Horton Needs a Beatin'

Minnesota mused last night, "just watch Nathan Horton during his entire shift. He just kind of skates around, watches things happen, doesn't hit anyone, doesn't engage anyone in any puck battles..."

Nathan Horton (6'-2", 230lbs) was directly responsible for 2 of Buffalo's 4 goals last night as the B's lost, 4-2. Horton needs to spend some time on the bench and de-Wheeler-ize himself a bit. So does Seguin. Seguin is completely chicken-shit out there. These guys simply do not want to work in the corners. They make me long for the days of Peter Schaefer and his crazy work in the corners. Suck as he may, Schaefer always emerged from the corners with the puck. Which just goes to show you how important our 4th line is. Without Thornton, Campbell, and whoever's been busted to 4th line duty due to suckage (right now it's Wheeler), the B's would much easier to play against.

Why does this team hate us? They play great on the road (14-5-4) and suck balls at home (12-9-3).

I had written (yet another) substandard post last night briefly discussing the B's sweep of the Whalers. I clicked "publish post", then fell asleep, nothing came up. You're not missing much. Speaking of which, saw a Ron Francis Whaler jersey last night in 309. Horrible. I didn't attend the MLK day matinee, probably a good thing, what, with the restraining order imposed upon me by the pasty-white Whaler fan collective.

Chiarelli loves www.capgeek.com, as revealed Wednesday on Toucher 'n Rich. "They're usually wrong, but they're really good. But they're usually wrong."

Check out this cool panoramic photo of the Garden before a B's game from what looks like Section 312 or 313. (from Universal Hub)

The disparity between the won-loss records of Rask and Thomas is just plain wild. Thomas is heading towards a record-setting season (22-4-6), and could come close to challenging the modern (within the past 30 years) record.

Timmy!

Last night's AHL game between the Toronto Marlies and the Providence Bruins ended in a 3-2 shootout win for the good guys. Regulation time goals by Boychuk (bomb from the point) and Satan (5-hole on Giguere). P-Bruins goalie Tim Thomas (this guy is Vezina material) stoned all 3 Marlies shooters (Kessel, Bozak, Lundmark) in the shootout session, while Giguere stopped Ryder & Krejci, but bit hard on a Satan fake and got beat on an easy backhand.

• Just before the game had started, I had acquiesced to Minnesota's argument of the past month regarding the end of the Satan experiment. I said to him, "I now renounce Satan". Satan ends up getting 2 goals.
• Lootch fought Colton Orr, and I think Lootch underestimated Orr's stamina. Orr was still whaling away while Lootch tired out.
  
• Steve Begin (finally) had some acid to his game. He was on a line with Lootch & Thornton.
  
• Don Cherry Night at the Garden. He dropped the puck, that was all we saw, but apparently he had some stuff for Milbury and K-Tap during the breaks. They should have given him the mic during intermission and let him spew to the crowd.
• Regarding ChiaPet and the trade deadline - what's (not) done is done, let's move on. You never know - this team could regain some swagger during the 2 week road trip, gel a little bit, kill some people, maybe figure out how to play the game again. I still contend that
  line brawls (I was secretly - okay, not so secretly - hoping for 400 minutes in penalties last night) and long-ass road trips bring teams together.
• Numerous Kessel taunts during the night, which warms the cockles of my heart.
• 7th player award - Brick & Jack talked of Rask, Bergeron, Boychuk - but COME ON!!!! It belongs to Daniel Paille. One could argue that Paille single-handedly turned the Bruins' penalty kill around.
  

Panthers Get Lucky

It's been said before, and it bears repeating: The shootout just ain't worth it. Yeah, I got sour grapes after last night's shootout loss to the Panthers. The Bruins pretty much dominated the game, and Florida just sat back while Vokoun did all of the work. The overtime session was dominated by the Bruins, and then the shootout came and Cory Stillman (he still plays?) stuffed a weak one past Thomas. It's just lame how a team that dominates a game, but runs into a hot goalie, can end up on the short end in the point column. This game should have ended in a tie and each team receiving one point. But since the NHL thinks the "untapped market" of the mid-latitude/southern USA needs to see "a winner", they've decided to tack this onto the game. The shootout needs to go the way of the FoxTrax puck. And ya know what else is irritating about the shootout? The fact that after each one, everyone has to listen to everyone whine about how they like/hate the shootout.
random crap

• Tim Thomas made yet another "holy shit!" save in the first period. Tim's game in the past few weeks has been really slutty, something like a GAA of 0.98 in the past 8 games. You know who else has been playing ridiculous goal this season so far? Ryan Miller of Buffalo. US-born goaltenders for the win!
• While I'm whining about the shootout - too many dekes by Bergeron & Wheeler. They both ran out of room. Chara should have skated to within 10' of Vokoun and blasted one, nevermind trying to do any moves.
• Speaking of Wheels, he's starting to get on my shit list. He seems to be becoming a little bit of a selfish player, skating with his head down and not looking around for his linemates. I'd rather the Bruins kept Savard than Wheeler.
  
• Minnesota first suggested it over a week ago, and I now agree. The Brad Marchand experiment had ended; send the pest back down to Providence and maybe bring him up next year.
• No fights in the section last night, nothing to really take note of, though there were some pre-teens who just discovered the f-word and were pretty vocal about it. It was like they each had received, just that afternoon, a Fisher-Price "My first f-bomb pull-string talking doll" or something.
  
• More problems last night with the line changes. Minnesota was pretty upset by the Dave Lewis-ery going on at the B's bench. Another too-many-men penalty, plus the game against the Pens featured some poor line changes.