B's Pound Ass

The B's slapped away a young Oiler team last night, 6-3.

• Joe Corvo is still on my shit list despite his 3 assist effort. Commented a 311'er, "we'd have a dangerous team....if only Joe Corvo could actually play defense."
  

• The Tyler Seguin Explosion continues with a goal and an assist last night. I hope he overtakes Phil Kessel for the league lead in goals, points, etc. because Phil's shitty mug is still all over nhl.com. It's getting to the point, especially with the way that line has been gellin' (so much so, I'm wellin') that it really looks like they can't be stopped. I mean, Seguin missed, what 2 or 3 empty nets the other night? I mean this line is sick, and they're the second line. Horton is starting to wake up and skate with more purpose (though he missed 2 gimmes last night) and Lootch is sucking less. The KHL line had one early even-strength shift last night where they had sole puck possession in the offensive zone for what felt like I dunno, a week and a half, which eventually led to the Boychuk goal.
• Who, what, huh? Mark Mowers on The Instigators, folks. The nadir of NESN programming? You decide.
  
• I went to a Hahvid Bah after the game last night. There was equations 'n shit on the walls. Everybody was regurgitatin' Gordon Wood.
  
• Speaking of Blake Wheeler, he's 0-7-7 with the Jets right now.
• You remember Rick Zombo, right? Well this former Bruin (67 games in the 90's: 4-10-14) is now the coach of the Lindenwood University hockey team, located somewhere in Missouri.
  

B's win; Chiarelli Rolls Dice

Yup.

• As we all know well by now, the B's packaged Joe Colborne, a 1st round pick, and a conditional pick to the Maple Laffs to get our rent-a-player, Tomas Kaberle. My understanding is that the conditional pick hems on the B's making (or winning) the Stanley Cup and/or re-signing Kaberle. Kaberle looked okay during their 4-2 win over Ottawa the other night, but looked best on the power play, feeding Chara juicy passes for one-timer attempts. The word on Colborne is that for a 6'-6" dude, he played pretty soft, not utilizing his size in the corners, etc. But TOR thinks they got 2-1st rounders for Kaberle, and their future looks bright, but the Leafs will always blow.
• As we all know well by now, the B's, in order to make room for the Kaberle contract, sent Mark Stuart & Blake Wheeler to Atlanta for Rich Peverley & Boris Valabik. Valabik is a monster, a throw-in on the deal who will probably amount to nothing despite his huge size and deep love for all things Chara. Rich Peverley is another smart forward like Chris Kelly who will get dirty in the corners unlike Wheeler. It's no secret that I'm pleased that Wheeler and his self-passes are gone. Losing Stuart kind of sucks (got in a fight in his first Atlanta game; Wheels got an assist), but as someone said over email on friday - if it means we get to raise Lord Stanley's Cup at the cost of Mark Stuart, I'll do it.
  

B's Lose

Too many things peeved me yesterday about the B's 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh. I think I have to start taking pills before games so Wheeler's constant suck-ocity doesn't cause me to lash out. Let the irrationality begin:

• Crotchfruit central. Matinee game vs. a marquee opponent means we get a lot of Sunday drivers out there - folks who've never seen a hockey game who just sit there and buy their crotchfruit every morsel of food available. Today was the 2nd straight game that we had a Row 10 infant. Kid had to be, what, 5 days old? The B's power play drought was older than this kid.
• Marchand started the game out right, laying out Malkin with a delicious hit at the B's blue line.
  
• Matt Cooke with 2 assists. You gotta be shitting me. The fact that this guy still skates around the Garden ice without being killed blows my mind. Boychuk tried to start with him in the 1st period, but in typical Cooke fashion, he ran away. Cooke needs to be lying unconscious and bleeding on the Garden ice like a walleye.
  
• Kris Letang starting shit with Krejci after the whistle. You gotta be shitting me. Kris Lefuckingtang? What, now that he's a first-team all-star, Letang now thinks he's got the legs to just randomly start some crap with Krejci - arguably the most docile Bruin on the roster? Someone needs to straighten Letang out. What was his suspension/fine for the hit he did on Spezza....? What further irritated me was during this 1-on-5 scrum at the net, all the B's were skating away for a line change or a new Mary Kay catalog, and Kraytch-bomb is in there all alone, crashing the net, and facing the music from the Pens' d-men. And they wonder why the fans can't get behind this team?
  
• Interesting fight between Soupy & Adams. Adams fought well, Soupy finished strong with 3 punches that landed.
• Bruins power-less play continues as the most pathetic in the league, given a 4-minute power play after Depuis broke Kampfer's nose, no scoring, barely any shots.
• Asshole sitting in Row 12 complaining that we were standing up during the Soupy/Adams fight. One 311'er pointed out, "you can stand up, too, ya know"
• Asshole sitting in Row 10 with his "throwback" Crosby jersey on. One of us asked him, "you from Pittsburgh?" He said no, he was from NH but he lived in Pittsburgh for 5 years. What a frontrunner - surely your migration to Shittsburgh and defection to the Penguins was right in time with Crosby's drafting. I wonder if he owns a Pirates jersey? Yeah, probably not. Then he actually started to take offense to folks yelling out that Crosby sucks, etc. Buddy, you come to a game wearing that jersey, complaining about the comments is like complaining about getting wet if you go outside during a rainstorm. Clearly, you invite the comments by wearing the jersey so just lube up, lay down, and take the trash-talk. To be incredulous, to be in disbelief of the comments is to be an attention-whoring shithead. Say what you want about Habs fans, and believe me, I have, but at least they don't cry when they show up at the games wearing their Lyle Odelein jersey and get some trash-talk set their way.

Lyle Odelein. Ugh.

• Dave Engelland hitting Savard with an elbow and no retaliation at all from the B's. Engelland loves to fight and barely has any other skill, surely someone could have done something about this.
• Wow, Paille really sucks. He ruins everything he touches. Send him away, bring back Caron for the 4th line. He doesn't have the size & grit for 4th line duty.
  
• Seidenberg on the power play. Apparently CLOAD has lost confidence in Boychuk? or something? and now we got Seidenberg thinking he's friggin Nick Lidstrom out there. Then again, 2 assists yesterday. Might be worth a fantasy pickup
• Savard, lollygagging on the line changes. Puts his stick up and coasts to the bench during on-the-fly line changes. MOVE YOUR FEET, SAVVY.
  

"What's that make them?" "Lollygaggers."

• Think there's any team out there that would like to give us a top-4 d-man for Wheeler? I think Seguin's been hanging out with Wheeler too much. Seguin really slacked during yesterday's game, made some dumb, Wheeler-esque passes and decisions. They probably take afternoon naps together, play with Wheeler's dog, and all the other lame hobbies Wheeler does that typifies his lazy, have-no-care, breezy, wuss-like nature. Wheeler's dog is probably some wee dog that sits in his lap while Wheels drives around. Dog probably wears this tiny-ass dog sweater while it still shivers. OR, he's just got some lazy-ass bulldog that just sleeps when it's not eatin' or crappin'...and when confronted by another dog, it just pees down its leg, much like its owner.

I Hate the Flyers

In a game that was a lot more close than the score indicates, the B's struggled to a 5-2 win the other night vs. the Islanders. Earlier in the week, they had beaten the Sabres, 3-2 in OT. Last night, they squandered a bunch of opportunities (kept missing the net) and lost to the Flyers in OT, 2-1.

• How 'bout that Lootch, huh? 15 goals this far into the season, granted 4 of them are empty nettaz, but he's projected to score, er, 77 goals this season.
• League Punching Bag Steve Montador took on Boychuk and it yielded the same result - Montador got beaten by the 'Chuk. Montador should really just have his hands cut off at the wrists and the stubs cauterized, he should not be fighting, nevermind playing hockey. Yeah, I know that, for some reason, he's highly-ranked in the league on plus/minus, but the guy sucks. We've seen it. He shows up, sure, but he sucks. Here, Boychuk slapped him down with uppercuts after Monty put his head down, wishing for his life to be over and for some higher power to save him from the beatdown.
  
• Blake Wheeler still sucks. The December '10 issue of the New England Hockey Journal has "a day in the life of Blake Wheeler". Let me sum it up for you: He takes it easy, eats food, takes it easy, plays with his dogs, takes it easy, takes a nap, comes to the rink, takes a nap during the game, goes offside about 10 times, misses the net about 40 times, makes a few self-passes, takes it easy, wimps out in the corners, takes it easy again, goes home, sleeps. Blake, you're living the fuckin' dream here, getting paid some $2M to basically chill out all day.
  
• Jody Shelley wiped out McQuaid on an icing during the Flyers game. Shelley got 5 minutes and the game for it, but of course the B's powerless play didn't do anything. Carcillo also took a run at Savard. No Bruins took any opportunity to slap the Flyers around at all, though Lootch did shove Powe around during the 3rd period. Carcillo needs pills if he isn't already on them.
  
• Mike Richards, the Flyers' version of Bergeron, skated down the wing and was probably eyeing the clock, "yeah, I'll stick a dagger in their heart here" and beat Thomas with 3.0 seconds left. Thomas had stopped virtually everything else all night. Kinda kills ya when the softies go in, but he makes ridiculous stops all other times of the evening.
• McQuaid handled himself nicely vs. the Islanders' noble gas, Zenon Konopka, in a fight Thursday night. 5-2
  
• Are the B's still paying for Dave Lewis' contract?
• Speaking of coaches, yup, Craig Berube is an assistant coach for the Flyers. I remember him best when he was with the Caps, he was just a bastid.
  
• Someone in 311 keeps rippin' ass. It ain't me.
• Yeah, last night, had a Flyer fan doing play-by-play for everyone: "c'mon Carle, don't mess up here"; "shoot it again, Pronger!"; "Powe, what are you doing?"; plus got some ERRRR, DUH insight on what makes teams win in OT ("the faster team usually wins"). If Row 12 had attended the game, I think there mighta been some static. And I would have welcomed that static. Entirely TOO MANY Flyers fans at the game last night. We had this one Snooki come up the stairs, realize she was in the wrong section, everyone chanted "asshole!" to her, she emphatically threw down her plate of half-eaten pizza, made some classy comment, everyone booed her and started chanting "bitch!". She went up the correct aisle a few moments later, over by 312, strapped the feed-bag on, and continued to watch the game while her boyfriend rubbed bronzer on his face. She was wearing a Gagne shirt, I believe. Oddly, Philly fans now seem to delight in their basic rowdiness and have to make efforts to equal (or top) their reputation as the most evil, disrespectful fans in the league. In the end, it's like watching Always Sunny - just a bunch of really dumb, selfish people shouting at each other...and you watch in horror. Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'd like to throw batteries at JD Drew, too, sometimes, but gee whiz. Actually JD Drew is the Sox analog to Blake Wheeler - all this god-given talent, etc. and then there's just no pulse. You just wake up a few years later and you realize you just had this all-foam, no-beer guy sucking up roster space, cap money, and stealing oxygen. Once in awhile, you see the talent shine through, and you put them in the lineup because of the potential for something good to happen, but in the end, Drew/Wheeler just takes you to the precipice "maybe NOW he'll heat up and be the player we know he can be", and instead, he goes 0 for 2 with 2 walks. "but, but, but, his OBP [plus/minus]!!!"
  
• Spied a Jeremy Reich #53 Bruins jersey last night at the turnstiles.
• Horton finally scored last night, shot a wicked wrista past Boucher.
• World Juniors in a few weeks. USA is favored, which means Canada will win.