Magic Number Now 4 Points

The Bruins need any combination of 4 points - getting points themselves or the Rangers leaving points on the table.  Buffalo helped the Bruins out by getting King Henrik pulled on the way to a 5-2 victory.  Atlanta is now eliminated after losing to the Devils since the B's hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against them.

Even better, with Toronto's loss to Philly the absolute best they can finish now is 28th overall.  Tampa and Florida are still only two points clear of Toronto after losing Tuesday, but they both will hold the tiebreaker over Toronto and they play each other twice before all is said and done.  Therefore, one of them is guaranteed to get at least two points in the final three games which is all it takes to lock out the Leafs.  Things are looking good in the Hall/Seguin sweepstakes.  Remember, as Cam Neely said today on Felger & Mazz: if Toronto finishes 29th, the Bruins have a 60.8% chance of securing one of the top two spots in this year's draft.  And they'll have an 18.8% chance of getting #1.  Doesn't it give you visions of Taylor Hall riding shotgun with Savvy this fall?

Assuming Toronto finishes 29th: if no one beats the odds and Edmonton selects 1st and the Bruins select 2nd, Edmonton will likely be more interested in a pivot (Seguin) leaving the door open for the Bruins to trade up for the #1 pick or, even better, just having Taylor Hall fall to them at #2.  If they somehow do not secure a top two pick and end up with a defenseman there will likely be a mutiny among Bruins fans.  The fallout wouldn't be pretty - especially if Cam Fowler or Erik Gudbranson doesn't make the team out of camp.  For every Tyler Myers, there are 20 Luke Schenn's or Zach Bogosian's that take time to adjust to the NHL game.

Just remember, the Bruins have already won in the Kessel trade.  Did you see Kessel bounce off of Miro Satan last Saturday?  That's the first physical battle Miro won since signing with the Bruins and then Kessel left with "cramps" later in the game.  What a pussy!  He wasn't the answer.

The Road to the Gold

Captain Cloquet Minnesota, Jamie Langenbrunner, became a national hero last night. Everyone is giving Rafalski and Miller all the credit (and deservedly so, but i'm going to point out what Jamie did too). On the first shift of the game, Jamie wins a battle on the boards, feeds his point and hustles across the ice to create traffic. Sidney Crosby picks him up and ends up deflecting Brian Rafalski's shot in for the 1-0 lead. Later on in the first, Marty Brodeur makes a bad decision and bats the puck to a hard-charging Rafalski at the blueline. Jamie goes straight to the net, provides the screen, Rafalski fans on the shot, but Brodeur doesn't see it because of Jamie providing traffic and Brodeur ends up deflecting it into the net off of his left toe. If you look back at the replay, you'll see Rafalski was aiming high glove, but took a stick to the hands just before release that caused him to partially fan and send it along the ice. This is also why Brodeur looked bad on the play - he was positioning himself for a shot to the top corner. Finally, Jamie was once again providing traffic in front of the net on the game-winning goal and it hit his skate and deflected into the net. I can't put it into words how proud I am that he is from my hometown. What a great win for USA hockey. However, they haven't won anything yet...they need to use this momentum and find a way to win when it counts in the medal round.

Because the Swedes defeated the Finns last night, the USA gets the #1 seed for the medal round. This is the best possible place to be because of how everything else fell. On Wednesday, the USA will play the winner of the Belarus/Switzerland in the quarterfinals. Both teams are capable of beating the USA, but this certainly is an easier opponent compared to what the rest of field faces in the quarterfinals. The other three quarters will be SWE/SLO, RUS/CAN, and FIN/CZE assuming the Czechs, Canadians, and Slovakians take care of business on Tuesday against weaker opponents. So, let's say the USA gets the job done in the quarters. They will play the winner of the FIN/CZE quarterfinal on Friday. This will be an extremely tough game no matter who it is, but I would rather face one of these two teams than Russia or Canada or even Sweden for that matter.

If they can pull that off, they're in the gold medal game against whoever advances out of this "group of death" on the other side of the bracket: Canada, Russia, Sweden, and Slovakia.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride. USA hockey has already given us something we will never forget, but it COULD get even better.

PS - I was wrong about Chris Drury. He is playing the consummate team game and doing whatever it takes out there and he got rewarded with a huge goal last night. Congratulations to him.

PSS - On a Bruins note, Phil Kessel proved to me last night that the Bruins made the right decision in letting him go. He is not a big game player because he cannot handle physicality. He was a liability in the defensive zone last night. It led to one of Canada's goals and could have led to another if not for Ryan Miller. Ron Wilson took him off the Pavelski/Malone line after Canada scored the 2nd goal with that line on the ice as well he should have. Congratulations Peter Chiarelli on officially coming out WAY AHEAD in that deal with Toronto.

NHL News and Notes

Papa Smurf Steps Down
I had predicted Gainey would be gone by Thanksgiving so I was a little off, but still, this was long overdue.  The Canadiens let him go down gracefully by putting up the "it's time for me to leave" front.  As one commenter on TSN said: "The only GM Glen Sather ever fleeced" (The Scott Gomez deal).

Ryan Getzlaf Could Miss Olympics
I'm with Don Cherry and think Steven Stamkos should get the roster spot if Getzlaf can't go.  The leader in the clubhouse seems to be Jeff Carter since he was supposedly the last forward cut, but who has been better than Steven Stamkos in the past few weeks?

Leafs Lose to Sharks
The Leafs moved closer to lottery position on Monday night.  I watched this game and I must say that Kessel looked very good.  He had a goal and a very nice assist in the game.  The good news for us as Bruins fans is that J.S. Giguere looked very human after starting his Leafs career with two straight shutouts.  Heading into Tuesday's action, the Leafs had the 2nd worst record in the league.

Isles In Trouble
After a solid start to the season, the Islanders have fallen off the earth.  This is bad news for us as Bruins fans since they find themselves only 5 points ahead of the Leafs heading into Tuesday's action.  After winning a shootout at home against the Panthers on January 21, the Isles have not won a game.  And they haven't even acquired a point (0-7-0).  Get it together on Long Island and stay ahead of the Leafs fellas.

Derek Morris sucks; B's win

"I never quite understood the hatred you had for Derek Morris until now. I am jumping on that bandwagon, and as a matter of fact, I'll be driving that bandwagon." - The contributor known as "Minnesota", during the OT session of tonight's game vs Ottawa.

See, until today, Minnesota was not in tune with my and Row 12's dislike for Derek Morris. We saw the signs. We knew the shortcomings - $3.3M for a guy who is a little bit better offensively than Wideman, but lacking in his defensive skillz.
Tonight, with under a minute left and Ottawa's goalie pulled, Milan Michalek skated right around/through Derek Morris and scored a soft goal on Tim Thomas. The game was tied at 3, and went to a shootout where Michael Ryder scored the winning goal.
Goal & assist for Krejci. The return of the Matrix?
random crap

• The poor sap on the Devils who blocked Chara's shot last night? broken leg.
• Kessel went end-to-end to score a goal for Toronto last night. I'd post a link, but you really don't need to see it.
  

Inter-Ference

Last night, Maxim Lapierre was takin' liberties in the crease on Tim Thomas. Andrew Ference pulled him aside and basically tried to get him to fight. Grappling him, pointing a finger at him, telling him what his mom did last night for the team, and all that stuff. LaPierre kept his gloves on. No fight, no penalties (actually, matching penalties away from the play).
This is yet another portion of the Bruins' game that has gone wrong. There have been 8 fighting majors from the Bruins this year, and none since the Ottawa game (in which there were 3 fights). That's 5 games without a fight, and only 1 win (Edmonton). While my fighting-majors-leads-to-wins analysis isn't complete, early indications show that a Shawn Thornton fight = win. So somebody tell Shawn that Thomas Vanek has been talking smack about him, and maybe we'll get the blood flowing again vs. the Sabres. If you're not going to score goals, fine; but if you're going to lose, then kill a few of your opponents. Our penalty kill is not that bad, we can take it.
random crap:

• Dane Byers (LB's cousin) was suspended 1 game for instigating. The apple does not fall far from the tree, folks.
• Check out Jack Edwards' Phil Kessel impression. For those who haven't seen it yet, Kessel was hit by Mattias Ohlund in his Maple Laff debut.
• Minnesota reports in with this depressing stat: Thru 9 home games last season, the Bruins were 7-1-1, scoring 38 goals and giving up 20. Thru 9 home games this season, the Bruins are 4-4-1, scoring 22 goals and giving up 24. Consider that last year we witnessed at 14-game home winning streak. This season, we go crazy over our 1st goal in 192 minutes.
  
• Yeah, that's Sobotka tied for 2nd on the team in hits with 29 (Chara is first with 35). Note that he's played half the games as anyone else on the team.
• Maple Leafs suck watch: Tied for 30th (last) in the league with Carolina. These 2 HORRIBLE teams play each other tonight.
• Terry O'Reilly pounds on Dave "Tiger" Williams.
• Hal Gill did not play last night. So disappointing, not being able to chant "Hal Gill sucks". It still amuses me how his homecomings are usually met with loud chants of how much he sucks. He probably says he doesn't care, but I hope a little bit of him dies inside each time he hears it.
  
• The contributor formerly known as "Section 311" is now "Morale Officer".
  

Latest on Kessel

Here's a look at some different opinions from around the web:

Bob McKenzie (Toronto blocking other deals)
KPD (pulling things out of thin air including Dubinsky)
Hockeybuzz.com (Preds point of view)
ESPN (Pierre Lebrun - brief discussions with the Wild?)
Joe Haggerty (more of the same)

Here's mine - I've said all along that this kid was going to get a lot better once he finished puberty. Unfortunately for the Bruins, I think he is about to. When this Spencer Pratt lookalike grows into his body, he will be much stronger on his skates and be able to score more goals. He managed 36 last year thanks to speed, his shot, and the occasional deke that actually worked. Add some strength to that and he's a 50-goal scorer in this league. I know a late-bloomer when I see one. On a much smaller and more pathetic scale, I went through the same thing when I played some small-time college hockey in Worcester.

I hate to see him go, but he has to if these rumors are true of multi-year deals worth $5.5M-$6.0M per year. The Bruins would be committing cap suicide by signing him for that and it would probably not be good for the team either. At that number, Michael Ryder would have to go to make room for him.

If you believe Bob McKenzie, an offer sheet could be coming down this weekend. According to all the rumors, we are going to know soon. I just hope he goes to the Western Conference and the Bruins score a nice package of draft picks.

Kessel For Kaberle - I don't think so...

The hot rumor today is Kessel for Kaberle. First, the Leafs were going to give up Kaberle AND their 7th overall draft selection for the rights to Kessel?!?! Bob McKenzie, I expect better from you. Later he recanted and said the Bruins offered Kessel and one of THEIR picks. This makes more sense, but i still think it’s bogus.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Tuukka and Sobotka are on the roster to start the season. That leaves the Bruins with 10 forwards, 5 d-men, and 2 goalies for a total of nearly $50M on the nose – if you don’t count bonuses (go here for that info). That means they have $6.8M to spend on Kessel, Hunwick, and Bitz. For this to work, Kessel would have to accept what Krejci got, which is what the B’s are probably offering. Goal-scorers are hard to come by and Kessel’s people probably want him to test the market so he is planning to enter the restricted free agency period as a Bruin. The Bruins may be shopping him and leaking this stuff to the press as a bargaining chip to try and get him signed before July 1. That’s all I see today’s reports as – a PR stunt and maybe a diversionary tactic.

Now, Chuck Kobasew has two years remaining on a deal that comes with a cap hit of $2.33M. This is cap-friendly and makes him a very tradeable asset. If the Bruins were to replace Chucky with Mikko Lehtonen (cap hit $600K with $200K bonus) for example, this would free up $1.5M. Now all of the sudden you have over $8M to sign Kessel, Hunwick, and Bitz. This should be enough and you have your 2009-10 Bruins. There is also the possibility of going out and making a Yelle-type signing like they did last year to fill that 4th line instead of Mikko.

I think they would trade Chucky to a team in the West to move up in the first round and snag a D-man.

That’s my speculation today – we’ll see how it pans out. This has the potential to be a very exciting draft because of the deals that might be made involving established NHLers.

“Deke, Deke, Deke!!!” will officially never be heard from 311 again if these rumors are true. No one wants that to happen.