BRODEUR REGISTERS 104TH SHUTOUT

This blog rarely salutes the players on teams west of I-91, and particularly avoids honoring anyone that plays for teams in the Tri-State Area. But Martin Brodeur is good enough to surpass all that sectionalism.

He stopped all 35 shots in Pittsburgh last night, propelling the Devils to a 4-0 victory. It was 104th career shutout, which puts him on top of the all-time leaderboard, passing Terry Sawchuck.

I've been fortunate enough to see Brodeur play a few times, most recently in November. It's fun watching him play. He positions himself so well for the upcoming play, he makes most saves look easy. But he also makes the twisting contortionist stops.



Then there's his ability to handle the puck. He has 33 career assists, and 1 goal.



Everytime I talk about Brodeur, I feel like I have to list his major accomplishments. so here they are:

Most all-time wins (580)
Most shutouts (104)
8th best GAA all-time, best active (2.20)
3rd most saves all-time, most active (23,748)
9 time All-Star
93-94 Calder Trophy (rookie of the year)
4 time Jennings Trophy winner (lowest GAA)
4 time Vezina Trophy winner (best goalie)
3 time Stanley Cup winner
2002 Olympic Gold Medal (5 games, 4-0-1 record, 1.80 GAA)

YANKEES STUFFING THEIR STOCKINGS

The Yankees have completed their trade for Javier Vazquez today. Vazquez was 15-10 with a 2.87 ERA for the Braves last year. After struggling with the Yankees in '04, Vazquez has won 62 games in 5 seasons elsewhere.

It's not earth-shattering news, but it does give the Yankees rotation something it lacked: depth. Vazquez fits nicely as a #4 starter for them, which they literally did not have last year.



Red Sox Nation is about to panic. After New York won it all, we as fans were desperate to close the void with the Yankees. But that talent gap has merely widened.

The Sox have added John Lackey, giving their own rotation depth, but they missed out on Halladay, and left-field is still a looming question mark. The Sox made a sideways kind of deal (not an upgrade or downgrade), replacing Alex Gonzalez with Marco Scutaro at short-stop. The Sox line-up, as of now, looks like this:

1. CF Ellsbury
2. 2B Pedroia
3. C Martinez (who hits better as a 1B)
4. 1B Youkilis
5. DH Ortiz (hit .238 last year)
6. 3B Lowell (coming off surgery)
7. RF Drew (we all know the on-and-off love affair he has with the DL)
8. SS Scutaro
9. LF Mike Cameron

Not exactly murderer's row. Parts of it are more like Send in the Clowns.

Meanwhile, the World Champion Yankees have added Granderson and Vazquez.

This is what Theo meant by a "Bridge Season." It's going to be a long, cold off-season, Sox fans.



Sources:
Bloomberg
ESPN
Baseball-Reference.com

HOW HARD IS IT TO RECRUIT AT USC?

Imagine being the head coach of USC football, and traveling the country to recruit athletes. How do you mess that up?

You go to Ohio and tell some kid that it never gets colder than 50 degrees.

You go to Texas and tell some kid that USC is on national TV almost every week.

You go to Florida and tell some kid that USC goes to BCS Bowls, and Trojans go on to the NFL.

You go to northern California and tell some kid that USC is the 2nd biggest sports team in LA, behind only the Lakers.

You go to New Jersey and tell some kid that he'll have classmates like this:



With all this incentive to attend USC, why do the Trojans need to bend and break the rules?

USC's Joe McKnight, who rushed for 1,014 yards on 164 attempts, hasn't made the trip up to San Francisco with his team. He was spotted driving an expensive SUV, which he claims belongs to his girlfriend, but the lease is owned by an LA businessman. This is what's known as a "friend of the program."

I think every major program in the country has "anomalies" like this. It's next to impossible to completely police this kind of stuff. And this certainly doesn't seem to be sanctioned by USC itself. But still, it's so easy to recruit guys to go there, it's funny that they also need loaner SUVs too.

TIMMY!!!

Tim Thomas has 8 wins this season. And 4 shutouts. That speaks to how good he's been, and how inconsistent the Bruins have been for him. Ryan Miller and Ilya Bryzgalov are the only other goalies in the NHL with 4 shutouts. Miller has 20 wins, Bryzgalov has 19. Tim Thomas has 8. Can you say statistical anomaly?



Timmy got some help in this one. Boychuck gets an assist on this shutout. Wideman returned and had a very good outing. And scoring 2 goals was the biggest help of all.

The Bruins didn't commit any stupid penalties and leave themselves shorthanded. It wasn't until 18:31 into the 3rd that the Bruins committed any penalty at all, and it was part of double-matching-minors. Yesterday, I stressed how much silly penalties can handicap an offense. I'm glad the Bruins were listening.

It was nice to see some variety between the Bruins' goals. Bergeron got his off a rebound, which came about due to a strong forecheck. Sturm got his on a breakaway, keyed by Chara and Savard.

Bergeron and Sturm, who combined for 15 goals last season, have already amassed 19 between them. Sturm's 10 lead the team, and Bergeron's 9 are 2nd best. I know the offense has struggled, and some might argue that Phil Kessel is sorely missed, but the scoring from these two guys have helped fill the offensive void left by Kessel.

It was a big road win against a key divisional opponent, and the Bruins are now 3-0 against Ottawa. 3 points from this 3 game trip is a decent result.

The Bruins engage the Southern Division for a few games, hosting Atlanta on Wednesday, then travelling to play the Panthers and Lightning, then back up to Boston to once again host Atlanta.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick

LOWELL TO STAY

The trade between the Rangers and Red Sox, which would've sent Mike Lowell to Texas, along with $9 million, in return for a minor league catcher, has been cancelled. It turns out that Lowell needs surgery on his right thumb in order to repair a torn ligament.

And I'm not too disappointed. And I don't know why the Rangers would accept this deal, then nix it because of this. Lowell will miss 6-8 weeks due to the surgery, which isn't that bad. And the Rangers were only committed to paying 1/4 of his salary, or $3 million.

Wasn't the whole appeal of this transaction, at least for the Rangers, that they'd get an experienced but injury-prone bat for a modest price? Has something changed this notion?

Whatever. I'm not upset by this at all. The trade only made sense if the Sox acquired another corner infielder, which they haven't done yet. You don't dry clothes before you wash him, and you don't trade a guy then HOPE you'll find his necessary replacement.

Lowell and Kotchman can platoon in the lineup, with Youkilis and Martinez filling in at 3rd and 1st, respectively. Lowell can also DH, which is nice because David Ortiz is close to washed up in my book.

Source:
Boston Globe

WHAT THE BRUINS DID OVER THE WEEKEND

The Bruins played a pair of road games this weekend. As to be expected, they looked like completely different teams from night to night.

On Friday, in Chicago, they stole a point in what eventually became a 5-4 shootout loss. The Blackhawks boast a pretty talented team this season, and had 21,717 fans supporting them Friday night. David Krejci had his 2nd career multi-goal game, the other also came on December 18, in 2008 when he registered a hat-trick against Toronto.

The Bruins allowed a staggering 44 shots on goal, and allowed Chicago's offense too much space and time. It wasn't the defense-in-depth that we've been accustomed to here since Julien took over. But a point in Chicago is a nice early Christmas gift.

Then Saturday night, it was just sad. Rask was decent, but allowed a silly goal to trickle between his legs. But the real horror show was the offense. Apart from breakaways, the Bruins hardly pressured Jonas Gustavsson, who made 25 saves on his way to his first career shutout.

The Bruins' offensive woes are caused by multiple things. Here are some that were evident Saturday night:

1) Too many stupid penalties:
Toronto had 6 power plays. And although they were 0 for 6, that's a significant chunk of the game spent in your own zone, not focusing on scoring goals. It's also a waste of potential offensive minutes for some of your key offensive players (Sturm, Savard, Wheeler, Chara, Krejci). Two Bruins' power plays were abbreviated by their own penalties. And these were really stupid penalties too.

2) No battles won along the boards:
You miss guys like Lucic in this area. Some players, like Bitz and Sobotka, can consistently go into a corner and come out with a puck. But with most of the Bruins, it's about a 50/50 bet. It gets to the point that you don't want to do it at all, because you don't want to give up possession so easily.

3) Too many shots into traffic:
How can this be a bad thing? Well, when the opposing defensive players are the traffic, your long-range shots become interceptions. Toronto blocked 21 shots (the B's got 25 to the net). Very frequently, those shots turned into breakaways for them, like the 3-on-2 that resulted in their 2nd goal. Morris, and now Chara, shoot too much from the points. They don't have shooting lanes, yet still let it fly.

In fact, the Bruins rarely shoot at the net, they shoot TOWARD the net, in the general direction of the net. That recent offensive drought seemed to convince them that it's impossible to shoot at the net and score. You have to shoot toward the net, hope for a deflection or rebound. And while there's nothing wrong with that, if 100% of your offense is slap-and-hope, you won't score as often as you should.

The Bruins are in Ottawa tonight. Think it's cold here? It'll be 11 degrees up there when the puck drops at 7:30.

Johnny Boychuck is now among the ranks of my favorite Bruins.



Source:
ESPN

Photo Credits:

AP Photo

COLLEGE BOWL PICKS/PREVIEWS: PART II

Three more picks for bowl games this week...

Tuesday 12/22 - 8:00PM - ESPN
Las Vegas Bowl - Las Vegas, NV
#18 Oregon St. Beavers @ #14 BYU Cougars
This is by far the most intriguing matchup of the early bowl season. Oregon State was 4 points shy of a Rose Bowl berth. BYU only lost to TCU and Florida State, and like most non-BCS teams, has a chip on its shoulder. But I think Oregon State will use its Pac-10 speed to run circles around BYU. OSU has just as much to prove as BYU, and they'll prevail.



Wednesday 12/23 - 8:00PM - ESPN
Poinsettia Bowl - San Diego, CA
#23 Utah Utes vs. California Golden Bears
Jahvid Best will determine this bowl game. If he shows up, Cal wins. If not, Utah wins. Pretty simple. But I say he shows up and Cal wins.



Thursday 12/24 - 8:00PM - ESPN
Hawaii Bowl - Honolulu, HA
Nevada Wolf Pack vs. SMU Mustangs
Apart from the BCS Bowls, this has to be the best bowl game to go to. Honestly, would you care if you won or lost? You get to spend December in Hawaii. Of course, it'd be nice to let cold weather teams come here more often, instead of teams from Reno and Dallas. Nevada wins this one because SMU sucks.



More previews Wednesday.

THANK YOU BUFFALO

The Bills sent another gift-wrapped divisional win to the Patriots yet again. That's 13 straight Bills/Patriots games that have seen New England on top. And the good news filtered in from elsewhere that the Jets lost, and so did the Dolphins. The Patriots now have a stranglehold on the AFC East, and can clinch with a win next Sunday at home.

But how good is the AFC East? It's competitive, but I can make a strong case that it's one of the worst divisions in the NFL. Just look at its QBs apart from Brady, who hasn't been that stellar, by the by.

"Randy Moss is Back" will be the refrain of the week. And I'm not that surprised. Having TO on the opposing sideline motivates Randy Moss from sluggish scrub into Rocky Balboa.



It was an ugly win. And not like a good ugly win. Like five 1st downs in the 2nd half ugly. That's it for the Pats. Only five 1st downs. That works against Buffalo, it doesn't against Miami, New York, Indianapolis, and Denver. And we all know this inability to finish games is not a new phenomenon.

Jaguars @ Patriots Sunday at 1. A win clinches the AFC East. The Pats can still clinch with a loss if both New York and Miami lose.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo