So I didn't spring for a data plan in Prague so instead of twitpic-ing every photo I'm putting a little picasa gallery or two here of all of the pictures. Should be good if you want to see some and haven't seen a ton already:
Suffice to say, it was a lot of fun watching with the Czech crowd. On the first day they pointed out a couple of famous (and not-so-famous) Czechs in the crowd that had played in the NHL, including Jiri Slegr. Additionally, the penalty graphics were pretty sweet, with a cartoon ref doing the motions and a sweet fire graphic exploding behind him. I took probably 5-6 pictures of that between days. You know, phoenix kept taking penalties.
Anyhow, game stories. There was a slovakian gentleman sitting in front of me in the first game who clued me in to the fact that "Chara" in slovakian is pronounced "Hara" like the beginning of "Chanukkah." Pretty interesting tidbit, I thought.
Other things of interest: Ilya Bryzgalov is a great goalie, but Horton owns. OWNS. Check this out, from after the second game:
And then of course the second game (on at 10am Eastern) was even better. First fan-favorite Milan Lucic potted a blast on Illllllyaaaaaaaa, assisted by the Goomba. Then of course the Goomba put in his own. And then, well, this:
Yeah, that ruled.
Congrats to Tyler on his first NHL goal. It was a doozie.
Thomas got an assist on that, as well as this little honor: More stories as time allows. GO BRUINS!
Thanks, TSN, for that amazing headline/picture combo.
No, I'm not going to write up a review. The events are all overthe place. Horton scored in the first 1:35. If anyone has a youtube or whatever from puck-drop to that first goal, I'd love to see it. I am, however, going to just put this gif right here:
Yeah, that owned. Spacek is probably still chasing Bergeron.
November 16th, 1989. The Bruins are playing Montreal at home in their third meeting of the season. Patrick Roy against Andy Moog. Cam Neely, Ray Bourque, Glen Wesley, Bob and Don Sweeney, Ken Linsemen. Coach Terry O'Reilly. What a team that year. Fuck Mark Messier forever. Anyhow this video was cut together by my favorite youtube superstar, dafoomie:
Classic Cusick.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could still hear his voice when the Bruins score? I think it would. That link goes to an excellent proposal by Days of Y'orr, my favorite new Bruins blog.
Let's see here, some big news from Saturday's game. First of all, Marco Sturm is out until December with an ACL and MCL tear. He went in for a hit, missed, and slammed into the boards. Terrible news. Here he is getting helped off by Krejci and Bergeron.
Ouch.
In happier news,
Savard is back, baby.
15 minutes of ice-time eased the Center back into the swing of things. 2pims, 2sogs, 1gwg, I'll take it.
Boucher and the Flyers defense did a great job stopping scoring chances from turning into goals.Except here
And here.
Oh hey Steve, what's going on? You've got your arms in the air like you... scored... a... playoff... goal? It's true! The pictures don't lie! He scored! In fact he started the scoring by going to the hash marks just when Recchi was coming around the back of the net. Recchi tries to wrap it around and in, but Boucher stops the first attempt. It Bounces Back out and "Boom-Boom" Begin Blasts the Biscuit Behind "Boohoo" Boucher.
The Bergeron Buried a Black rubber Burger, Buying the Bruins a Big Bi-goal lead that helped them eventually Best Briere and Buddies. phew, I think that's enough of that.
Look at this picture:
How can you argue with a face like that?
Oh and if you didn't see it, Krejci's goal was dirty like this morning's shower. He gets in alone, and waits out Boucher. Boucher goes down, Krejci goes around, bingo
bango
bongo.
Man, I'm glad we've got Krejci. He's been on fire since the Olympics.
Chris Pronger tried to beat up his fellow elder statesmen Satan and Recchi like it was 1880s congress but Mark Recchi takes shit from nobody, even Alternate Captain Elbows.
All in all a tense game with a great outcome. Exciting stuff. Here's some highlights:
First off let me just say that this team has been all over the place this year so I've been expecting the worst since about mid-season. The worst keeps threatening to come close but the team's still alive so I'm pleased. I'm sure the rest of you are too. Well, unless you're this guy:(seriously, buffalo?) The reasons the Bruins beat the Sabres weren't that complicated. Our superstar goalie was a smidge better than their superstar goalie. Our PK owned the shit out of their PP. 100% PK effectiveness.
100%.
Huge job by the guys playing PK minutes. Who are those guys? Here's your first line, by SHM/G: On defense: Johnny Boychuk (2:53) and Zdeno "Oh Captain my Captain" Chara (2:52). 4 seconds difference in total SHTOI for the series which is near-negligable. They were rocks and it showed.
Hunwick and Wideman pulled down the next-biggest amount of PK time with 2:29 and 2:21, and Paille and Begin ended up with the most minutes for forwards. Neither scored a goal (Paille had one assist) but they did a great job with the PK. So, of course, did
TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKK 2.18/.927
Who stole a couple games for the low-scoring Bruins. The test now, of course, is whether they can continue to get some timely goals or Buffalo was just that bad. I mean, it's possible that the hitting did wear down Buffalo, especially when it took Vanek out for 3.5 games. Look, the Bruins were so used to hitting that they even took down Krejci post-goal:So there's that. Then of course there's the storyline of former player vs old team. Sometimes that works out (Rask vs Toronto) sometimes it doesn't (Kessel vs. Boston.....so far) and sometimes you just gotta go running with the devil. Hail Satan. he scored 2 GWG this series, both of them huge:Tyler Myer's long legs make for a giant 5-hole.
Series-winning snipe? Sure thing!
Basically I envision all Buffalo fans look like this: All of the time. At work (if they're lucky enough to still have a job), at a game, at...wherever else there is in Buffalo. I guess it's probably warm enough out there for golf, and as some kind-hearted Sabres fan was quick to point out in game one,
4-2 Game. Set. Series.
Montreal plays in Washington tonight for game 7. Habs win and Philly comes to us. Washington wins and we play at Pittsburgh.I know which matchup I like better but goddamn do I hate Montreal. GO BRUINS!
(click pictures for huge versions) Game 2 Bruins keep the NBC 3rd-period comeback streak alive, win 5-3 on a Recchi empty-netter.
(click pictures for huge versions) Game 3 Bruins bring it home to one of the loudest Gardens I've ever been in. Sobotka has his first NHL fight, Wideman scores a goal, and Recchi2Bergeron pots the game-winner.
Matt Cooke got knocked the fuck out by Evander Kane!
Here's the playoff schedule, courtesy of bruins.nhl.com:
SERIES C, TIME (ET), #3 Buffalo vs. #6 Boston
Thursday, April 15, 2010, 7 p.m. Boston at Buffalo, CBC, NESN
Saturday, April 17, 2010, 1 p.m. Boston at Buffalo, NBC, CBC
Monday, April 19, 2010, 7 p.m. Buffalo at Boston, VERSUS, CBC, NESN
Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 7 p.m. Buffalo at Boston, VERSUS, CBC, NESN
*Friday, April 23, 2010, 7 p.m. Boston at Buffalo, CBC, NESN
*Monday, April 26, 2010, 7 p.m. Buffalo at Boston, CBC, NESN
*Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 7 p.m. Boston at Buffalo, CBC, NESN
So there's that. After this ridiculous season of ours the Bruins are the 6th seed in the east, which I'd say is good but then I look at the rest of the east and realize that the Leastern Conference is pretty bad. The East wasn't even good at being the worst! Sheesh! Oh well, that's as behind us now as shaving, so let's look at what's coming up.
At first glance...We're riding more of a hot streak into the playoffs than they are, but they score more than we do. They're not great on the road but we're also not great at home. Buffalo picked up nearly 70% of possible points at home this year, so they must be pretty happy with home ice. Jerks.
Dennis Seidenberg and Marc Savard are out for the playoffs pretty much, and Mark Stuart is "probably not" playing for Boston in the series. That sucks.
The Bruins have a couple short-handed goals but half of those came in 1:04 over the weekend:
If you're hyped up for the playoffs consider playing Rinkotology. If you sign up, post your username in the comments. Mine is "Zorkon."
There will also be an #nhltweetup coming very soon, so stay tuned for more info.
Before we get all excited about this one win, let's remember that the Bruins were playing the Rangers, who are a bad team this year. I mean, it's not like the Bruins are any better, but still.
The big parts of the first are Stuart gets boarded by Prospal:
Patrice Bergeron jumping right up in Vaclav's face like that, attaboy. Stuart getting up and ruining Gaborik's day was pretty good too. And there was a fight.
The scoring started late in the second.
Let's look at what the Rangers defense was doing during the two goals.
First goal:As you can see, Ference is over on the left. He's got the puck. That ranger sitting in the middle of nowhere, considering maybe blocking a pass but giving plenty of open space? Vinny Prospal. All Ference has to do it get it across to Miroslav Satan, and for once the cross-crease pass connects.
I mean, look at that pretty passing lane and lack of defense. It looks like last year (hahahahahaha I wish)
Goal. 1-0 A sigh of relief, for sure.
The Bruins close out the second with this little ditty: Attaboy, Begin.
The next period, the Rangers give another gift to the Bruins, leaving Dennis Wideman all alone at the top of the circle. He fumbles the pass, but manages to snipe backhand top shelf on lundqvist, who was probably screened all to hell by Olli Jokinen right there.
At least, that's the excuse I'd use if I were Lundqvist. 2-0 Goal.
Tuukka gave up a goal with a couple minutes to go, he wasn't happy about it. 2-1 Game.
Overall, I'll take it. Not a great team or against a great opponent, but it makes playoff chances look better and there's nothing wrong with that.
The only thing this game was missing was Tim Thomas getting a shutout. Between Wideman and doing a good job (check out that crease-clear at the beginning of the game), hunwick creating a goal from the defensive zone, and a slick Ryder snipe, it was fan un-favorite night in Carolina.
Of course by that time, Seidenberg had already showed up 5 minutes earlier and thrown a shot near the net, redirected in by Bergeron. hellooooo, 1-0 lead in the first :30.
Then other fan un-favorite Matt Hunwick stick-checks the puck off LaRose's stick on a two-on-one. Boychuk picks it up, gets it up to Ryder, who puts it back on Hunwick's stick. Hunwick pours the puck onto Boychuk's streaking stick, who leads the rush and 5-holes Legace.
Everything seemed to go downhill from there for the Hurricanes. Or maybe from week 6: Either way, Boston put up another 5-goal game on the road. Here's the full highlights, courtesy of NHL.com:
Yeah, it totally happened. And despite the fact that the only Bruin to actually shoot a puck on net and get it in was Chara in the 4th round of the shootout, but who's counting? Sharks captain Rob Blake probably isn't.
Thomas played an unreal game, and you really owe it to yourself to watch all of his "save" highlights from the game. No, really. Insane stuff. Here are some links: Vs. Setoguchi Vs. Marleau
And here's the big one: RIGHT HERE. Thomas makes a hundred saves, and practices the Fosbury Flop enough to win a couple high-jump events.
What I'm saying is that if at 1:15am you were still glued to the TV, I was right-there with you. Amazing game. We don't have to get into the ugly ducks game a night or two before.
Yeah, so I missed a couple games. Basically, if you're getting all of your bruins news from this blog (hi mom! I'll come up from the basement in a couple months) then I have been remiss. Here's what I missed, in Hockey Blog Adventure headline form:
Game 26 Recap BRUINS 3 SENS 3 SHOOTOUT WIN THAT'S HOW ROUGH RYDER ROLLS Bruins manage a shootout win, find themselves close to first in the division as a result. Game 27 Recap BRUINS 4 BOLTS 1 I'M NOT SEEING STAMKOS James Wright has an okay game, rest of Tampa doesn't. Good defense, some scoring. Game 28 Recap BRUINS 1 HABS 5 HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY MONTREAL Don't even bring it up. There was some cool shit, but basically it just has me lusting for 15 years from now when the Bruins get their own version of this:
Look, I'm not a habs fan by any stretch of the imagination, but that right there is pretty awesome. Was the no-voiceover on CBC as well, or was it some internet-stream camera? Either way, sweet video if you appreciate hockey history. Then the Bruins shat all over themselves and lost. Go figure, a habs team that has no business beating the Bruins goes ahead and does it. Whatever. Happy birthday montreal, here's to a 4-1-1 record against them.
Which brings us to the most recent Bruins game, Toronto at Boston.
Now of course Phil Kessel plays for Toronto now, joining other former Bruins luminaries as Joey Macdonald, Colton Orr, and Wayne Primeau. He apparently told Marc Savard not to sign with Boston (and probably come to Toronto, of course) so that's a pretty good reason to not like him if your first couple run out. Either way, lets look back at the game, no? I mean, it was pretty sweet.
To start off with, the Garden crowd was in rare form last night. Every time Kessel touched the puck, people booed. It was awesome. The other great part was that every time he touched the puck, a Bruin got real close real fast. Kessel got 2 shots on net, was a -3, and had 16:28 of ice time. And with the Leafs' best player by far shut down, the rest was...
A little over 5 minutes in, there's a faceoff in the offensive zone. Bergeron shows up to play, and wins the draw. Back to Sturm, who gives it to Morris. They move it up and down the right side of the zone and Morris one-times it in. The puck bounces off Bergeron and Sturm and the back of the net.
The leafs know that they should take the crowd out of the game if they want to do better here. So naturally they goad Shawn Thornton into a fight. It's not like he's a fan-favorite pugilist looking to back up his truculence in the Pride Motor Group commercial. Colton Orr is all, "does it come in red?" Here's the fight, called by Hockey Night In Canada In Punjab:
They both land some good hits, Shawn Thornton gets half a takedown before Orr gets back up and they hug it out.
It works wonders, because the Leafs keep the Bruins off the scoreboard for the next 32 seconds.
The Bruins are working it around in the offensive zone and Wheeler gets it back to Chara. Chara shuffles across the blue line and then wrists it in, ready for a deflection. Bitz deflects it off his body somehow and Marc Savard's bright, beautiful, dreamy blue eyes see the puck. A quick scoop and everyone in the arena sees a red light go on.
A couple minutes later Mark "Down for whatever" Stuart and Jamal Mayers try to fight, but the Refs don't give them the satisfaction of fighting majors.
Sturm gets a slashing call to close out the first. So far so good.
Second Period.
About 2 minutes in Chara grabs the puck just inside the zone after Kessel flubs it and then Chara lightly wrists it just over everyone. It's a really slow shot, actually, but if that's how Chara scores then I don't care if his pucks are slower than a Wakefield fastball.
And it's on. Blake Wheeler is getting all kinds of people after him tonight, and Colton Orr takes a solid 4-minute penalty. That gets killed, then Ian White decides to be a hooker. More powerplay? Why not? Of course the Bruins PP is still pretty crap, so when Derek Morris passes it up and Savard and Ryder enter the zone you expect they won't get much out of it. Savard loops it around the boards to Ryder, who then comes behind the net and does a quick pass to Savard waiting on the doorstep.
Huge goal. Reminds me of the game against the lightning. I wonder if the Bruins will be able to have a better third in this game? Hrmmmmmmmm....
Third Period. NEW GOALIE Vesa (Toskala): He's everywhere you want him to be (if you're a scorer).
Matt Stajan takes a tripping penalty. Yes, I do believe I will have seconds on the powerplay scoring. It was just so delicious. I know it will go straight to my stats, but I JUST DON'T CARE RIGHT NOW.
Neither does Tuukka Rask. Tuukka settles the puck behind his net, leaving it for Patrice. Bergeron skates it up the ice, Recchi by his side. Bergeron and Recchi, and if they're not passing back and forth Bergeron makes it look like they do. Patrice skates through all 4 leafs. Literally through them. Look, here he is:
MARK RECCHI HAS 550 CAREER GOALS! NOT BAD FOR AN OLD MAN!
5-0.
Oh hell yeah. Tuukka Rask has more points than Phil Kessel in the game. TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKK
But the game isn't over yet. Through the first half of the period, the bruins scored one. They enter the zone about 12 minutes in and Krejci skates the puck around a little. Boychuk pinches in and one-times it from the top of the circle. They weren't kidding about Boychuk's shot as it was probably the hardest shot of the night. There's a loud crack, followed by a siren. No, you didn't just get shot. Vesa did. But he let it get by him anyhow.
There are a lot of fangirls on twitter that are VERY happy about this one.
6-0.
Yeah, that's a pretty good score. Off the faceoff, Savard wins it. They get into the zone. Savard to Wheeler, Wheeler gives it back and the leaf defensemen shift over to block savard's notorious point shot. Marc drives his aston-martin up the halfwall and converts it to underwater mode. Walther PPK's a wrist shot right past The Man Who Blew Too Much - Vesa Toskala.
Well this game is over. Jamal Mayers finally gets that fight he's been looking for all game, goading Steve Begin into a little throwdown. In that after Mayers throws a few punches, Steve Begin throws him down. Here's a link why not?
Mayers does manage to swing the momentum away from the Bruins, and the leafs manage to score 2 afterwards. Excellent game. It's a shame Rask doesn't get the shutout against his former team, but you can only ask for so much. In between the 2 Toronto Goals, Ference and Stempniak get double-minors because the refs don't want to hand them each a one-game suspension for a fight. Great job, refs!
7-2. WIN!
Take us home, Steve. We're too busy celebrating to remember the way.
And here.
How can you argue with a face like that?
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