B's win; Bring in Mottau

B's eke one out vs. the Devils last night, win in OT, 4-3.

• The end of the Corvo era is nigh, kids. Last night, he got the 2nd assist on the Parise goal. I think he was a -2 and Cload let him sit on the bench for awhile. Time to bring in the local boy. Mottau didn't look completely retahded the other day, I say let him get quality minutes vs. the Isles and see how bad it goes. Then never look back. There is a reason that Corvo's been traded about 40 times in the past 2 years. For your consideration: When Corvo's TOI is > 23 minutes, the Bruins are 0-2. When his TOI is > 22 minutes, the Bruins are 3-5. NOW, if his TOI is limited to 16 minutes or less, we are faring much better: The Bruins are 9-3. As a matter of fact, if we can keep Corvo limited to a TOI of 18 minutes or less, the Bruins are 18-5. Dunno about you, but I like them odds - I'm thinking if we can keep his TOI around 0 minutes or less, we'll be undefeated for the rest of the year.
  
• Rolston still looks a step behind, but now he's playing the role of Old Guy on the Bergy/Marchand line, previously inhabited by Recchi. Now that he actually has something to play for, playing for a team that might actually do something. This is your last shot, Rolston, better make the best of it.

Trade Corvo & Hamill

The Bruins were victimized by crummy officiating and their own lack of finish, losing to the Penguins, 2-1 today.

• the Zach/Dorothy Hamill experiment needs to come to an end soon. Past two games he's tried to show a little more jam in his game, but he's plays a small game and is not heavy on the puck. He's like Krejci, minus everything.
  
• the Joe Corvo experiment needs to come to an end now. He needs to be euthanized. He's useless at the point, so useless that we're using Pevs at the point, and that's apparently an upgrade from Corv-blow. Sure, he scored today, but that was all Marchand getting into MAF's way.
• speaking of Marc-Andre Fleury - what's up with this guy? Everyone thinks he's hot shit, and the only reason he's good is because he plays for the Penguins. How many games has he stolen for them? Probably zero. Ever hear that thing from 24/7 when he tries to talk shit to the players? No one sounds tough speaking french or with a french accent. It's like Phil Jackson. Is he really that good a coach, or just happened to coach 2 of the best players to play in the NBA (Kobe & Jordan).
• Bruins are now 1-2-0 since Thomas-gate.
• oh, okay, Deryk Engelland elbows Krejci high, gets no call while Krejci is on one knee trying to collect his bearings, but Peverley gets called for a "slash" on Malkin 8 seconds later.
• Ben-wa Balls Pouliot has been returning to his former self, probably because of the Horton injury - plus he has to skate with Hamill, which would bring down even Gretzky's game.
• a fair amount of Penguins fans in the crowd - hard to spot them because of similar colors, but they all had their frontrunner jerseys on (Crosby), plus some of them defiantly wearing the Pittsburgh Steelers garb, too.
• Ironic that the B's played the Whale on Wednesday - February 2 - not many Whaler fans in the building that game, most saw their shadow in the morning and then ran back into their basements - 6 more weeks of winter.
  

Misc.

• I go to the nhl.com league leaders and league pissant Phil Kessel is still leading the league in points, goals, and plus/minus. gag.
• Seriously, why are you here? Go back to Days of Y'orr.
• The other night, Chris Neil and Joe Corvo were about ready to go at it, but the linesmen broke it up. Dunno if they showed it on TV, but I got pretty excited - I wanted to see Chris Neil clobber Joe Corvo. You see, each year, Vf311 focuses it's irrational hate-death ray on a Bruin player who kind of sucks. This year, it's Joe Corvo. Check the Google - back in 2002 or so, when he was a punk with the Monarchs, he attacked some chick in a bar and had to do community service and stuff. Rumor has it, he actually attacked a tranny. I dunno, I wasn't there.
• Guy who sat next to me on Tuesday, I think he shat himself during pre-game and forgot to clean up.
• Section 322 tried to start the wave Tuesday. THERE ARE NO WAVES IN HOCKEY.
• Yes, that was Hockey LEGEND Ian Moran on The Instigators the other night. Really? Ian Moran? And I thought I spied Mark Mowers on NESN the other day, too. Mowers was Dave Lewis' cabana boy back the day when the B's kinda sucked. Those were the dark days, with Dave Scatchard and Brad Isbister.
  
• No real great analysis about the latest team play. I mean, I think they gotta push thru it and hopefully they find their way before it's too late. We'll see what happens against the Laffs in Toronto on Saturday. The Laffs are playing well for some strange reason...
  

B's get smoked

No. The other Bruins.

• Last night, took in a P-Bruins game with Row 12, where they got shellacked by the Manchester Monarchs, 7-1. It wasn't that bad of a game, just wanted to see some violence, seeing as how our local team has decided to not really play with much passion. Well, the farm club kind of suffers from this as well. I will say the boards are loud at "The Dunk", and that plexiglas sounds real brittle as each slap shot brings with it the possibility of the glass shattering. Time to rebuild The Dunk, yah? Lots of crotchfruit there as well, going mad batshit over the SpongeBob Squarepants theme.
• Look, Joe Corvo kind of sucks. Actually, not kind of. He just sucks...he's making me wish for the days of Kaberle. He constantly gets burned out there...and that booming shot that I thought we were getting really hasn't appeared. Too often has 311 commented, "oh, Corvo just got bitched on that play"... Then again, the rest of the team hasn't shown up yet either. Also, Corvo looks like Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit, y'know, after he goes nuts and attacked Roger with the cartoon saw & cartoon sledgehammer. What, you think I'm kidding?

• Lootch & Horton are playing "like they've already won the Cup this year". Lootch shanked an easy open net vs. Colorado. Made a bad team look good that night. I'm telling ya, Lootch is gotta get about 9 goals this season, probably 8 of them empty-netters.
  
• No fighting majors yet. hmmmm.
• Looks like only Seguin & Marchand have shown up this year so far. How much longer until we get the team talking about how they're "squeezing their sticks too hard" in trying to score?
• So we got the Blackhawks tonight at 8:30pm. Predicting another Bruins loss here, probably 5-2 or something.
  

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.