Horrible.

Ya know, I got some real issues sending our non-hands guys in for the shootout. Chara? Are you kidding me? When you got Krejci & Bergeron on the bench?

The B's lost the other night, 7-6 in a shootout. I can't even begin to describe the oddity of 3 pretty good goaltenders getting smoked for a combined 12 goals.

Strangely, the B's seem to be patting themselves on the back after gaining 8 out of 10 points on the recent road trip. I dunno. I wasn't exactly impressed with all of the games, it wasn't like it was five 6-2 wins with total domination, ya know? The division is weak, so 8 out of 10 is good, but I don't like how they won (or, nearly lost) each game. Was so certain that the Laffs were going to put one in with 10 seconds left or some junk like that because that's the way it's been lately.

• I don't understand the logic of sending Ryder & Chara. Ryder, as usual, has nothing - he got lucky last night with his forehand wrister. Chara's got even less than nothing. He showed slapper and then attempted a wrister to go over Miller's blocker but hit him in the leg pad. Seguin returned to shootout form by smoking Miller with a backhand.
• Jack Edwards lost his mind during the Seguin-to-Kampfer goal, pretty much saying that "Seguin has arrived" and all sorts of stuff like that. He's lost it. He's also gotta stop wearing the double-breasted suits that swim on him. He needs a new suit guy.
• Hey, yeah, horrible officiating vs. the Sabres. Rask clearly had that puck tied up and the ref let the play continue and Stafford stuffed it in. Ference probably should have cleaned him out, but still.
  
• Didn't see the WC but I guess the Pens lost, which is good. I'm quite sick of the league blowing Crosby at every turn. 4 Penguins made the All-Star team. Crosby & Malkin, fine, whatever. Marc Andre Fleury, who had a HORRIBLE start, and Kris Letang. Kris Lefuckingtang? Shootout specialist, fo' sho', but All-Star? Toews & Duncan Keith were the other 2 All-Stars named.
  
• No Gerbe, No Kaleta the other night.
• So last night the B's beat the Laffs, 2-1. Cload threw Rask out there to get him back on the horse and Rask did pretty good. Goals by Horton (wicked shot from the slot) and Savvy (wicked shot from the slot). Yeah, I was actually watching the world juniors, too until the Hosers went up 3-0 and stopped watching after that - it was ova at that point. It's still disappointing to hear all about these hotshot players and very few of them being property of the Bruins.
• Savvy, startin' some shit in the corners before scoring his goal. Since he's not point-per-game these days, he's trying to compensate by roughing up folks after the whistle?
• After the blizzard, I lost cable & internet for a week while Comcast spent some time trying to figure out its shit. Turns out that I had "too much signal" (+30 dB) after a new cable drop was installed. I guess the usual signal is about +/- 10 dB. Who knew? stick salute to my sister who let me crash at her house so I could view the B's games. I ate all of her food.
  
• Check out this Jared Knight story at Kukla's Korner. Pretty sure he was one of the NKOTB, now he plays hockey...
• B's come home to play the Wild on Thursday night. Chuck Kobasew has 6-1-7 totals in 24 games.
• So the Florida Panthers have this promotion, ya, "We guarantee you'll have a good time, or your money back". holy shit, are you kidding me? Basically, you get a complimentary ticket if it's your birthday, or you're old, or a vet, or just graduated high school, or since we're talking Florida here, successfully nailed your sister.

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.