L10: 7-3-0: Capital Tour

So the Bruins have gotten off to a hot start, Thomas going undefeated and 7-0-0 and Rask getting screwed and going 0-3-0, including tonight's (last night's?) effort, coming in down 0-3 and still getting the L. It's nuts. They've also played in the capital city of 3 different countries so far.

The Bruins are nice enough to provide the last two years side-by-side with the current year on their website. 10 games in the last 2 years? Bruins beat Ottawa to improve to 5-4-1 in 09-10, and Thomas had just put on a clinic shutting down Edmonton and Vancouver in back-to-back shutouts in '08. The Bruins were 5-2-3 then. Now?

7-3-0

2-2-0 home

5-1-0 away

So that's not bad. Not bad at all. Next stop is gonna be goal differential:

+14

The best in the league. Leading the team in individual +/- is none other than, you guessed it:

Milan Lucic.

This is in part to Thomas's 3 shutouts and altogether unreal hot streak in the beginning of the season, and also due in part to the offense, which is a breath of fresh air this season. The Lucic-Krejci-Horton line are all individually rocking a PPG for the moment, with Horton (6) and Lucic (5) leading the way in goals. The players without points this season are Dan Paille (scratched after the first game, quite possibly heading to Providence) and McQuaid (1 point in 32 career regular season and playoff NHL games).

#73: 4-4-8

One nice thing to see is the resurgence of the good Michael Ryder. Despite being one of only 3 players with a -1 (Paille and Recchi are the others), he's been scoring at a pretty good clip, 4th on the Bruins behind the Mushroom Kingdom.

Basically what I'm saying is this team is a hell of a lot of fun to watch right now.

L10 Highlight:

Tyler Seguin's first NHL goal

Tyler Seguin has been playing pretty well for a kid who is as old as your average college freshman. He's scored goals in 3 countries on two continents. Best part? Jordan Caron has been about as good, especially joining Patrice Bergeron on the PK (and otherwise) for what I like to call "The French Connection."

Most common forward lines, by percent ice time (per Dobber Hockey)

Lucic-Krejci-Horton (The Mushroom Kingdom)

Marchand-Campbell-Thornton

Bergeron-Caron-Wheeler

Ryder-Seguin-Recchi

Non-Bruins NHL spotlight:

Steve Stamkos is literally on fire right now. 10-10-20, +9. Ridiculous.

Stammer rules, get used to it.

By the time you read this I'll be sleeping through my alarm and hurrying off to Boston Sports Blogapalooza! I'm pretty psyched, last year was a lot of fun and hopefully this year will be too.

GO BRUINS!

L10: Game 41-50 (2-7-1) NEW STRATEGY: 2 LOTTERY PICKS

(From sports club stats)

Yeah, we're not doing so hot right now. Let's jump right in because we all have days of watching sports ahead of us. First of all, the Bruins are currently out of the playoffs in terms of total points but if they can win the next three they'll be back to tied with Ottawa. By point percentage, they're in 7th in the east right now. I'm not entertaining dreams of catching Buffalo at this point, especially since we don't have games in hand on them and they're 13 points ahead. Jerks. Ryan Miller better bring his A+ game to Vancouver next month, is all I'm saying.

The losses we've had have been bad losses and as a result I know I've been much more interested in football and the Wild. Whatever, this is part of being a fan. Watching all your hopes and dreams slip away. Like that graph up there, which is the likelihood of the Bruins making the playoffs. Even if they do, I don't see them making it past the first round unless things really turn around. Then again who thought the Carolina Hurricanes would beat two of the best teams in the league last year and end up in the Conference Finals? Not I. Not I. Fuck those guys anyways.

17.18%

That's our powerplay. Not terrible, not great, 20th in the league. Not as good as it was last time around, not as bad as the start of the year. 1718 didn't have a whole lot going on, but Blackbeard the pirate was riding around, and that's pretty slick. Way to go, 1718!

87.71%

PK percentage. The Bruins are back on top of that stat, after dropping to second for a couple days this past week. Well, we're still good at SOMETHING....

126

Goals for AND goals against. The Bruins have scored the fewest goals in the whole league, and the only teams that have fewer goals against are Miller's Buffalo, Brodeur's Jersey, Luongo's Vancouver, and Keith/Seabrook's Chicago. Fortunately if they win today they'll tie or pass the next-lowest team in goals for (Carolina)

4

The number of players that have played in every game for Boston this year: Zdeno Chara, Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder, and Mark Recchi. Three of these guys follow Patrice in most points for the Bruins. Ryder has 20 points, good for 9th.

42

Mark Recchi's age on February 1st. Mark Recchi is one of the better things going for the Bruins right now. In the last game when the top line was Paille-Bergeron-Recchi that was Claude saying to the rest of the players "These guys. These are the ones I want on the ice more than the rest of you shlubs." Recchi has said that this is his last year.

Fun fact: Mark Recchi is from Kamloops, where Blogger/Leafs beat writer James Mirtle is also from.

TORONTO PICK WATCH

Cam Fowler, according to this mock draft.

Toronto? Still bad. Not as bad as Carolina and Edmonton, but still pretty damn bad. 3rd place in the lottery standings right now. Here's a fun little piece by Ryan Classic about Phil Kessel's performance this year. Fun part: Compared to Alexai Yashin. Look for Brian Burke to be yelling on your TV soon, folks!

Oh, and draft party at my house.
GO BRUINS!

L10: Fourth set: The Winter Classic (5-3-2)

Well, the Winter Classic was great. I was lucky enough to be there for it (and the Legends Classic the next day! Way to go Jay Miller! Nice Hattie!) I could write about either classic, and how the atmosphere of Fenway was a magical thing, and how it was fun chanting LET'S GO BRUINS at the flyers fans, who were out in force and chanting LET'S GO FLYERS right back. It was pretty magical for the coffers as well, pulling a disappearing act on a lot of people's money. Worth it.

This has been bugging me in reading post-classic stuff, so here's my take:
Sweet Caroline is a Fenway tradition, very similar to last year's "Take me out to the hockey game" and Dennis Leary and Lenny Clarke are staples of the "people from Boston who are sorta famous and like sports" list.

Mark "Fire Hydrant" Recchi tied the game and Sturm finished it, on a pass from Bergeron. Way to go, guys!

On to the rest of the last ten games:

TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKK

Lookin' good, Mr. Finn. Thomas has been getting the majority of the starts, and has been playing very well in them (except when he, ahem, plays the body) and all of that. Let's look at some stats, though they are through game 41. I've been very busy the last couple of weeks, without much time for blogging. Mostly it's been good to excellent stuff, though, so I'm okay with it.

87.76%

That's the PK, humming along at peak performance (literally, #1 in the league) though they are in the bottom half for short-handed goals. Surprise, surprise! The Bruins aren't that great at scoring.

17.48%

That's the powerplay, all the way up to 18th in the league right now. If Bergeron's hand is broken, I expect this to drop as he plays the point on the PP pretty well. Who knows, though, with this team. In 1748, the ruins of Pompeii were discovered, and mathematician Bernoulli died. Bernoulli contributed to The Calculus and taught Euler, who invented mathematical notation. Without these gents, we might not have things like powerplay percentage or CORSI numbers. Where would the sports nerds go?

Where was I? Oh yes, the Bruins, not math from the 1700s.

5

The place the Bruins are in in the East by points, points percentage, or Simple Rating System. That's 5 more points than they had in 07-08, and 13 fewer than last year. It's also the number of Olympic rings, and if Bergeron's injury is bad will be the amount of Bruins going to the games (Krejci, Chara, Satan, Thomas, Sturm). Please be okay, Bergeron.

If you use the Pythagorean expectation for winning percentage (which I hear is big with Baseball), then the Bruins come in at 10th on that list, 3 spots higher than in the league standings.

I've been playing with a spreadsheet and this Pythagorean thing and Pythagorean points, and I'm still not sure if it's anything useful. If I come up with something or there's a stat-head out there that wants to give me a quick intro on some of this stuff, I'm happy to hear all about it.

Regardless of what the numbers say, we all know where our hearts are. Happy New Year, everyone.

GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 21-30 (8-1-1) THAT'S MORE LIKE IT, BABY! WOOOOOOO

Ho boy, those Bruins sure do like to yuk it up. I mean, come on. Letting the leafs almost come back from being down 3-0? LAUGH RIOT!

No, really though, I'm not recapping thursday night's great game with the two Mark Recchi goals and such. I'm going to leave it at this face right here, the face of a champion:

Or at least the face of a man one assist away from a Gordie Howe Hat Trick. Awesome.

Anyhow, here's how the Bruins did over their last ten games:

They're 30 games in and half of the wins of the season have come after game 20. That's pretty ridiculous. I'd say they're back and all but I know Two Line Pass would just ridicule me. My poor blogging heart couldn't take it.

Moving on, let's look at some important stats:

%18.35

The Bruins' power play percentage. Up from 12.86 ten games ago, the Bruins now have the 21st-best power play rather than worst last time. 1835 was quite the year, as Charles Darwin got to a galapagos, Hans Christian Anderson put out his first book of fairy tales, Andrew Jackson almost got assassinated, and Mark Twain was born.

0.932

Tuukk-Nuukkem's save percentage. He's third in the league. Pretty soon I'll have to write another In Defense Of... post about Tim Thomas. Yeah, maybe. Either way, Miller for Team USA starter right now.

%86.36

The Bruins' penalty kill percentage. Don't look now, but it's the tops in the league. Hell yeah. That's really been helping the Bruins get some wins. They don't allow a whole lot of powerplay goals against.

0-0-0, -3

Phil Kessel's stat line against the Bruins. Spite? No. I just want that first-rounder to turn out well. (Ok, it's spite but that's sports.)

Yeah, so basically the Bruins are getting their game on (and Marc Savard back). Lucic should be returning soon enough. The next ten games have a couple highlights, book-ended by Flyers games and capped off with game 40 on January 1st, the Winter Classic. Should be a good time.

Oh, and before I forget you should watch this video if you haven't already:

and the man in the back/ said everyone attack/ and he passed it up to Byron Bitz/ Byyyyyyron Bitz
GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 11-20 (3-4-3) THE SKY AIN'T REALLY FALLING WELL MAYBE IT IS

Harrumph. 3-4-3 is not a good record by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, it could be worse. With our superstar center Marc Savard out, the Bruins aren't doing so hot. Let's take a look at where we stack up...

.500

We've been at this record or so for pretty much the whole year. You don't make the playoffs at .500. You don't get a lottery pick either, unless Toronto comes through. In his season preview, Down Goes Brown mentioned that the Bruins lockerroom chemistry would suffer because they're not united by wanting to punch Phil Kessel in the face. They'll get a chance in a couple weeks, so maybe that will help. Oh, and Savard and Lucic coming back.

12.86%

This is the Bruins PP percentage. It is the worst in the league. In the year 1286, King Philip IV of France imposed the gabelle — a tax on salt in the form of a state monopoly — which would become immensely unpopular and grossly unequal, but persist until 1790. I'm still waiting for flying cars, here, people, and we're regressing. Please come back and save us all, Mr. Savard.

84.72%

This is the Bruins PK percentage, good for 3rd best behind San Jose and Chicago. Damn right, we've got the best PK in the east right now. The Bruins have been shutting down PKs and vomiting all over themselves on PPs. Google tells me that there was a "Species 8472" in one of the star treks after The Next Generation, so who cares really, but I went to all the effort of checking it out and now you're reading it so who's got the egg on their face now?

Thank you to the Minnesota Wild (dammit) and the Anaheim Ducks (haha, eat shit) for having more Short-handed goals against than the Bruins do.

-0.22

This is the Bruins Simple Rating System number for today. Higher is better, and yes it can go positive. This is good for 19th best, which is actually slightly better than their points percentage rankings. 22 is Shawn Thornton's jersey number. Not sure what the significance is of that, if anyone out there reading this (hi mom!) is a numerologist, please get in touch or leave a comment.

Toronto First round draft pick watch: 3-11-5 (29th in the league): TYLER SEGUIN!
Tyler is the #1 ranked OHL player right now, which is the league Taylor Hall plays in. Carolina looks to be Tanking for TH right now, though. Oh look, the two teams play each other tomorrow. Root for Aaron Ward, guys!

Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse.

GO BRUINS!

L10: First ten games (5-4-1) A LITTLE BETTER ALL THE TIME (Can't get much worse!)

Well, hmmm.

Rk	Team	GP	W	L	OL	PTS	PTS%	GF	GA	SRS	TG/G	PPG	PPO	PP%	PPGA	PPOA	PK%	SHG	SHGA
17	Boston Bruins	10	5	4	1	11	.550	30	32	-0.42	6.20	6	40	15.00	10	41	75.61	0	3

The Bruins have had an interesting start to their season. They started off losing, we lost Lucic and Savard to LTIR for a broken finger and broken foot. We traded Kobasew to Minnesota and picked up Daniel Paille from Buffalo, marking the first time Boston and Buffalo had ever made a trade that wasn't for ufa bargaining rights. On top of that, we're about 1/8th through the season and the Bruins have just put together their first consecutive, uh...point-getting games. Going by point percentage, the Bruins are 9th in the east. They have the 4th-worst powerplay in the league right now, converting 6 out of 40 chances or at a 15% clip.

That's terrible. So is letting in 10 powerplay goals over 41 chances, or a 75.61% success rate. This pretty much sucks too. Oh look, another fun fact: The Bruins tie the Tampa Bay Lightning for the league lead in short-handed goals against with three. Not too surprising, since the Bruins powerplay managed to get an icing call against it once recently. Basically that needs to get a lot better.

However, last years Bruins had a bit of rust too and I remember watching the PK and PP numbers continuously get better last year. Here's to that happening again, especially after Savard and Lucic come back. Last year around this time the Bruins were 30th in PK with 70%, and ended up 12th with 82.35%. Last year's powerplay was only bested by San Jose, Washington, and Detroit over the regular season.

Bergeron now has his chance to live up to his 5 million dollar contract. You can do it, Patrice!

How's our draft pick doing? (Toronto update)
Current Status: TAYLOR HALL
Toronto hasn't yet won a game, and only forced overtime once. They're 0-7-1, and have spent more time this season down by 5 than up by anything. Combined.

I think the next 10 games are going to be better than the last as people get more used to playing with the new folks. I think the Kobasew trade shook them up a bit. Lucic and Savard are still out, and that will make things...interesting. Let's hope the rookies play well. They've done okay so far. And the Revolution just made the playoffs! Awesome!

GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 71-80 (7-2-1)

(picture from here)

The Bruins turned around their slump with the last ten. They clinched first seed in the east and are playing well. There are 2 games left and they don't decide anything (unless San Jose loses to LA today).

• Game 71: @ Pittsburgh Penguins L 4-6
  
• Game 72: Los Angeles Kings L OT 2-3
  
• Game 73: New Jersey Devils W 4-1
  
• Game 74: @ Toronto Maple Leafs W 7-5
  
• Game 75: @ Philadelphia Flyers W 4-3
  
• Game 76: Tampa Bay Lightning W 3-1
  
• Game 77: Ottawa Senators W 2-1
  
• Game 78: New York Rangers W 1-0
  
• Game 79: @ Ottawa Senators L 2-3
  
• Game 80: Montreal Canadiens W OT 5-4
  

I was going to do best of and all that, but I think the important parts are here:

Yup. That was a good enough game to take it all.
Thanks to Bruins superfan and Youtube Superstar dafoomie for the video.

Playoffs are coming. Here's Hub Hockey's Review of playoff ads.

Record: 52-18-10 (W 1)
Final Home Record: 29-6-6 (W 5)
Away Record: 23-12-4 (L 1)
L10: 7-2-1
April: 3-1-0
GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 61-70: 5-4-1

Well, not the best 10 games the Bruins have played all season by a long shot, but at the end they look to be getting back to something resembling a winning situation.  Let's take a stroll down memory lane.  Prozac will be provided for the faint of heart.

• Game 61: Bruins 6 FLA 1: Byron Bitz gets 2 goals, plays most of the last 5 minutes to try to get a third as the crowd chants "We Want Bitz! We Want Bitz!"  Happier times, a win, points.  A good old fashioned thrashing of a southeast team.
• Game 62: Bruins 6 ANA 0: The Bruins take the points from a western conference team.  Some people referred to this as "Dallas game 2.0."  Those people don't know how the Ducks won the cup 2 years ago.  It wasn't all Teemu Selanne, folks.  Savard and Neidermeyer get matching roughing minors in an All-Star battle.
• Game 63: Bruins 3 WSH 4: This one hurt.  Overtime loss for the Bruins.  Mostly it was the Bruins being tired and the Caps being rested.  Don't click that link unless you want to get all emo about the bruins.  Wow, what a post I did.  Damn.
• Game 64: Bruins 2 PHI 4: Scottie Upshall starts the scoring for the Flyers and the Bruins do that thing where they can't score after the first 5-10 minutes.  Last game before the Trade Deadline, but still a game that matters.  Everyone's playing for a spot on their team.  Flyers score all 4 after the Bruins score their 2.
• HOCKEY CHRISTMAS!!!  Bruins get Mark Recchi and Steve Montador.
• Game 65: Bruins 1 PHX 2: Bruins get trapped in a trap game.  Scottie Upshall scores on the Bruins first again for the second time in 2 games, for 2 different teams.  Chara destroys Petr Prucha, but gets a penalty for it.
• Game 66: Bruins 5 CHI 3: Bruins sweep their 2-game series with Chicago.  Mark Recchi lights it up in his second game for the Bruins, scores twice.  Bruins win big against another out-of-conference team, which sets them up for...
• Game 67: Bruins 3 NYR 4: ...a big loss at MSG.  Manny is a good goalie, has a bad game because he's still rusty from coming back from injury.  If you were there, it was rough.  Lundqvist is puking his guts out between periods, and he lets in fewer goals.
• Game 68: Bruins 0 CBJ 2: There are many excuses in this game.  Steve Mason is a hot goalie (true), Thomas let in his only goal while wearing Manny's Mask instead of his usual cage (true).  The fact of the matter is if the Bruins find a way to score a goal in this game, they're not losing 2-0 on the strength of a 180-foot Rick Nash empty net goal.
• Game 69: Bruins 5 OTT 3: Kessel's Pair (of goals) wins this one for the Bruins, but the real story is Aaron Ward getting his career-first Short-handed Goal in his 750th game.  Congrats, Mr. Ward!  Spezza doesn't like losing.  Too bad.
• Game 70: Bruins 2 NYI 1: Bruins should've won this one much bigger, but they're not playing all that great.  Alternatively, Coach Gordon has the Islanders playing pretty agressively and winning games.  The Bruins could double the Islanders overall points total, but not if the Islanders keep playing the way they do.

The Bruins were over .500 in the last five, but only because one of the 5 losses was in OT.  The Trade Deadline pickups were good.  Maybe not Butch Goring to Islanders good, but good nonetheless.  This is the salary cap era, after all.

The Bruins haven't won on the road since Feb. 17th.  They are 14-9-9 in 1 goal games, but 16-6 in 2 goal games and 15-1 in 3 goal games.

We're coming down the stretch to the Playoffs.  The next point the Bruins get puts them in triple-digit territory.

L10: 5-4-1

Record: 45-16-9 (W 2)

Home: 24-6-5 (W 3)

Away: 21-10-5 (L 4)

GO BRUINS!

L10: Game 51-60 (4-4-2)

By far the worst one of these yet. The Bruins are in a slump, and 6 out of 10 games are losses. They got 10 points out of a possible 20 in the last ten, and in the NHL .500 is not a playoff pace. Of course for now they're just eating into the lead they built earlier in the season, but all those games are behind them. Luckily, the next 6 games are at home, so home cooking and hometown fans should provide a boost. It seems like something happened in that Sharks game that sorta turned the bruins off.

• Game 51: Bruins win in Montreal, 3-1.  Shawn Thornton has a great game, scores a game-winning goal.  The Bruins hit hard enough to put a couple Montreal skaters out. Streak: W2
• Game 52: Bruins win in Philadelphia, 3-1.  Every Bruins goal seemed to start with a slapshot from the blueline. Streak: W3
• Game 53: Bruins win the shootout in Ottawa, 3-3.  P.J. is the only successful shooter in the skills competition and manages to get us a win against super nintendo. Streak: W4
• Game 54: Bruins lose 4-3 in OT to the flyers.  The game-winner bounces in off of ferences leg.  Between the break and this, ference should get some new age something or other done (I assume he's into that, since he's a hippy and all that).  Streak: L1
• Game 55: Bruins lose to sharks, 5-2.  This was a great game, and the score lies.  The sharks were up 3-2, then Big Dumbo Joe had a buck bounce off him and in, followed by an empty netter. Streak: L2
• Game 56: Bruins Lose 1-0 to New Jersey, who are playing really well right now.  The one goal was a five-hole shot from the point off a faceoff.  Both goalies played out of their minds. Streak: L3
• Game 57: Bruins lose in the shootout, 2-2 to the panthers. Streak: L4
• Game 58: Bruins win a damn game, 5-1 against Carolina on Glen Wesley night.  Part of the  "revenge against moving the team south" campaign. Streak: W1.  Maybe things are looking up!
• Game 59: Bruins lose 0-2 to the Florida Panthers.  Woof. Streak: L1.  Maybe they can split in florida?
• Game 60: Bruins lose 3-4 to the Tampa Bay Lightning.  They looked better, but not good enough. Streak: L2.  The Sky, she falls.

Whoof.  Longest losing streak of the year, worst L10 record all year, etc.  Like I said, it's bad.  So here's CSA Astronaut (and MIT grad) Bob Thirsk in space on mission STS-78 in 1996, recreating, well, you know:

Oh yes.  There's a 4 on the back of that sweater.

Record: 40-12-8

Home: 19-4-4

Away: 21-8-4

GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 41-50 (7-2-1)

Overall Record: 36-8-6

L10 Record: 7-2-1

Not a bad run, on the whole. Why is every 10th game during back-to-backs?

• Game 41: Bruins 6 OTT 4 W:  It was 6-3 with the Empty Netter with 30 seconds to go.  Manny's last appearance.
  
• Game 42: Bruins 5 CAR 1 W: Byron Bitz's first NHL Point
  
• Game 43: Bruins 3 Habs 1 W: Chara scores two, Krejci scores one.
  
• Game 44: Bruins 2 NYI 1 W: Bruins just barely manage to beat the Islanders.  Way to go, guys.
  
• Game 45: Bruins 1 WAS 2 L: Washington is still hot at home.
  
• Game 46: Bruins 4 STL 4 SOL: Ugh.
  
• Game 47: Bruins 3 TOR 3 SOW: Ugh, but with a win.  Rally on a Roadtrip was fun.
  
• Game 48: Bruins 3 WAS 2 OTW: Lucic, Ference, Bergeron come back.  Bruins win.
  
• Game 49: Bruins 3 NJD 4 OTL: Kessel, Ryder come back.  Bruins lose.  No talking about it.
  
• Game 50: Bruins 1 NYR 0 W: Huge win, great back and forth game, Savard tips one in for the win.
  

Best Goal:

Shawn Thornton against the Caps:  Beautiful top-shelf backhand shot.  Huge move, big goal.  

Best Save:

They've been riding Thomas.  Here's one example of why it's been working:

Tim Thomas: Action Hero!

GO BRUINS!

L10: Games 31-40: 8-2-0

Well, the Bruins got all the way to 10 wins in a row only to drop the last 2 games. They haven't looked as good as before and they're definitely playing better teams than before. I have a feeling it might get worse before it gets better. Here's what happened in the last 10 games:

• Game 31: Bruins 8, TOR 5: David Krejci gets his first NHL Hat Trick, Wideman cracks glass, Toskala is pulled and then replaced. Each Toronto goalie gives up 4 goals. Kessel Streak: 16 games.
• Game 32: Bruins 4 CAR 2: Bruins look like crap the whole night, still double-up on the Canes thanks to an empty netter. Patrice Bergeron gets another concussion, this time while hitting a guy. Terrible. Kessel Streak: 17 games
• Game 33: Bruins 6 STL 3: It's a battle of the Mannys, but Wheeler steals the show in the first 5 minutes, scoring a short-handed goal for a possible goal of the year. In the first period, 2 penalties each have a SHG and a PPG. Martin St. Pierre gets an assist in his first game with the Bs. Kessel Streak: 18 games.
• Game 34: Bruins 2 NJD 0: Kessel's streak ends but Thomas makes a BEAUTIFUL save on Elias to get a shutout and Lucic scores in his 8th game. Krejci pots the empty netter. This is the first time the Bruins have won more than 5 in a row all season.
• Game 35: Bruins 3 CAR 2: Blake Wheeler scored 2 goals in less than 5 minuts for the millionth time. A Savard pass leads to the game-winner.
  
• Game 36: Bruins 2 ATL 1: The Bruins finish a season sweep of the Thrashers. This time it's krejci passing to Ryder that causes the game-winner.
  
• Game 37: Bruins 5 PIT 2: The highlight of this game is a 4-on-3 Bruins powerplay with Savard and Krecji up front. They get into the offensive zone, and prove the Greater Crisp Passing Theory of hockey.
  
• Game 38: Bruins 4 PIT 2: 10 in a row. The Bruins continue to beat the slumping pens, scoring an empty netter to finish this one off. Vladimir Sobotka stands up Jordan Staal at the blue line.
  
• Game 39: Bruins 2 BUF 4: The winning streak ends. The Buffalo defense was fantastic, the Bruins couldn't get anything going, except a Shawn Thornton goal.
  
• Game 40: Bruins 0 MIN 1: Minnesota grinds out a 1-0 win on the strength of a Marek Zidlicky power play slap shot. The Wild are undefeated in Boston over 5 games here. Dammit.
  

5 Questions with the enemy Review:

Game 34: Puck Daddy

Bonus question: Is your job the best ever?

Since leering at Scarlett Johansson while she sleeps can’t really be considered a profession, yes.
Game 40: Wild Road Tripper from Hitting the Post

3) You travel to many Wild away games, and have home season tickets. Is that awesome or totally awesome?

WRT: With the number of Wild games I see in person (50 this season alone) I have somewhat of a feeling of how players and the rest of the teams' travelling party feels like. For them, it's a real grind. Thank God, they get to fly charter. The rest of us are stuck with commercial flights, a lot of which are late and/or cancelled. Say what you will, but the NHL really needs to rethink how it schedules games. To ask anyone to play hockey in Southern California (or Florida) one night and in sub-zero Minnesota (or, Ottawa) 48 hours later is asking a lot. It's good and it's bad for me (and my wife) as our schedule is set so far in advance we normally get cheap air fares (cheaper after Southwest begins serving Minneapolis-St. Paul, March 6) but then we have very little flexibility to change our minds after we commit to a game. I know the B's don't have that much of a problem with it, but out here we are really screwed.

Game 40: Greg Nation, friend of the Blog.

Which Boston-area mascot is the best?

I hate mascots. In fact, everyone above the age of 5 does. They're stupid, cartoonish creations that detract from the seriousness of the sport. But, if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the Boston Massacre Roller Derby's mascot, which appears to be a drunk guy in a lobster suit with a rifle.

Watch your back, Minnesota.

Best Goal:

Blake Wheeler, 4:59 into Game 33 vs. St. Louis. This is shorthanded, mind:

Best Save:

Tim Thomas, second period of Game 34 in New Jersey. Elias has a wide open net and Thomas is sprawled out from a save on Parise. SAVE. So huge.

Best Hit:
Vladimir Sobotka on Jordan Staal. Sobotka is tiny, Staal is huge.

Record: 29-7-4
L10: 8-2-0
GO BRUINS!

L10: Third ten games (8-2-0)

It's been quite the little trip here.  Phil Kessel is the NHL 1st star of the week, and Puck Daddy has a whole article on him.  The Bruins continue to show that they'll stand up for each other.

• Game 21: Bruins 2 Habs 2 SO WIN. Roy's number is finally retired by the Habs, the Bruins come in and win right in front of all of those fans. Blake Wheeler gets the only goal in the shootout, and gets a No Habs No letter from Sens Army Blog.
• Game 22: Bruins 2 BUF 3 Loss.  In the 18 Buffalo-Boston games, the home team has won.  This one was played in Buffalo.  Derek Roy shot one in off a Bruins stick. Despite trying to get it going in the third, they just couldn't put it in.
  
• Game 23: Bruins 7 NYI 2 WIN. Black Friday in the new Third Jerseys brought a blowout against the league-basement Islanders.  The 7th goal in this game was super-pretty.
  
• Game 24: Bruins 4 DET 1 WIN. Detroit comes to Boston to try to pick up a win.  Luckily, the Bruins aren't scared of the reigning stanley cup champs.  After 12 minutes without a shot, Blake Wheeler buries it behind Osgood on the first shot of the game.  They go on to win.
  
• Game 25: Bruins 3 TBL 1 WIN.  Lecavelier-to-Martin St. Louis starts the scoring about a minute in, but Thomas starts taking the game seriously and the Bruins come back to win, 3-1 with an empty netter.
  
• Game 26: Bruins 4 FLA 0 WIN. Manny Fernandez pitches a shutout.  The Florida Coach after the game: "We could have been out there for three days and still not scored."
  
• Game 27: Bruins 5 TBL 3 WIN. This was the game that the Bruins got up 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, then stopped playing altogether.  P.J. Axelsson's Empty netter made this score look less scary than it was to watch.
  
• Game 28: Bruins 1 WAS 3 Loss. Proving that the Bruins can't win them all, Washington continues a home winning streak against the Bruins.  Ovechkin got the empty-netter.  It was a pretty hard-fought game.  I can't wait until Washington comes to Boston.
  
• Game 29: Bruins 7 ATL 3 WIN. 14 Players have points in this mega team effort.  4 fights make this quite the game as the first of the home-and-home series.
• Game 30: Bruins 4 ATL 2 WIN. The Bruins pick up where they left off in Atlanta, and 6'7" Thrashers defenseman Valabik has to answer to Chara after picking on Kessel.  Valabik is star-struck and throws no punches.  How do you fight your idol?  Chara doesn't even knock him down.  Sort of a sad fight, in a way.  That said, back off of Kessel or one of our bruisers will Crush you.  By Bruisers, I mean Lucic, Chara, Thornton, or Savard.  Savard?  Yeah, check his PIMs for the season.

Stats/On-Pace Projections:

Best goal of the last 10 games:

Maybe this one's just fresh in my mind, but Michael Ryder's second goal against atlanta on Saturday was pretty dominant:

It was his 10th of the season.
L10 Record: 8-2-0
Overall record: 21-5-4
GO BRUINS!

L10: Second 10 games

It's still early. Don't blow your whole wad.

We're about a quarter of the way through the season, and if you look up, you'll see that we're #1 in the conference, due to NYR having the same amount of points and 2 more GP. I'll take it for now.

Here's the quick and dirty version of what happened during games 11-20.

• Game 11: Calgary beat us. This was the third game of Thomas's Road Trip, and the only game of 3 that he didn't post a 0-1 shutout.
  
• Game 12: "Brave Steve" Ott and Sean Avery try to knock the Bruins off their game, fail miserably. We beat them on the ice and the scoreboard, 5-1.

• Game 13: Blake Wheeler got a hat trick en route to our 5-2 win over Toronto.
• Game 14: We beat Buffalo 3-1, to take the top spot in the division.
• Game 15: We beat Chicago 1-1 in the shootout. It's our first OT win against Chicago since 1934. Axelsson with the game-winner:

• Game 16: We CRUSH the Habs 6-1, Lucic finally fights Komisarek, 5 Game winning streak.
• Game 17: We fall apart in the last 10 minutes to give up a 2-0 lead and lose in the shootout, 2-2. Lundqvist is ridiculous.
• Game 18: We fell apart in the last 10 minutes, BUT Thomas is solid in net all game long, even grabbing the puck as the last buzzer sounds. If Thomas wasn't solid this game, it would look a lot more like the 4-2 loss vs. Toronto earlier in the year.

• Game 19: A ridiculous 7-4 win. Miller got pulled after 7, Manny stayed in after 4 goals in a period, held on to win the game. Just silly. Chara, Kobasew had 2 goal games.
  
• Game 20: Bruins get out early, and hold on for a 4-2 win. Move to 1st in the conference.

And the stats/on-pace stats for the Bruins:

Good is in green, bad is in red, just like last time. "Pace" is number at 20*(82/GP at 20). Yes, it's bad. Deal.

L10 Record: 8-1-1
Overall Record: 13-3-4
GO BRUINS!

L10: A Look Back at the first ten games

In between the recap and the next preview (phew) I wanted to take a look at what people have been doing so far this year before games no longer count into the Last 10 Record and what they are on pace for:

Ok, for laughs the "on pace" is really what they should be doing for a full 82 games based on what they've done so far.  So, Kobasew is on pace for a killer season, assist-wise. Silly Cornelius, stats do not work like that. So what else can we learn from the table?

• Kessel is like my NHL09 offline be a pro - He gets all his points from goals.
• Only players that have been in all 10 games have had penalties scored on them.
• Ference and Ryder have the best +/- right now, Chara is a measly -3.
• Kessel's 37 shots tie him for 7th in the league and 6 goals tie him at 6th.
  
• Savard's 34 shots tie him for 20th and 5 goals tie him for 16th. Savard also has 8 assists, good for a tie for 12th. Together, he is tied for 3rd in scoring with Mikko Koivu and Sidney Crosby with 13. Only Alexander Semin and Evgeni Malkin have scored more.
  
• Tim Thomas has tied Martin Brodeur for shutouts on the season, though Brodeur is chasing history and Thomas just wants to keep the puck out of the net. Tim Thomas is also second behind only Ryan Miller with a 1.77 GAA and barely beats out (by .001) Tampa Bay's Mike Smith for highest save percentage with .943
  
• Blake Wheeler has the most Games Played of any player debuting this year.
• I am obsessed.

Notable Events from the last ten games:

• Lucic puts Van Ryn through the glass:

• Lucic! Lucic! Lucic!

• In the immortal words of Jack Edwards, SAVE! AFTER! SAVE! BY! THOMAS!
  

• Shootouts are terrifying now. I was honestly more happy that the game ended in an OT win when Wideman scored than anything else.
• Some other stuff probably happened, check in the archives for what I missed here.
  

L10: 5-2-3
Overall: 5-2-3
Difference: (Same)
GO BRUINS!