Who Knew?

The Thrash are hot on the heels of our Bruins for the last playoff spot in the East. Suddenly, Tuesday night's game in Atlanta is the headline matchup on the NHL sched that night (I'll also be watching the Florida/Toronto game closely which has significant lottery implications). I would be remiss not to mention the Phoenix/Chicago game that is also on Tuesday night. Derek Morris' new team has reeled off NINE straight victories and are currently tied with Chicago for the CONFERENCE LEAD. They passed San Jose over the weekend with a couple of dramatic victories. On Saturday, they came back from two goals down in the 3rd against the aforementioned Blackhawks to win in a shootout. This is a great story. Dave Tippett is a lock for the Jack Adams.

Our Bruins have 11 games remaining and the teams around them are all down to their final 10. Yesterday's victory over the even-more-pathetic Rangers basically wiped the blueshirts out of the race. If the Rangers and Panthers were to win all of their remaining games, they would only have 91 points. If Carolina, Tampa, or the Isle did the same, they would have only 88 points. These teams are all effectively finished which makes tomorrow's matchup against the Thrash a "huge one" as Jack Edwards would say.

Also, take a look in front of the Bruins and you will see some teams that are ripe for the picking. Three teams (OTT, PHI, MTL) are just 3 points ahead of the B's and they have a game in hand on all three of them. Ottawa has really been struggling (losers of 5 straight and 1-7-1 since the Olympics) and Philadelphia is now relying on Brian Boucher in goal. It's possible that one of these teams could be the odd team out if Atlanta keeps winning. Ottawa goes to Montreal tonight in a big game for each of them. As Bruins fans, we're just rooting for anything but a three point game.

If you want to be optimistic, 5th place is still well within reach with a strong finish. For the Bruins to have a chance in the first round, they need to avoid the Caps who they just don't match up with. So, the priorities these final three weeks are:

1. Toronto needs to stop winning and hold onto the #2 position in the lottery
2. The Bruins need to make the playoffs
3. The Bruins need to finish better than 8th to avoid the Caps in the first round

It was great to see some physical play from the B's yesterday and actually see an opposing team that was afraid to venture into the corners (a novel concept guys!). How about Mark Stuart getting hit from behind and then getting up to put a headlock on Gaborik? I also enjoyed Stuey's lookaway facewash of Brian Boyle that had the local Boyle all hot and bothered while probably playing in front of friends and family.

Also note that our boy Bitz had a goal and an assist for the Panthers in two games over the weekend!

Bitz Speaks

Go here for a story about Section 311 favorite Lord Byron Bitz from Florida.  Those are our T-Shirts he's talking about.  We'll see you on April Fool's Day at the Garden Byron!

So Far, So What?

The Bruins got rid of Derek Morris and Byron Bitz in a cap clearing move. This gets rid of roughly a pro-rated $4M for the remainder of the season. They brought in Dennis Seidenberg who has a $2.25M cap hit.

This just allows them to bring in a Raffi Torres ($2.25M cap hit). A recent tweet from Joe Haggerty says talks are heating up with Columbus, but that they want a 1st rounder. I imagine Columbus will back off on that stance before the deadline passes since Raffi is a UFA at the end of the year. Look for this to be the only other move the Bruins make today - maybe a 2nd rounder and a prospect.

After watching last night's debacle, I'm mostly looking forward to the draft. The only thing that would get me excited for this season would be if they could pull off a miracle move for a Tomas Kaberle. And when I say miracle, I mean it - not likely.

B's Lose. I'm sick of this.

Where's the consistency here? I thought the B's were turning it around, having won 8 out of 11 a few weeks ago. So far the only consistency I've seen is the well-documented, season-long scoring drought. Sure, NESN likes to put good spin on it (7 players with 7+ goals or some bologna like that) but I think we all know what they're shoveling. Despite yet another solid goaltending performance by Sir Tim Thomas, the B's sleepwalked thru the first 2 periods of Monday night's game in Tampa and lost, 2-1. Goal by Sturm, accompanied by a pretty angry Sturmface due to the non-call on Stamkos who pretty much broke Sturm's arms off with a hook about 2 minutes previous. Sturm's goal was the one peanut in the turd the Bruins dropped last night. Even a lifeless Bitz fight could not help the game. The Bruins turned in a fair effort against the Panthers on Sunday night, winning 2-1...but it's likely an early tee time won out over decent sleep, resulting in sluggish play on Monday.
random crap

• Holy Shit. The Blake Wheeler suck-fest continues unabated. Zero goals in his last 13 games, folks. I think the league's caught on to the not-so-tricky self-pass off the boards that he performs on those rare times when he's actually on-side.
• How about them WB Mason commercials? That There Will Be Blood WB Mason guy's got more pancake on him than Tammy Faye Bakker. Thing is, as far as I know, WBM's cornered the market on office supplies in the region. So chill out WBM. And I don't like your commercials.
  
• How about them Men's Wearhouse commercials? "You're gonna like the way you look." That dude's voice is so low, I could grate parmesan with it. He should not be pimping suits, he should be on radio. Imagine him announcing goals, etc. at games? I sense, though, his sub-sonic delivery would shake the concrete loose from the FleetGarden roof right onto the rink.
• No real fights for the Bruins these days. Last night featured a rather weak fight between Lord Bitz and Tampa Bay's 4th line center/noble gas, Zenon Konopka. It was Konopka's 16th? fighting major. Bitz just doesn't have the mean streak required for those fights. The fight started after a faceoff, Bitz got two hooks in, and Konopka got the takedown. I think Konopka wanted more. Seriously, someone needs to piss in the Bruins' Wheaties NOW.
• Quoth Minnesota the other day, "it's not how you start, it's how you finish".
• The other night vs. the Thrash, Row 12 actually sat in Row 11, and almost got into a fight with Row 10. Row 10 was hootin' and hollerin' about Wheels, Row 12 said something like "Blake Wheeler is awesome!" just for fun and Row 10 retorted, "yah because he likes men like you?". Comeback of the year right there, kiddo. You really dug deep for that one.
• Row 11'er brought his brother to the game, who follows the Sharks. I was tempted to make loud choking sounds after he admitted this, but I didn't want to make him cry 2 days before xmas.
  

Trap vs. Shootout vs. Punch to the 'Nads: I choose the 'Nad Punch.

Wednesday's game at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota vs. the Wild was a lot of what you'd expect. See, the Wild feature one of the NHL's worse offenses (next to our Bruins). So both teams struggled to score. They have limited offense (Koivu, Brunette, some guy named Kobasew, Belanger) and a good goalie. Rask was pretty good in net, though he tends to think he's Brodeur and starts trying to handle the puck. It leads to heart-attack moments where Wide-uh-man or Ference do not understand what he's trying to do, and suddenly the net is open and the defense pair is confused. Keep it simple, Tuukka. Of course, this game went to a shootout after being tied, 1-1. Bruins goal by Bitzus Christ. The Bruins won the shootout. Bergeron, he's got some skillz.
Black Friday's game vs the Devils felt like the same type of game. More limited offense, exceptional goaltending, and 1-1 going into the shootout. Wheels scored the B's goal after a nifty pass from Lord Bitz. Brodeur, after setting the NHL record for all-time minutes played, stood on his head in the 3rd as the Bruins finally woke up and started crashing the net. Wheels scored, but Langenbrunner beat Rask between the pads to win it.
So a rough 2-game set for the B's - playing two defensive teams when your own offense is scuffling can't be easy. I'm pleased with getting 3 of 4 points out of it. The team is slowly inching its way up the league standings. It does suck to lose Looch for a few more weeks as his ankle sprain heals - he changed the identity of the team as soon as he was back on the ice.
random crap

• Kobasew had a hat trick today for the Wild.
• The Mayor was in town today.
• Alex Ovechkin boarded Kaleta Wednesday night. Kaleta had it coming, and I suspect most of the league was glad Kaleta got hit.
• Bitz' hit on Zanin at about 0:57. video also features his goal.
• Thornton got in a fight today, he fought Andrew Peters. Wasn't much of a fight, just a lot of grappling. Thornton couldn't get his punching hand free.
• Joey Kocur vs. Jim Kyte Legendary bout. I've always characterized the Winnipeg Jets as the Hartford Whalers of Canadian Hockey. They got about 8 pasty-white loser fans, which is why they got relocated to Confederate Hockey land.
• Speaking of losers, saw a Rob DiMaio shirt in the stands today. Not as notorious as when I spotted an Alex Zhamnov jersey last year, but still pretty bad. Imagine being that sucka fan who bought a Zhamnov jersey. Now wear it to a game 2 years later after he was bought out due to some phantom ankle injury. wow.
  
• According to today's poster/roster hand-out thing, Patrice Bergeron's full name is Patrice Bergeron-Cleary. Now you know where this came from, as he revealed his Irish side by pounding on Josh Gorges during last year's playoffs. It's always interesting when anyone fights, but when someone who usually doesn't fight gets all pissed and pounds on someone, it adds extra juice to the game. Patrice - a southpaw, hits Gorges in the neck on his 3rd or 4th punch for the KO.
  

B's March Over The Penguins

In between the plentiful debates regarding Sidney Crosby's gender, numerous shout-downs, and an almost-fight, the Bruins put together a pretty tight game to defeat another top-ranked team and shut out the Pens, 3-0. Highlights included Hunwick's almost-not-a-goal, ruled a goal by the officials (Minnesota was sitting in the Sportsdeck and said it was pretty obvious; from 311, I could barely tell it went in.) after replay; Paella finally finishing on a breakaway attempt; and Bergeron scoring with 3.5 seconds left while the B's were shorthanded, 6-on-4. Lots of injuries on the Pens' side - Malkin, Talbot, Gonchar, Letang were not playing. Crosby was stuck skating with, ah, Ruslan Fedotenko and some other shiftless bastid. I'm sorry folks, but I've had Ruslan Fedotenko on my fantasy team (briefly) - here's a guy who is so bad, even the Islanders opted to not re-sign him. If Fedotenko skated with Orr, Bourque as his d-men and Gretzky & Crosby as his fellow forwards, he'd still find a way to suck.
Almost had a fight in 311 last night. Some chump in Row 12 (not the scribe known as "Row 12" who contributes to this blog) started jawing at somebody in Row 13 about something, and the Row 12 guy walked down the row to confront Row 13 guy. Oh yeah, alcohol may have been involved. So yeah, the pudgy Row 12 guy actually slipped and stepped on my back while confronting Row 13 guy. Then the Fleet Baybank BankBoston rent-a-cops showed up and escorted the dudes out.
random crap:

• Good to see Mark Stuart crunch Brooks Orpik against the boards. Orpik spent the rest of the shift hunched over near Fleury, then skated to the locker room and did not return for the rest of the game. Stuart wins that battle 100 times out of a 100. Orpik is a turd.
• Despite the student-night mentality of the section last night, no real good chants originated from the section. Just taunts of "Flllleeeeuuuuurrrryyyyyyy", and the aforementioned "Does Crosby have a vagina?"-type debates.
  
• 2nd on the team in points so far this season? Steve Begin (2-8-10)
• Tied for 3rd on the team in plus/minus? Lord Byron Bitz himself (+3).

Fantasy Hockey Update

The first 5 weeks are in the books for the inaugural season of Section 311 Fantasy Hockey. The league has 13 members who are Bruins season ticket holders and 1 who is in Texas (I wonder who that is?). Of the 13 STH's, only one of these is outside of Section 311. He's in 309 so that's close enough. There are 12 scoring categories in which you compete against a different opponent every week. Here is an update on how your favorite blog contributors are doing:

Minnesota - 37-20-3 (1st place - Byron Division)
Morale Officer - 32-25-3 (3rd place - Bitz Division)
Row 12 - 30-25-5 (3rd place - Byron Division)
The Mayor - 21-32-7 (5th place - Bitz Division)

Row 12 benefited from his opponent being in Ireland and missing the lineup deadline on Monday and scored an 11-1 thrashing of the Bruise Brothers. The Mayor actually improved his record last week with a sound 7-3-2 defeat of The Panama Red's. Yours truly scored an 8-3-1 win over one of the newest members of Section 311, the owner of The Baby Squirrels. Finally, the Morale Officer also won the week with an 8-4 defeat of The Bitzy Cats. Bitzy's sweet moves in front of the net on Saturday night were not enough to muster more than 4 points out of the matchup.

So, it was a good week for all four of the bloggers, but our mayor has a lot of catching up to do.

Looking ahead, it's a big week for the Morale Officer as he takes on the man he is chasing for first in the Bitz Division. The Mayor gets a crack at the lowly Baby Squirrels who I just finished dispatching, while Row 12 takes on his former roommate. I am up against Z's B's who currently sit just 4 games behind me in 2nd place in the Byron Division.

Currently in last place overall sits the guy who is notorious for not showing up to games until sometime in the 2nd period (including this past Thursday against the Habs). It's fitting that he is in dead last with a miserable 13-44-3 record on the season.

In the coming weeks, I'll keep you apprised of the blogger's progress and start criticizing/applauding managerial moves made in the league.

B's Rattle Sabres

I love being right.

The Bruins bared their teeth last night in a game that featured 3 fighting majors and some slashing. Shawn Thornton took on the league's punching bag, Steve Montador, and beat him. Then he took on Paul Gaustad, who had been being a pest all night, and beat him, too. Stuart threw Jochen Hecht down in a fit of caveman fury. I think Stuart held back a little because Hecht was wearing a face-shield. And the Bruins won the game. Okay, so we faced their rookie goalie in his first NHL game, and maybe Buffalo was playing its second straight game in as many nights, so the path was cleared for us, but I'll take it. Paella must have had at least a billion scoring chances and converted on none. Noted Minnesota, "He shoulda had 8 goals tonight." Lord Byron Bitz scored a goal (pretty goal line dangle), Sturm scored (finally a goal that went off the post and in instead of out - check out HubHockey for classic SturmFace), Chara (a freakin' BOMB from the blue line with Recchin Ball screening Enron, er, Enroth), and The Recchin Ball (tipped a wrist shot/pass from Dmo). Bergeron could have had a few goals, but tried to get too pretty with the stickwork and ran out of room both times.
random crap:

• Best comment of the night came from a fan a few rows back, "Buffalo sucks - the Bills suck, the Sabres suck, you guys have never won anything, so what's happening here should be no surprise."
• Has hockeyfights.com ever been award "top 100 websites of all time" by Time Magazine, or something? It should at least be in the, say, top 15, if you ask me.
  

Kessel, Phil Kessel, What?

The Bruins got lucky. Close to dropping yet another turd, the Bruins managed to string together about 8 minutes of something resembling hockey on Saturday night and beat the Islanders 4-3 in a shootout. Most of the game was pretty bad. Several penalties in the first period (Wheels high-sticked some sap, got a double-minor; Ference hauling off on some guy who cheap-shotted Savard. Aside - Here is my favorite Ference moment: Open-ice hit on Martin Erat, then pounds the shit out of Scot Nichol) sucked any momentum out of them for most of the game. The team hung around, though. Savard tucked in a goal, then Bitz singlehandedly lifted the whole team up with a backhand score, and finally Hunwick floated a weakass wrister than Roloson missed. The shootout went pretty well. I think most teams are hip to Patrice going five-hole on the goalies. He changed it up, dinged his opportunity off the post. Wheels put about 43 moves on Rollie before tucking it in five-hole. Then I saw Savard skate out and I verbally expressed my displeasure with the choice. Savard is, what, 2 for 13 in shootouts? The guy's got 1 move: forehand wrist shot. well, 2 moves - sometimes it's a slapshot from 15 feet away. So I groaned as he skated wide, then he faked Rollie right out of his skates and tossed in a sweet backhander. Bruins steal one from the young, energetic, slightly stupid Islanders. I now believe that all of Savard's shitty shootout attempts were all leading up to this point, some sort of hockey sniper rope-a-dope so he could steal a few games for us this year. It was later revealed to the media that Savvy & Cload met in Cload's office - Cload wanted Savvy to work on his shit in the shootouts, ostensibly to replace the now-departed Kessel.
Random crap:

• Hey, that John Tavares can shoot - I bet he went high in the draft.
• On a Sox note - Ya know, I'm pretty sick 'n tired of telecasts that show Sox fans clasping their hands together in some sort of "I hope we win, I'm sucha huge fan" pose. jeez. the Sox have lost a lot of games, they'll lose more, cut the shit. You have one of the most successful, richest franchises in sports - stop acting like that if they lose, you're going to hurl yourself from the Pru posthaste. And Sox fans have not cornered the market on dedication, fandom, etc. Get over yourselves. Imagine being an Orioles fan...talk about perennial suckage.
• "Sheriff" Shane Hnidy got an assist for the Minnesota Wild Saturday night.
  

Got Looch?

The latest Bruins news from Causeway Street is that Milan Lucic has signed a 3-year contract extension worth a total of $12.25M.
I'm somewhat ambivalent, not because I think Looch doesn't deserve the money, but rather because I sense that this means that the Bruins will have a hard time keeping Marc Savard. I think other capologists would agree. I'd start to quote numbers, but www.nhlnumbers.com and www.nhlscap.com have not updated their respective roster matrices. But generally speaking (going off of Minnesota's analysis), the Bruins have about $15M to play with in the off-season to get 5 forwards, 3 d-men and Tuukka. I see Marchand & Hamill staying up with the parent club next year, as well as at least Boychuk. Maybe their relative cheapness will help shoehorn in some deal for Savvy.
But gee whiz, when Looch hits the ice, you can't help but grin whenever he delivers a punishing hit, knocks in a cheap goal at the crease, or changes the play due to opponents' fear of getting crunched in the corners. From a marketing standpoint, the guy is probably worth more than the money that is coming to him. Cam Neely has Looch as the centerpiece in re-making the Bruins in his own image.
Recurring themes in my grumblings to folks who sit in 311, just random crap:

• Does it feel weird to hear a National Anthem performed by anyone OTHER than Rene Rancourt? No offense to the others who have performed the song (notoriously difficult to sing, and props to anyone who has the stones to attempt it in a sports arena), but it just seems "off" if it ain't Rene. The National Anthems (both American & Hoser) are not auditions for American Idol, so cut the melismata.
  
• I lament the lost art of the backhanded shot. Recently, Lord Bitz had a shorthanded breakaway and Joe Corvo bit real hard on Bitz' fake, as did Cam Ward. Bitz had all sorts of net to shoot for, but couldn't roof a sexy backhander past the goalie, and ended up scuffing some dribbler on Ward. HORRIBLE.
• NESN has been airing their bracket for most classic NESN-televised hockey game. I know I should be rooting for all of the milestone Bruins games, but in a non-Bruin-centric, pure hockey fan kind-of-way, I think that Ron Tugnutt's 70 save performance was one of the best games I ever saw on tv, and definitely the most insane goaltending performance ever. It was just pure animal.
• All Section 311'ers have to agree with me when I say that there's something intrinsically wrong with The Mayor watching Confederate Flag hockey 2000 miles away while the Bruins and the Sox are playing on the same night, one right after the other.
  

Bitz, Begin, and Boychuk

Section 311's hero will be back in the black and gold this fall. Jubilation - love his work ethic - ecstatic that his goal in game 7 won't be the last he scores here in Boston. This is fantastic. What is not fantastic is the fact the Bruins never release contract information. We still don't know what the cap hit is going to be.

The Bruins also went out and got Steve Begin. This year's version of Yelle signed for only $850K. He knows how to butter this Bruins fan up - quoth Begin: "In all those years I played against Boston in the playoffs, a lot of things happened. I'm going to be on the right side now." Attaboy Steve. Do us a favor and exact some revenge on that team of diving midgets - the newest members of the diving dwarves include the overpaid tandem of Scotty Gomez and Brian Gionta. The Bruins have Marc Savard, David Krejci, and Marco Sturm for a slightly smaller combined salary hit than those two fidgets - who would you rather have? Dark days in Montreal.

Let's just guess that Bitz signed for around $1M. This would mean the B's have about $5M to sign one forward and one defenseman (Kessel and Hunwick)to fill a roster. This is not going to be enough. Mike Cammelleri got $6M and had 3 more goals than Kessel. This is just one of many deals today that proves he is worth more than the $3.75M Krejci got on the open market. They'll have to unload some salary to bring both Hunwick and Kessel back - there's just no getting around it. Trade Kobasew, bring up Sobotka, and sign Kessel is one scenario in which they might squeeze under the cap.

In other news, Johnny Boychuk signed a one-year deal. This likely will have nothing to do with the cap since he will probably start in Providence and provide depth.

We want Bitz! We got Bitz.