in the sidebar for y'all to vote on. --->
Poll ends a week from this post.

GO BRUINS!

With the 25th Pick in the CLtS re-draft, the Bruins select:

I've been participating in Cycle Like the Sedins' re-draft game. The Bruins went 25th. I picked...

Joe Thornton.

We saved #19 for you, Joe.

In all fairness, Marc Savard was already taken.

Oh god what have I done?

GO BRUINS!

P.K. Axelsson OFFICIALLY signs with Frolunda HC for the next 4 years

According to a google translation of the official site of the Frolunda HC team, P.K. Axelsson signed with them for 4 years, signaling the end of his NHL Career.

Frölunda Hockey Club and forward Per-Johan "Pebben" Axelsson has signed a contract for four seasons.

It is now clearly with team captain for the forthcoming season.

"Pebben" returning to Frölunda after 11 seasons in the NHL where he played 797 matches (103 +184 = 287), the Boston Bruins since the season 1997/1998.

He has previously played five seasons and 184 games in Elitserien with Frölunda. Last, he became Swedish champion with Frölunda in lockutsäsongen 2004/2005.

#11 ”Pebben” Axelsson: # 11 "Pebben" Axelsson:
-Frölunda club is in my heart. I always wanted to come back here. Now fit it well and I look forward to see nice things again with the team. Saw that Joel Lundqvist was talking about winning SM-gold. It sounded good.

-The atmosphere in the Scandinavium is certainly a right uttjatat topic.But I must say that it is one of the things I missed most. Playing in there is good.

-Four years is a fairly long contract, but I is on the other hand, quite young!

I'll miss you, P.J.

BLOG NOTICE: The Hockey Blog Adventure is looking for someone to update us on how Frolunda HC does during the upcoming season. If you like writing about hockey occasionally and follow the Elitseren, please shoot me an email at hockeyblogadventure at gmail or say something in the comments.

GO BRUINS!

Wardo: The Return (to Carolina)

Well, something had to give. The Bruins traded Aaron Ward for the 2010 4th-round pick and Patrick Eaves, who they immediately waived.

Aaron Ward will be missed in Boston, both on the blue line and on the air, as his weekly call-in to toucher and rich was usually quite funny.

We'll miss you, Aaron.

Now on to the important part: Aaron Ward was the third-highest paid Defenseman on the team, behind Chara and Wideman. His cap hit was 2.5 Million. With this trade and waiving, that's going to clear up a total of about 5.3 Million in cap space, which should be enough to pay Kessel and get another crappy defenseman in. But the bruins would be very weak on defense and strong on offense in that case. So with that the Bruins' blue line will be, in no particular order:
Chara, Wideman, Hunwick, Ference, Stuart, Boychuk? I haven't seen Boychuk play, but I assume that because we had Montador instead of him in Boston he's not as good as Montador, so...

Of course, they could always go back to that Kessel for Kaberle trade with the Leafs. Assuming Chiarelli still has Burke on hold. I might be okay with that.

I wish they would just sign Kessel or move him or something, waiting is the hardest part.

69 days until we see the first day roster take to the ice at the Garden.

GO BRUINS!

The 5 Best USA! USA! USA! vs. USSR/Russia Moments through history

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first Lunar Landing. I wondered what the top moments in USA/USSR history would be, and I'll be focusing on space exploration and hockey. Also, there's nothing going on in the NHL now. In no particular order, here are the ones I came up with:

Sputnik, High Earth Orbit

After World War II got the rocket era going, The USSR built one powerful enough to get into space. The USA was trying to, as well, but the Russians got there first. Sputnik is a little metal ball that broadcast a simple beeping signal that could be picked up from earth.
Advantage: USSR

Apollo 11, The Moon

The USSR may have gotten into space first, but the USA was the first country in the history of the Earth to put a person on another object in space. The importance of such an event can still be felt today, 40 years later, as noted scientists like Stephen Hawking are claiming that humans should look deeper into space colonization.

Advantage: USA! USA! USA!

1980 Olympics, Lake Placid, NY

A Picture's worth a thousand words.
Advantage: USA! USA! USA!

1960 Olympics, Squaw Valley, CA - Now, the tournament format meant that it wasn't quite as dramatic as USA vs. USSR in the semifinals as in 1980. However, the final round pitted the finalists from the first round into another round robin tournament. One could argue that Canada was a bigger threat than USSR in this case, and you'd be mostly right. USA won 5 out of 5 games to bring home the gold, and Canada lost only to USA. However, the USA beat most other teams by a wide margin, and beat both Canada and USSR by one goal.

The big part of this is that from 1956 to 1992 (if you include the unified team) the Soviet Union managed to win every gold medal in Ice Hockey except for 2 - 1960 and 1980. The 1980 victory has overshadowed the 1960 victory, thanks to time and a couple movies made about the 1980 team.
Advantage: USA! USA! USA!

Number 5 is up to audience participation. Since I was about 7 when the Soviet Union fell, I might be missing something here. So: What's your favorite Cold War moment?

p.s. wouldn't feel right ending a post without
GO BRUINS!

TD Garden Golden Ticket Giveaway Fails to give away tickets

Shit.

That's about how I would describe my experience today during the much-heralded Golden Ticket Giveaway. I work near the boston common, so I went to the Boylston St. TD Bank location. I got there around 11:45, and waited patiently in line. I was pretty close to the front, down the block but not all the way down the block. I watched as the rest of the block got filled up by more people interested in getting chocolate and hopefully tickets.

Then the end of the block filled out at around 11:50, and more and more people were showing up. Nobody was around to tell the line where to go, so it turned back around, going back down the block (like a big "U"). The line continued to grow, going back up the street past the branch and beyond. I couldn't say how far, I was near the front. Finally, 12:00 rolled around and the line started moving. I probably moved up 10-20 feet and then it stopped and people came out and started talking to the crowd. I was still too far away to hear them at first, but people started walking by saying that the bank was out of candy bars.

2 minutes into the giveaway. That they had been heavily advertising for days. On Boylston st, one of the more heavily-trafficked streets in Boston. At first we heard conflicting information. The police started dispersing the crowd, saying there were no more candybars and everyone should go home. (They then realized that it was the middle of a workday and most people were on lunch, and said to go back to work.) I stuck around for a little, because they had said that they would start up again when enough police showed up to work the crowd, but the Police had other ideas.

The police officer who told me to leave about 15 times (sorry, dude, but I wanted one of those bars) told me that they had been warned 3 times to get their own security to control the crowd, but refused to do anything.

I called the branch location at about 1:20pm today, and they confirmed that they would not be giving out any more candy bars for the day. The woman who picked up the phone sounded pretty exasperated, I feel bad for her.

I'm sure that the event down at the garden was/is wonderful, and the other branch locations seen to have run out of bars. But the management at this branch screwed the pooch on what should otherwise have been a fun time.

So from now on I will definitely continue to just call it The Garden. That'll show 'em, right?

Shit.

GO BRUINS!

Hmmmm....

I wonder what the big announcement at fenway is today?

So....On a scale of 1 to Zdeno Chara, how pumped are you?

I'm at about Chara on top of Kilimanjaro right now.

The rest of the schedule comes out at 3pm. Real posts will follow.

Until then, follow @schuylerb on twitter for Fenway updates. He's the NHL Manager of Communications.
GO BRUINS!

Time to Get Serious

"I don’t tell you what to do with your site, but If you are looking for suggestions, I would suggest actually writing something besides sentences fragments and NHL.com videos." - Stanley Cup of Chowder

This is a fair point. It's about time this blog got more serious, aside from that one post about the Stay Hungry hats (only bit of anything approaching real journalism I've done) and the piece that Travbot did about Upcoming Goalie Superstar Tuukka Rask. The schedule doesn't come out for another day so let's talk about how the Bruins look. It's a better thing to do than picking fights with your local SBNation affiliate, anyhow.

It would be easier to figure out how the Bruins are doing if there wasn't this damn 800 pound gorilla sitting here in the middle of this room. Let's see, what could he want? OH! It must be getting Phil Kessel signed. Both sides are saying Phil wants to stay in Boston, and I assume Peter Chiarelli and Kessel's agent are both talking daily, but until the ink hits the paper and I see it on @bishter's or @HacksWithHaggs's twitter it's completely up in the air. So without that piece of the puzzle, this will be slightly less useful than your average Season Preview. So it goes.

Of course, we're all mourning the loss of P.J. Axelsson. He's played well with the Bruins, but I don't think he's coming back. Personally, it would suck to see Axelsson in another NHL jersey, and there has been rumor that a Swedish team or two are giving him offers. Of course, I now can't find the link to where I saw that, it was probably on some message board somewhere. We'll miss you, P.K. Axelsson...we'll miss you.

Speaking of people leaving the team, Montador is gone but who cares, and Hnidy left but Begin will step in for the kisser-rearranging duties. This is all well and good, as the team more-or-less looks the same as it did last year, with Bitz moving up to the Big Club most of the time and hopefully Wheeler getting a bit more physical, or at least getting his scoring touch back.

The fact of the matter is we still have Krejci, Savard, Chara, Thomas, and Bergeron on the team, and though they may just be a pile of centers, a mountain, and a tornado, these guys really carry the team. Wideman, Ward, and Stuart do a great job on D as well, and Recchi will tip in shots all day in front of the net. Wheeler has great hands.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm pulling my hair out waiting for the offseason to end so we can get back to some hockey. It'll be a day or two more before I'm breaking down and watching the Bruins History DVD (saved it for just such and occasion). In the meantime, why not read a book?

Above all, we want bitz. Even those of us a couple sections over from 311.

GO BRUINS!
(p.s. Hal Gill Sucks)

2009 Preseason games (a.k.a. The Schedule is ALMOST OUT!!!!!!!!!!)

Copied direct from Bruins Blog, here are the preseason games:

Sept. 15 -- vs. Rangers at Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m.
Sept. 16 -- vs. Toronto at Air Canada Centre, 7 p.m.
Sept. 19 -- vs. Rangers at TD Garden, 4 p.m.
Sept. 20 -- vs. Montreal at Quebec City, 7 p.m.
Sept. 22 -- vs. Columbus at Nationwide Arena, 7 p.m.
Sept. 24 -- vs. Montreal at Bell Centre, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 25 -- vs. Ottawa at Scotiabank Place, 7 p.m.
Sept. 26 -- vs. Columbus at TD Garden, 7 p.m.

Looking at this schedule, we've got a game at 3 Original six teams (excluding Chicago and Detroit) as well as two games against Columbus and one at Ottawa. The only NorthBeast division team we're not playing is Buffalo. Yes, it's NorthBeast now, have you seen that Brian Burke is the Leafs GM? And we picked up Begin to replace Yelle? There's going to be some fighting going down, I think. The Garden and many boston sports bars will repeatedly be booming with cheers. Should be good.

The two Bruins home games before the circus comes and sits on the NHL schedule for a couple weeks are The rangers on a saturday afternoon (4pm, Sept. 19) and The BlueJackets on a Saturday Evening the next week (7pm, Sept. 26).

The 2009-10 schedule will be released next Wednesday. Can't wait. I'll have it here, and some reactions, soon after it goes up.

GO BRUINS!

Free Agency Recap: Week 1

Hasn't been a whole lot going on around these parts, but for the few, the proud, the people that get all of their bruins news from here...(Hi, mom!) Here's what's been up with all of that:

Bruins have picked up:
Bitz for 1 year/675k (wooooo! WE WANT BITZ WE WANT BITZ)
Recchi for 1 year/1 million (Solid signing for a solid veteran. Can't wait to see that bald spot grow)
Danny Sabourin (last year's backup in Pittsburgh then Edmonton)
Drew Fata (defenseman who played mostly in the AHL last year)
as reported previously:
Steve Begin, replacing Stephane Yelle

Bruins lost:
Shane Hnidy to Minnesota
Steve Montador to Buffalo.

Development camp is underway, and everyone's wondering who will be this year's Camp star a la David Krejci or Blake Wheeler.

Me? I'm on vacation all this week with very little internet around, so unless TravBot feels like writing something (congratulate him, by the way) this week it will be pretty light around here.

The Bruins are having a golden ticket giveaway at the Garden on Thursday the 16th, free chocolate and a chance to win season tickets. Starts at noon. Check it out, I might be stuck at work.

If you want to go to Ristuccia and watch on-ice parts of development camp, they're open to the public and free. Go check out our boys in black and gold (and assorted prospects that could very well become them)!

GO BRUINS!

Free Agency, Day 1 recap

The Bruins re-signed Byron Bitz (687.5k x 2 years), added Steve Begin for 850k for one year (Hi Marc, nice to be playing with you....listen, sorry about the back...), and Steve Montador signed with Buffalo. Depending on the Bitz contract, this gives the Bruins 5-6 million to fill out the rest of the rost. Oh, and we re-signed P-Bruins superstar Johnny Boychuk, to boot. Not sure if he's playing in Boston or staying in Providence this year.

The Wild signed Greg Zanon (1.93x3) and Martin Havlat (5.00x5 lackadaisical years and one great one). Oh, and some guy named Gaborik is now a Ranger. Saku Koivu might be coming to Minnesota to play with his brother, he's making the decision overnight. Havlat wasn't getting offered more than 1-year deals from Chicago.

Looking around the division:
Buffalo...yeah, buffalo is in the division. They only signed Steve Montador. Big moves for them.

Ottawa is still trying to deal Heatley. Suckers. They also re-signed fan favorite Chris Neil.

Montreal picked up Mike "Squids" Cammalleri, Hal "Tall as a tree and skates like one too" Gill, Jaroslav "The OTHER Jaro" Spacek, Brian "Bilbo" Gionta. Commence loathing....now!

Toronto got Colton "Not Bobby" Orr (0-0-1 against current Bruins) and Mike "Lucic's Bitch" Komisarek. Ahhhh, memories...Thank you, Jack Edwards, for all your homer fight calls. I look forward to this upcoming year.

Overall not a terrible day for signings for the Bruins, though we should re-sign Hunwick and then re-sign Kessel or find another good sniper or a top-pairing defenseman on top.

I don't think they should overpay for kessel because of his shoulder surgery, personally.

GO BRUINS!