Bruins Make "Meh" Trade for Andrej Meszaros

The Bruins needed to add a defenseman. If they failed to do so, their chances of winning a Stanley Cup would have been quite small. They traded a 3rd round pick to the Philadelphia Flyers for defenseman Andrej Meszaros. It's a very "meh" trade.

Meszaros is 28-years-old, 6' 2" tall and weighs 223 pounds. He's played with Zdeno Chara as a member of the Ottawa Senators, who originally drafted him late in the 1st round of the '04 draft. He's played in 38 games this season with 5 goals, 12 assists and a +1. He has 46 games of playoff experience in Ottawa and Philly.

My main concern is penalty killing. Since losing Dennis Seidenberg, the Bruins' penalty kill has statistically been one of the worst in the League.

Meszaros is averaging 0:51 of shorthanded ice time per game this season. Once again, meh.

I'm not thrilled about that. That's good that he plays on the penalty kill. And he improves the defense, adds depth, et cetera. He reportedly has played well with Zdeno Chara in the past. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli is familiar with him, as he was part of Ottawa's front office when Meszaros was drafted. So maybe he'll improve as a member of the Bruins.

So the Bruins slightly improved their biggest weakness. Hopefully Meszaros does work well with Chara. Hopefully they click. Hopefully Chara can make Meszaros a better player.

All I know is the Bruins have a suspect penalty kill and special teams takes on added importance in the postseason. I don't think the penalty kill improved much, although it did improve somewhat. Time will tell.

Until we know, my reaction to this trade is just "meh."

Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas To Be Teammates in Florida

Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas are now reportedly teammates. In the summer of 2013 I wrote a post imagining the hilarious, reality-TV style drama that would ensue if the Vancouver Canucks signed Thomas, making he and Luongo teammates. Now Luongo will be taking his whining and choking to South Beach.

Florida is where Luongo wanted to go. He used to play there, still has a house there, and who wouldn't want to spend the winter in Florida?

It also seems like the perfect place for him to avoid pressure. He's going from a hockey obsessed market to southern Florida, where they don't even know they have a team. He's going from a franchise that expects to be in contention for Stanley Cups, to a club that's happy just to qualify for the playoffs. The less pressure there is, the better Luongo plays.

Here was how his unofficial/unconfirmed/but-everyone-knows-it's-him Twitter account announced the news Tuesday afternoon:

The move makes sense for Vancouver. They're reportedly getting goalie prospect Jacob Markstrom in return. They'll shed themselves of most of Luongo's salary cap hit, and all of his drama.

Florida gets an experienced quality goalie. I love Tim Thomas but I think his career as a starter is coming to a close. Luongo is 5 years younger. In the games I've seen this year, Thomas has been sluggish, and easily rattled. Maybe in a backup role Thomas can maintain his quickness, and get less frustrated.

For Bruins fans this is great. Bobby Lu is now in the same division as the B's.

For the record, Luongo did apologize for his criticisms of Thomas after the 2011 Cup Finals. As long as Luongo sticks to Twitter and Thomas to Facebook, things should remain professional in the Florida Panthers locker room. And if two goalies clash, and there's no fans around to care about it, does it make a sound?

Bruins 6, Rangers 3, Oscars Style

Last night the 86th Academy Awards were held in LA. In New York, the 681st meeting between the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers was also held. The Bruins won the game 6-3. There were many compelling performances. And since it was Oscar night, I thought it would be appropriate to do a game recap by awarding awards in the style of the Oscars.

Let's start off with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jarome Iginla who scored Boston's first goal and added an assist. He's scored 18 goals this season, and is almost assured of a 20+ goal season, his 15th. He also has 46 points, on the verge of 50. This would be his 15th 50+ point season. Apart from the recent lockout shortened season, he hasn't fallen short of 50 points since 1997-98. That was also the last time he failed to score 20+ goals, apart from the lockout shortened season. Over 500 goals and over 1,100 points. Quite a career.

Best Supporting Actor goes to David Krejci. Krejci had 2 assists in the game. And on Iginla's goal it was his puck support and then his pass that set Iginla up for the score. Krejci is one of the best supporters in the League.

There is no Academy Award for best new actor, but Dougie Hamilton would have won its hockey equivalent Sunday night. He scored the Bruins' second goal by driving to the net while Iginla won a puck battle on the boards.

The award for Best Foreign Film should go to Carl Soderberg of Sweden. Soderberg roofed a shot that beat countryman Henrik Lundqvist in the 2nd period. Of all the non-American, non-Canadian players, he was the best. It certainly wasn't Lundqvist, who seemed a shell of himself. Nor was it Tuukka Rask, who let in some soft goals and some tired goals.

Best Makeup goes to Ryan McDonagh, who was bloodied late in the 2nd period.

Best Costume Design DID NOT go to the Bruins, as they were frequently undressed in the neutral zone. Too many turnovers, too many breakaway chances for the Rangers, and the Rangers capitalized on most of them.

There's no award for product placement, but Gregory Campbell's mmmm, mmmm good shorthanded goal in the 3rd would certainly garner a nomination if such a category did exist. Campbell's soup, baby.

About 16 minutes into the 3rd, Ryan McDonagh won the award for Best Actor when he collapased to the ice after a light jostling from Jarome Iginla. I didn't buy it. The refs didn't buy it. The Academy didn't but it.

Best Cinematography is an award given to the person who shoots the camera best. So it's essentially the Best Shooter Award. In this game, Gregory Campbell, with 2 goals on 3 shots, was the best shooter.

So there we have the Bruins/Rangers Academy Awards. The Bruins' next performance will be in Boston against the Panthers on Tuesday night.

Photo Credit:
Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Bruins Lose to Buffalo, Torey Krug Should Have Been on Team USA

The Bruins could have won this game. They should have. They didn't. Let's start with the reasons why they didn't, then move on to the reasons why they could have.

They lost because Chad Johnson is a backup goalie. They lost because of rusty players in their first game after a long break. Neither of those two reasons is cause for much concern. What is cause for concern is that the B's allowed yet another power play goal. Since losing Dennis Seidenberg, the penalty kill has gone from a strength to a slight liability.

There were two Buffalo goals in regulation that could have been prevented with stronger play from the defensemen. The Bruins need to acquire a defensive defenseman. They need a guy who can do the basics of the position and play the penalty kill.

On the bright side, there were plenty of reasons that the Bruins could/should/would have won this game. The power play was amazing. Chara scored a power play goal by camping out in front of the net. And his net-front presence helped Milan Lucic score another power play goal.

Torey Krug also played a big part on Lucic's goal. Krug used the space behind the net to set up a play. Chara and Jarome Iginla kept the Buffalo penalty killers occupied in front of the net. Lucic was wide open on the point and slammed it home.

Maybe Team USA could have used Krug. Not as part of the regular 6-man defensive pairs, but as a specialist on the power play. Krug's 2 power play assists in this game give him 18 PP points on the season. The Bruins have scored 37 power play goals as a team, Krug has been a factor in almost half of them. Among defensemen, he's 10th in power play points. Among American defensemen his 6 PP goals are the most, his 18 points are 5th most. Then again Team USA didn't select the top two US defensemen in power play points (Keith Yandle and Dustin Byfuglien), so what chance did Krug have?

Team USA had plenty of offense when they played Canada and Finland. Ugh.

It's going to be a long time before I get over the Olympics.

Anyway, the Bruins looked much more energized and in rhythm in the later stages of this game. They came back from a 2 goal deficit, took a lead, and Buffalo needed a lucky deflection off Johnny Boychuk's skate to set up their tying goal. This game is not an indicator of the beginning of a poor stretch of play.

The Bruins host the Capitals Saturday afternoon.

Photo Credit:
Gary Wiepart/Associated Press

Taco Bell to Offer Breakfast Starting in March

Behold, the waffle breakfast taco. This is the spearhead of Taco Bell's impending foray into the fast-food breakfast battle field. A field dominated by McDonald's. The waffle taco is part of a complete breakfast menu. It's eggs and cheese, wrapped in a sausage or bacon, wrapped in a waffle, and covered in syrup. A Taco Bell spokesperson stated that they hope to be a "Strong Number 2" in the fast-food breakfast space. I think people who speak for Taco Bell should be more careful about inadvertent poop puns.

Taco Bell will also serve their breakfast later, until 11:00 a.m. McDonald's serves breakfast until 10:30 but is considering pushing that to 11:00 as well.

But I think if Taco Bell wants to make serious money with their waffle taco, they should serve it after 11:00 p.m.. Especially on Fridays and Saturdays. This item has drunken indulgence written all over it.

The same goes for breakfast at McDonald's. Serve these items to people driving home from bars on weekend nights. Hash browns, McMuffins, waffle tacos. I kind of want to get drunk right now just to eat a whole mess of breakfast crap. Covered in Buffalo sauce.

NFL to Solve Racism By Banning N-Word... Homophobic Slurs Soon to Follow?

The NFL is considering banning the N-word on the field of play. Players who use the word could be assessed a 15 yard penalty. This proposal comes after the Richie Incognito bullying/hazing/abuse scandal. There's also a strong possibility that Michael Sam will become the NFL's first openly homosexual player. With eyes and ears open and looking for bigotry in the NFL, the League is motivated to crack down on slurs like the N-word. And perhaps homophobic slurs are next.

It's a nice sentiment from the NFL, but incorrectly focused. It's addressing the symptoms of an illness, but not the cause. Richie Incognito's behavior, for example, is a symptom of a much worse, much more deeply embedded disease. And he'd still be a complete jerk and his actions would still be egregiously wrong even if he never called Jonathan Martin a n-----.

And homophobia doesn't disappear just because people don't call someone a f-- to their face. Any discrimination and any obstacles Michael Sam might face will not be eliminated if the f-word is eliminated from the field of play.

Most of the times you hear n----- on the field, it's from one black player to another. Although sometimes it will be from a white wide receiver to a black security guard. Most of the time it will be between two or more black players, sometimes on the same team, sometimes on different teams, sometimes in a casual way, sometimes as part of aggressive trash talk.

A rule intended to reduce racism against black players will wind up penalizing more black players than white racists.

Enforcing this rule will add more workload to officials who already struggle to enforce basic black and white (forgive the pun) rules in a consistent manner. Officials will have to monitor the voices of 22 men on a field, surrounded by dozens of yelling players and coaches on the sideline, all while 70,000 fans are screaming. Good luck, refs.

This also means louder stadiums will see fewer penalties called. Crowd noise on offense/defense will also have an impact on this penalty.

And if two players from opposing teams both use it, then it offsets? What if one uses it twice and the other only once? What if the ref only hears one player? What if the ref hears it in a pile but can't identify who said it? And it's one thing for a ref to mistakenly call pass interference, it's another if a ref mistakenly penalizes a player for racism.

Officiating decisions determined too many games last year. This misguided attempt to remove racism from the game shouldn't allow officials to spoil any more games with their inconsistent application of rules.

Rules like this would be better enforced with fines after games, and possible suspensions for repeated violations or extreme incidents (example: a white player using the word toward a black player). There are many microphones surrounding a football field, and audio can be reviewed, enhanced, and analyzed. Use technology for this, not human ears, which are prone to human error.

The NFL is taking on a challenge that can't be solved by rules or by removing words from the field. Race relations/civil rights is one of the most complex and contentious issues in American history. I don't think the NFL is going to eliminate any racism in their League by eliminating racist language from the game.

This is an attempt to make a show of effort. It's just for display. After the Incognito story and the impending arrival of Michael Sam, the NFL is being scrutinized. And its skeletons are out in the open, not even hidden in closets. They even have a team called the Redskins!

The NFL is now trying to seem like these issues are an important priority. Either that or the League is misguided/dumb enough to think that penalizing players for words will do anything to eliminate bigotry.

The NFL is a League of contradiction between how it wants to be perceived and how it actually is. The NFL wants a clean image to go along with its product of violence and primal intensity. They want players faster and stronger and hitting each other with more brutality, but they don't want bonuses paid out for hard hits. They want players who push their bodies beyond normal human tolerances, but not if certain substances are used to surpass those tolerances.

Now they want men who play with raw emotions and use their instinct instead of thinking, but who also watch their language.

Tribute to Harold Ramis

Harold Ramis passed away on Monday at the age of 69. When I was a kid, his character Egon was my favorite in Ghostbusters, probably because he had glasses and was nerdy, just like me. When I grew up I discovered that Ramis had a hand in creating all the characters in Ghosbusters and Ghostbusters II as the screenwriter. He wasn't just funny on the screen in movies like Stripes, his writing and directing was making me and everyone else laugh in movies like Caddyshack, Analyze This, and Groundhog Day.

Think about how many laughs you've laughed in your life. And how many of them were generated by Harold Ramis. It's a considerable percentage. What keeps me from being completely and utterly depressed by that thought is that he'll continue to make all of us laugh for years. Because these movies are still hilarious and always will be.

He added lots of laughter to a lot of lives. He also added to our language.

"So I got that going for me."

As an actor he could make you laugh with just an expression. Like in this clip from Stripes...

And this one from Ghostbusters II...

He worked great as part of a duo or team of funny actors, like here with Bill Murray...

In his movies he took the normal and expected behavior of people and made it funny. What I mean by that is he used the language that people such as psychologists use on a normal basis, as a means of being humorous. To Ramis, a funny psychologist was a psychologist who acted like a psychologist, not one who acted zany or outside the expected norms of his role in society. And even when this shrink finds himself in an unfamiliar setting, even as he tries to blend in with that setting, he still acts like a shrink. As demonstrated by Billy Crystal's character in Analyze This...

There's rising tension as the scene reaches its climax and one character is about to kill another, yet you're laughing.

In Bedazzled he did something similar with the way athletes and sports commentators speak. Bedazzled is okay, it's not great, it has some great parts. And it has Elizabeth Hurley's parts...

In Bedazzled these are slightly exaggerated caricatures of what sports media and athletes are like, but there is a basis of truth to how the characters speak and act. Which is why it's funny. Ramis would create a normal character who was different and eccentric enough to be funny, but not too different to stretch believability and become cartoonish.

What I liked most about Ramis was his unique delivery. His jokes came naturally, they surprised you, they didn't make you burst out laughing but instead make you shake your head and laugh once you got the joke. At the very end of this clip from Ghostbusters II he does something that makes you laugh and you don't see it coming at all, because the dialogue is so natural, and so typical of a normal scene in a normal movie. That's when humor can have its most lasting and strongest effect...

In Stripes, his line "I'll be right behind you guys, every step of the way," is so exquisitely phrased, timed, delivered. It's just perfect.

He starred in, wrote, and directed some of the all time best comedies in a generation. He worked with greats like Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Billy Crystal, Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase. He also worked with modern comedic actors like Jack Black, Michael Cera, and David Cross in Year One. He had a small but hilarious role in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He directed four episodes of The Office with Steve Carell. He got to direct Robert De Niro. Twice. That's quite a career.

He was a genius of comedy. R.I.P.

Canada Wins Hockey Gold in Convincing Fashion

There are only two Winter Olympic sports I genuinely care about: hockey and curling. Canada won gold in both sports, both genders. I guess it's nice that Canada has something to be proud of, but seeing groups of Canadians happy just irritates me for some reason.

At the same time I'm happy for Patrice Bergeron and Claude Julien. I'm also happy that Loui Eriksson won silver and Tuukka Rask won bronze. Five Boston Bruins players went to Sochi to play for five teams, and three of them will return with medals.

Canada beat Sweden 3-0 to win gold in men's ice hockey. Sweden was lacking Henrik Zetterberg and Nicklas Backstrom. Already an underdog, losing those two centers made the task of beating Canada almost impossible.

The Canadians brought their "eh" game (not my joke). They saved their best hockey for the elimination rounds. Their win over Sweden was almost flawless. Jonathan Toews put them up 1-0 with a deflection between Henrik Lundqvist's legs. The goal was a byproduct of puck possession and Toews' ability to get position in front of the net. All game long, Lundqvist had to deal with bodies on top of him.

Sidney Crosby scored Canada's second goal. Jonathan Ericsson tried to carry the puck through three Canadian players instead of dumping it into the corner. Crosby stole it from Ericsson then beat Lundqvist on a breakaway.

Chris Kunitz sealed the deal in the 3rd.

Canada's control of this game is demonstrated by shots on goal. The Swedes only got 9 shots on Carey Price in the 2nd period, and only 4 in the 3rd. That's an amazing stat, only 4 shots on goal in a period. Price stopped all shots he saw and extended his shutout streak to over 160 minutes. The Latvians were the last team to score on him.

Canada was the best team in this tournament. Their roster was built the best, their coaches were by far the best, they played the best. This team didn't just win based on their talent, of which they had quite a bit, they won with effort, teamwork, execution, and passion.

This might be the last Olympics with NHL players, which would be a shame. This tournament provided some compelling storylines, from Canada's success to Russian and American disappointment. Finland winning bronze is a good story, as were the quarterfinal appearances of Latvia and Slovenia.

I really hope Olympic hockey remains a showcase of the game at its finest, and not just another international tournament that only clinically diagnosed hockey addicts care about.

Photo Credit:
Martin Rose/Getty