Lose-ipeg

The Bruins didn't lose due to lack of effort or intensity. Which would have been slightly understandable, after playing in Pittsburgh the night before. Give credit to the Jets for playing with intensity, for executing, for taking advantage of a Bruins mistake, and for Ondrej Pavelec having the game of his life in net.

Winnipeg's first goal was a soft one for Rask to allow. Rask is a good goalie, by human standards. We get spoiled watching the inhuman Tim Thomas play. It's a goal Rask should have stopped. Let's just leave it at that.

The second goal the Bruins allowed was less forgivable. Corvo missed his assignment off a neutral zone faceoff, and the rush was on. You can't make those kinds of mistakes in the 3rd period of a 1-1 game.

Tyler Seguin was scratched because he missed a team breakfast and a meeting. Apparently, this wasn't the first time and he's been warned in the past. Message sent.

The Bruins return home to face the surprisingly 15-8-4 Panthers.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

NHL Realignment

With the Atlanta Thrashers becoming the Winnipeg Jets, there had to be some sort of change in the alignment of the NHL. A team from Western Canada playing in the Southeastern Division was just wrong. And the solution wasn't simple. It's actually quite radical.

The NHL will go from a 2 Conference, 6 Division alignment into 4 Conferences. Two of them will have 8 teams, two will have 7. Here's how they'll look:

Conference A:
Anaheim, Colorado, Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver

Conference B:
Chicago, Dallas, Columbus, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg

Conference C:
Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Tampa Bay

Conference D:
Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington

The playoffs would also be radically rearranged. Each Conference would have 4 playoff teams, all playing each other. The final four would be the four Conference champions.

During the regular season, teams would play Conference rivals 5 to 6 times (5 times in the 8 team Conferences, 6 times in the 7 team Conferences) per season. And they'd play all other teams twice (one home, one away).

I have mixed feelings. The Bruins will still get to compete with rivals like Toronto, Buffalo, Montreal, and Ottawa. But Florida and Tampa Bay are grotesquely out of place. Hopefully the Panthers move to Quebec.

Also, the Bruins will play the Flyers and Rangers just as often as they play the Dallas Stars and Phoenix Coyotes. There's just something not right about that.

And the playoff format bugs me a bit. As thrilling as it is to see the Bruins and Canadiens meet in a series, it's sad that we won't see the Bruins face the Flyers or Capitals very often. And how long will the appeal of intradivisional playoff matchups last when we see them year after year after year?

I'd rather have an East and West division. Conferences A and B are clearly west and C and D are cleary east. Why not take the top 8 teams from each grouping, and keep the playoffs similar to the way they are now.

Ultimately, the NHL could use contraction, and needs to eliminate teams in non-hockey markets like Miami, Nashville, and Phoenix.

But on the bright side, the Bruins still get to play against their rivals in Canada and Western New York. So that's good news.

Beasts of the East

This game had playoff intensity with regular season officiating. Nevertheless, the Bruins made a statement last night that they are clearly the best team in the Eastern Conference.

To borrow something from Belichick and the Patriots, the Bruins scored because they took what the Penguins gave them. Campbell's goal was very dirty, Pouliot's came from a turnover, and Seguin's resulted from taking advantage of Pittsburgh's aggressive penalty killing.

Speaking of penalty killing, the Bruins entered this game with the 6th best PK unit (statistically) in the League. And mathematically speaking, they killed 5 of 5 penalties last night. But they spent over 3 minutes killing 5-on-3 penalties. That's something that the stats don't quite show. I'll take the Bruins' PK over any other in the NHL.

The Bruins scored because they took what Pittsburgh gave them. And Pittsburgh scored only once because the Bruins didn't give them much of anything. Tim Thomas made a season high 44 saves. Chara was Chara. Seidenberg was brilliant. Ference was good. Everyone did their job defensively. Krejci hit two posts.

This was a tight, tough game, determined by the slimmest of margins, and the Bruins were clearly better.

The B's are in Winnipeg tonight.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Bruins Rake Leafs Out of the Garden

The Bruins beat the Maple Leafs for the fourth time Saturday night, clinching the season series. This is a matchup that favors the Bruins in so many ways. Toronto's offense is based primarily on their Power Play. The Bruins have one of the best PK units in the League. Toronto's forwards don't get involved in defense (See: Kessel), while the Bruins' defensemen get very active in the offense. The Bruins score when they win battles on the boards and control the crease in front of the opposing goalie. The Maple Leafs don't win battles against physical forwards, and they don't have many guys who can clear out the crease.

The Bruins' specialize in eliminating Toronto's strengths, and have the exact kind of players to take advantage of Toronto's weaknesses.

Chris Kelly's goal was the type of thing that Toronto struggles to prevent. Ference pinched, so Kelly covered the point. He was being covered by Phillipe Dupuis, a center. But Kelly went from acting like a defenseman, to acting like a forward, breaking toward the net. And Dupuis was simply mismatched to cover another forward. Kelly drove to the net, Peverley sent him a brilliant pass, and a goal resulted.

The Krejci line, especially Krejci himself, has been reborn. That lines plays the best when all three forwards share the load. Krejci doesn't need to be too clever, he just needs to be smart. Lucic doesn't need to throw everyone around, he just needs to be physical. And Horton is a little of both. Krejci has 2 goals and 5 assists in the last 5 games. When this line gets hot, the Bruins have one of the deepest offenses in hockey.

Joe Corvo's fight was a great example of how everyone on this team contributes. It was Corvo's first fight in the NHL, and he's the 8th Bruin that has dropped the gloves this season. It's not that this is a team of brawlers, but it is a team of guys who stand up for their teammates and stand up for themselves. Every minute of every game, there is a Bruin on the ice that's willing to fight if necessary.

During this stretch, everyone has contributed. And each individual contribution by one player has helped others to contribute. Rask has gone 4-0-1 since the start of November, which has also allowed Thomas to take 5 games off. Chris Kelly has 8 goals in 14 games, but he's been set up beautifully by Rich Peverley, who has 11 assists in this span.

When one Bruin excels, he helps another excel, and so on.

The schedule gets interesting as the Bruins are in Pittsburgh tonight, facing the top team in the East. Then they're in Winnipeg Tuesday night. Then they host the Southeast leading Panthers on Thursday. Fun week.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Not the Same Colts

Remember in Gladiator when Russel Crowe is still fighting in Africa and he's simply dominating his competition. That's kind of what happened in Foxborough yesterday. There was no way that the Patriots would lose. The Colts were built around Peyton Manning. Even their defense was geared toward playing in shootouts with lots of passing and little running.

The Patriots had a mediocre 1st quarter, and a bad 4th quarter, and they still won. This was a preseason game. And even the crowd at the Stadium was like a preseason game. Late arriving, lots of families and first-time visitors, early exiting.

It's hard to praise the Patriots after beating a winless team. I guess I can say that Rob Gronkowski is probably not human. He's a monstrosity.

Belichick and his assistants have plenty of mistakes to show their players this week. It's a testament to how bad the Colts are that just two good quarters from the Patriots was enough to beat them. Even so, the Pats' defense allowed Dan Orlovsky to have the game of his life. 30 for 37, 353 yards, 2 scores, 1 pick, a 113.2 rating. It's kind of scary to allow a guy like Orlovsky to put up Peyton Manning numbers, even if some of that was in garbage time.

Everyone keeps trying to figure out how good the Patriots really are. Are they good enough to win a playoff game? Are they good enough to get to Indy? Can they beat the likes of Green Bay or Baltimore? There's no way that a Week 13 game against the Manning-less Colts will tell you if they can or cannot go deep into the playoffs.

To be honest, it will come down to how well they play on gameday. If Brady is at his best, the Patriots are almost unbeatable. If he's just good, it gets interesting. If he has a bad or even below average game, the Patriots have no chance.

Patriots travel to the 4-8 Redskins next week.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Will BC Basketball Win More Games than BC Football?

BC lost a closely fought game to Penn State last night 62-54. And the ACC finished the BigTen/ACC Challenge 4-8. BC basketball is now 2-5 with losses against Holy Cross, UMass, St. Louis, and New Mexico. They needed overtime to beat UC-Davis, and their other win was a 3 point squeaker over UNH.

It's a rebuilding year for BC basketball, as second year coach Steve Donahue tries to resurrect a program that was left in a shambles by a lack of recruiting by Al Skinner.

BC football, meanwhile, went 4-8. They even lost to Duke. The one bright spot was junior linebacker Luke Kuechly. He was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and is projected to be the top LB in the Draft, should he decide to leave early. He recorded an astonishing 191 tackles this season.

Not to diminish Kuechly's accomplishment, but BC's offense was hardly ever on the field. Kuechly also played punt coverage, and BC punted a lot. In other words, he had more opportunities for tackles than most players.

BC's offense was without Montel Harris for most of the season. But even with him, they would have struggled to score. And if you're an offensive high school recruit, why would you want to play at BC?

This is a tough time to be a BC fan. Unless you like hockey. And this is the time that you'll see many BC fans find other things to do. At last night's basketball game, the student sections were almost empty. BC fans follow their team when it's trendy. Then forget them when it isn't. I guess that's the case with most sports teams, but the effect is even more dramatic at BC.

One Good Thing About Valentine

There's one good thing I read about Bobby Valentine yesterday. According to ESPN's Buster Olney, some Red Sox players have "grumbled" about the hiring of Bobby Valentine. They don't like it.

And that's good.

I don't want the clubhouse malcontents to be happy. So while I don't think Valentine is a long-term solution, and don't like how Ben Cherington is a puppet GM. But anyone who displeases the chicken eating, beer guzzling, complaint happy Red Sox can't be all that bad.

Bruins' November Reign

The Bruins ended November with a 6-3 victory in Toronto. It was the first time since 1969 that the Bruins went a full month without a regulation loss. And they did so because their entire roster contributed from top to bottom. Last night the Krejci line exploded. Lucic scored twice, Krejci added a goal and two assists.

This streak has seen everyone step forward and contribute in some way. Sometimes with big goals, sometimes with the little things, but it's all added up to a 12-0-1 month of November.

The Bruins entered November in dire straits. They were wallowing. They weren't skating. It seemed like only Seguin, Thomas, and Rask were showing up to play. And now they leave November atop the Northeast Division, only a point behind Pittsburgh for the best record in the NHL, and tied with Detroit for the most wins (15).

One word I'd use to describe this Bruins team is "resiliency." They don't quit, they don't stop, they're relentless. And in this streak, that resiliency has shown. The 6-0 cruise control wins against the Islanders are nice, but the 1-0 grinders against Montreal, and the comeback wins against Buffalo and Toronto, those victories show this team's character. This team occasionally falls down, but they don't stay down.

They're actually -1 in the first period this year. And are the best team in the NHL in the second and third periods (+32). This is a team of Rocky Balboas.



The Cup isn't won in November. But if the Bruins had continued their October horror show into November, they may have lost it. They turned things around, they're back on track, now let's sit back and enjoy the Champions once again playing like champs.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo