Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Peter's 2010 Has Been Horrible

I thought calendar year 2010 was going to be a great year for the Bruins. How could it be anything but when it started at Fenway on the very first day?

Well, it has been a precipitous fall ever since we left Fenway with smiles on our faces. It started with the signing of Miroslav Satan who has been miserable, yet they insist on keeping him in the lineup. He should have been watching from the press box after the first ten games. The experiment failed Peter, so move on.  You should have been looking to add a forward in January and then we find out today that you add NOTHING.

The first game after the Winter Classic, Bergeron goes down with an injury in an uninspired loss to the Rangers. The Bruins responded with a good effort and defeated Ottawa only to lose Marc Savard in their next game while getting completely outclassed by the Chicago Blackhawks. Things started to snowball from there and the only positive until the four-game win streak before the break was a world-class performance from Tim Thomas in a shootout win against San Jose.  All told, since that win on January 1st, the Bruins are just 6-11-4 including a 0-7-3 mark at TD Garden.  That is not a typo Bruins fans, it has been 63 days since the Bruins tasted victory on TD Garden ice!

That has been enough to swallow - ten straight losses at home - but then Peter pulls what he did today.  I don't even know where to begin.  The early moves made today, as I said at the time, were just to clear cap room for the forward they were going to bring in.  Peter admitted as much in his presser so that is not speculation.  Well, when it came time to ante up and make a trade to even marginally improve the team (which is still better than not improving the team at all Peter), he balked.  All he had to do to top Buffalo's offer was give Columbus the Bruins 2nd rounder which will almost certainly be a higher pick than Buffalo's (The Bruins sent Tampa's 2nd Rounder to Florida and still hold Toronto's 2nd Rounder as well).  The other part of the deal was Nathan Paetsch.  The Bruins could easily trump that part of it too, but Peter didn't. 

Apologists would say that Raffi Torres would not lead them to a Stanley Cup.  I agree, but he would have made the team better.  I would feel much better about being a Bruins fan and paying $7.25 for a beer if Raffi were on Savard's wing instead of Daniel Paille.  They need to make the Savard line a threat and right now they don't have the tools to do so.

So let's have a look at the net result beyond this season.  I am looking beyond this season because I do not think the Bruins improved and will make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs at best (and that is extremely optimistic).  So heading into 2010 and beyond, here is what you accomplished in the last couple days Peter:

1. Gave away a 2nd rounder and 4th rounder in 2010
2. Got back a 4th Rounder in 2011
3. Acquired Bartkowski and Kampfer - two college D-men for organizational depth
4. Unloaded Bitz's contract for 2010-2011

Wow Peter!  Bartkowski or Kampfer better become Norris Trophy candidates someday to make me feel better about today.

If you see a guy in Section 311 with a paper bag over his head, chances are it's me...

1 comment:

  1. Bruins fan stuck in columbusMarch 4, 2010 at 8:26 AM

    What's the point of clearing up cap space if you're not going to pull the trigger and get a forward? i was definitely hoping harvard pete would pick up torres, i get to see a lot of him out here and he would have worked out great with the Bs. Oh well, at least Morris is gone.

    ReplyDelete