Claude Julien, who had 1 year left on his deal, and the Bruins agreed to a "multi-year extension." This should keep Julien behind the Bruin bench into the mid 2010s. Last year, he became only the 3rd Bruins head coach to win the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year.
He's won 94 games in 2 seasons as Bruins head coach, accumulated 210 points, and made the playoffs twice. He's helped develop young players like Milan Lucic, Phil Kessel, and David Krejci into true forces on the ice. He's also helped veteran players like Marco Sturm along. Everybody seems to get better when they become a Bruin, and Julien is a big part of that.
Pedro Martinez outdueled Cy Young winner Tim Linecum for his 3rd win of the season. He went 7 innings, scattered 5 hits, allowed only 1 run, and struck out 9.
As a Phillie, he's made 5 starts (oddly enough he's allowed 3 leadoff homeruns in those 5 starts), gone 3-0, with a 3.52 ERA and a very tidy 1.09 WHIP. I wish the Red Sox had him, and not just because he can turn water into wine. But he can also pitch.
Remember when Clay Buchholz first threw to Victor Martinez, and a few Jason Varitek ball-washers moaned about V-Mart's lack of game-calling prowess. Buchholz has had 5 Quality Starts since then, so eat it, Varitek lovers.
Buchholz went 6 innings, followed by Wagner, Bard, then Papelbon. That's going to be the ideal gameplan down the stretch. There's a lot of heat in that trio.
The Rays are all but done. 6 out with only 29 games to go, and the Rangers to leapfrog over. It doesn't look good. They already gave up on Kazmire, and without 8 players having fluky career years, they just aren't that great.
The Sox travel to Chicago for a 4 game series against the floundering White Sox. Paul Byrd faced Freddy Garcia (is this 2001?) Friday night.
Yet another BCS conference that fails to impress. The Big East lost a boatload of talent to the NFL last year, turning good teams into solid teams, solid teams into bad teams, and bad teams into crappy teams. Fun fact: the Big East has ZERO teams ranked in the pre-season Top 25. Cincinatti was 29th, followed by Pitt at 30th, then WVU, and Rutgers. The Mountain West has three teams in the Top 25.
#1 CINCINNATI BEARCATS The Bearcats surprised everyone with an 11-3 record and their first BCS appearance. QB-WR combo Tony Pike and Mardy Gilyard return. The defense only returns one starter, but compared to how much talent the rest of the conference lost, Cincinnati's not doing too bad. Cincinnati will get the BCS berth from the Big East, essentially by default. Their offense will be explosive, their defense vulnerable, but who the hell else will challenge them?
Key Games: 9/19 @ Oregon State 10/15 @ South Florida 11/13 vs. West Virginia 12/5 @ Pittsburgh
Prediction: 10-3, Big East Champion, BCS Bowl loss
#2 WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS The electrifying and overrated Pat White is gone. But RB Noel Devine remains. Devine rushed for 1,289 yards last year, and should finally emerge from White's shadow. Jarrett Brown will replace White (these names remind me of Reservoir Dogs) under center. Well WVU is never under center, so he'll replace White in the gun. Not surprisingly, Brown spent a lot of time as a slot receiver and runningback in 2008. The Mountaineers have some holes on defense and in their O-line, they also have to travel to Ohio to play Cincinnati. That's why they'll finish 2nd.
Key Games: 9/19 @ Auburn 10/30 @ South Florida 11/13 @ Cincinnati 11/27 vs. Pittsburgh
Prediction: 8-5, loss in Sun Bowl
#3 SOUTH FLORIDA BULLS Matt Grothe starts for his 4th and final year at USF. He's a gunslinger, barely throwing more TDs than INTs, but he's South Florida's biggest and only offensive threat. He's lead the team in rushing all 3 years he's been there, which is really due to a lack of good RBs than anything else. The Bulls need to find replacements on their offensive line to protect Grothe, or they'll struggle to attain bowl eligibility. Yet this is the Big East, so that means they'll be good enough to finish 3rd. Both Cincinnati and West Virginia have to travel down to Tampa, and play USF at night, which is a very tall task. I think the Bulls will steal one of those games.
Key Games: 10/15 vs. Cincinnati 10/24 @ Pittsburgh 10/30 vs. West Virginia 11/12 @ Rutgers 11/21 vs. Louisville
Prediction: 8-5, loss in Gator Bowl
#4 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS I'll give credit to most Big East teams for scheduling halfway decent non-conference opponents. All except Rutgers, that is. Howard, Florida International, Texas Southern, Maryland, Army. These cupcakes and RU's proximity to New York will propel them to an undeserved spot in the Top 25. But they are solid, returning all 5 on their O-line (as well as 4 backups), and pretty much their entire RB corps. They also face most of the top Big East teams at home.
Key Games: 9/7 vs. Cincinnati 10/16 vs. Pittsburgh 11/12 vs. South Florida 12/5 vs. West Virginia
Prediction: 8-5, Meineke Bowl win
#5 PITTSBURGH PANTHERS The Panthers are good at linebacker, D-Line and WR. That's pretty much it. The QB spot is still wide open, with no clear candidates separating from the pack. They lost some good talent to the NFL on the defensive side of things. They'll muddle around the Big East and romp on the crappy teams. But they'll struggle in every game against average talent or better.
Key Games: 10/24 vs. South Florida 11/14 vs. Notre Dame 11/27 @ West Virginia 12/5 vs. Cincinnati
Prediction: 7-6, International Bowl win
And the rest in alphabetical order...
CONNECTICUT HUSKIES UConn was a pleasant surprise last year, starting the season 5-0, and finishing 8-5. But they lost a lot of talent to the Draft, including RB Donald Brown in the 1st round to the Colts. They have a decent D, but their offense will struggle without Brown.
LOUISVILLE CARDINALS RB Victor Anderson rushed for 1,047 yards his freshman year, but he's the lone bright spot on a very ugly Louisville squad. Their QB situation is one of the biggest messes in college football. They have a transfer from NC State, a JuCo transfer, and a redshirt freshman all competing for the position, with none good enough to win the spot yet. UL will be seeing a lot of L's this year.
SYRACUSE ORANGE As if you needed more reason to hate Syracuse, hometown zero Greg Paulus transferred from Duke to play football for the Orange. So now Cuse has their own natural lameness, but also the lameness of Duke. The Orange has a new coach, and allegedly have a new direction, but they still suck.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired offensive coordinator and ex-BC boss Jeff Jagodzinski. They named QB coach Greg Olson as his successor. In case you forgot, Coach Jags was fired by Boston College for intervieiwing to be an NFL head coach. He never got an offer for that position, but wound up in Tampa Bay as a coordinator.
He rode the Matt Ryan wave of success as long as he could, but it just ran out of momentum for him.
Tight-end has been a bit disappointing for the Patriots the last 2 or 3 years. Ben Watson went from a promising threat (643 yards, 49 receptions, 13.1 yard average in 2006) to an unreliable and inconsistent second-thought on the offense. Watson was 2nd on the team with his 49 receptions in 2006. But in 2007, with the emergence of Moss and Welker, Watson's production expectedly dropped. But what wasn't expected was that without consistent passes coming his way, Watson struggled to hang onto the ball.
In response to this, the Patriots acquired veterans Chris Baker and Alex Smith. With up-and-coming Texas product David Thomas, there's simply too many people for too few spots.
The Patriots don't need Dallas Clark or Jason Witten production out of TE. They need good blocking (since they lack fullbacks), good pass protection, and outlets. Watson's numbers were so good in 2006 because the receiving corps sucked on toast. Pro Bowl numbers from any tight-end this year means that there's something wrong with the Patriots offense.
Watson is out, or so it seems. He hasn't been in preseason games. It feels like the Patriots might be trying to deal him for a late pick, which they customarily do when they're about to release someone. Even if Watson stays, it looks like Chris Baker will get most of the snaps at the position.
David Thomas hasn't turned into the producer I thought he might be, but in an offense with Moss and Welker, how often does your #2 TE get on the field and run a route? Thomas is a good 250 pound blocker to have in short yardage and goal line situations.
Regardless of who makes the team at this spot, I think it will be a decent year for Patriot tight-ends. Again, there won't be any eye-popping numbers. But there will be blocking, and there will be outlet passing, and there will be some TDs. Give Brady a good tight-end, and he will find him in big spots. That good tight-end is Chris Baker.
So who's to blame for the Red Sox 8-5 loss to Tampa Bay Wednesday night? Only Josh Beckett, Jason Varitek, Jacoby Ellsbury, Terry Francona, Alex Gonzalez, Ramon Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Manny Delcarmen. That's about it.
Let's slice up the blame pie...
Beckett was perhaps the primary culprit. He allowed 5 runs (4 earned) in 6 innings. He settled down after the first 2 innings, but still couldn't go very deep into the game, and would have been in-line for the Loss, had the Sox not rallied in the 8th. Beckett hasn't registered a Quality Start since August 12th.
Jason Varitek can't hit. I don't care how good of a game-caller he is, his offensive ineptitude kills this lineup. Especially when you have a guy like Alex Gonzalez hitting 9th, then Varitek 8th, that makes the bottom of the order very easy for opposing pitchers to navigate. Too easy. He's hitting .169 since the All-Star Break, and he hit .135 in August. Dreadful.
Jacoby Ellsbury had multiple RBI opportunities, but failed to cash-in on any of them. He was 0 for 4, and 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position.
Francona bungled the end of this game, although not in a clear-cut way. With the bases loaded and 1 out, he probably should have used Mike Lowell to pinch hit for Alex Gonzalez. But Gonzalez has been hot, and swinging the bat well. Francona also had Ramirez start the bottom of the 8th after 30+ minutes sitting on the bench. Neither decision worked out well, although both were understandable.
The afore mentioned Alex Gonzalez was 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position, including that bases loaded strikeout.
Ramon Ramirez was lights-out in the 7th, then lit-up in the 8th. In only 4 pitches, he'd allowed a double, and a single, giving the Rays' a 6-5 lead.
David Ortiz did have an RBI groundout and a walk, but he failed to get a hit with runners in scoring position, despite having 3 chances to do so.
Manny Delcarmen came in to replace Ramirez. But the quick-step hit parade continued. Declarmen only needed 2 pitches to allow a 2 run homer and a double. In only 5 pitches, Ramirez and Delcarmen turned a 5-5 game into an 8-5 Tampa Bay win.
The Sox lost ground everywhere, as the Yankees and Rangers both won. The AL East race is all but over, as the Sox are 7.5 back. They have a 2.5 game Wild Card cushion over Texas, with Tampa Bay still alive and 5 games behind.
Clay Buchholz faces David Price in the rubber game Thursday night.
It's September 2nd. NHL rookie camps have already started. The regular season is less than a month away. And Phil Kessel's future remains very much in doubt. He's a restricted free agent, asking for $5M a year. This amount is way too much for the Bruins to pay and remain under the cap. They'd essentially have to cut another key forward in order to pay him.
Being a restricted free agent means that if another team offers him a contract, the Bruins can match it. If the Bruins choose not to match (they cannot match $5 million), they get compensated. If another team signs Kessel for $5 million, that team has to give the Bruins their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round draft picks. That's not peanuts. And the picks have to be the team's ORIGINAL picks. So if, for example, Edmonton trades away its 2nd pick in the 2010 draft, they can't even make an offer to Kessel.
And this is what Kessel's up against. Not only are few teams willing to take on $5M in salary (about 9% or 1/11 of the total cap), but few are willing to give up so many picks. The big teams like Detroit don't have the cap space to add Kessel. The rebuilding teams don't want to forfeit desperately needed draft picks.
Then there's actually assessing Kessel's worth. It's true he led the Bruins in goals, but he also had Marc Savard's brilliant passing to assist him. He only had 24 assists as a top-line forward, and a top-power-play forward. That's why he was 3rd in total points on the team.
He had the same amount of assists as PJ Axelsson.
Then there's who he scored against. Again, 36 goals, 24 assists, 60 points, and +23, those were his season numbers.
Against the Islanders (worst record in the NHL), he scored 5 goals, and 3 assists in only three games. Against the Lightning (2nd worst record in NHL), he had 4 goals and 1 assist. So 9 of his goals (25% or 1/4), came against the worst two teams in hockey. 4 of his assists (17%), also came in those games.
Against non-playoff Eastern Conference teams, he scored 26 goals, 13 assists, and was +16. So against the West, and the Eastern playoff teams, he had 9 goals, 11 assists, and was +7. That's not very impressive.
Of course, it's expected that good players feast on bad teams. But even Kessel's overall numbers are hardly earth shattering. He was 12th in the League in goals, 59th in points, and 180th in assists.
He is young, turning 22 on October 2nd, but that's not a major asset in the NHL, especially in the salary cap era. GMs want sure things, not potential, especially when $5 million is the asking price. Then there's his rotator cuff injury and subsequent surgery. More question marks. He's out until mid-October at the earliest, November at the most likeliest. And who knows what kind of player he'll be.
I understand his desire for the big contract. He and agent Wade Arnott probably assumed all year that Kessel would be getting paid big time. But they're going to have to wait a year.
San Jose is the popular rumored destination for him, but they too would have to cut some fat to pay him. Why would you cut players, ship draft picks, and spend money just for a slight upgrade?
The Bruins have plenty of depth at forward. Kessel's undoubtedly the best scorer they have, but they can score without him. Savard, Lucic, Krejci, Wheeler, Kobasew, Bitz, Sturm, Bergeron, Ryder, there's no lack of answers up front.
If I were Kessel's agent (and not a Bruins fan), I'd advise him to take a small, 1 year contract with the Bruins, try to score another 35 to 40 goals, and cash in a year from now, when there'd be no draft pick compensation, and no questions surrounding the shoulder.
But i think he'll take a small deal on an offer sheet from a team like San Jose, instead of a slightly smaller contract from the Bruins.
