Bergeron to Be Bruin for 8 More Years

The Bruins and Patrice Bergeron agreed to an 8 year contract extension that will keep him with the Bruins until 2021-22. The deal is worth $52 million, resulting in a $6.5 million annual cap hit.

Bergeron has always been a respected player here in Boston. He's only 27 but it seems like he's been in the League for over a decade. Because he essentially has been. He has 9 seasons under his belt. He's not a typical star. He doesn't score 40 goals, or tally 60 assists. He doesn't do any one thing spectacularly, he does every singly thing well. And in the postseason he finds another gear.

Zdeno Chara is signed with the Bruins until 2017-18. It's safe to say that when Big Z leaves the Bruins, he'll pass the Captain's "C" to Bergeron.

I like this deal better than the Rask signing. Bergeron is a forward, not a goalie. Long-term goalie contracts always carry more risk than contracts for skaters. Bergeron also has more of a track record than Rask. 9 seasons, 579 games, 83 playoff games. And finally, when a guy like Bergeron loses a step, he can still be productive based on his hockey IQ and his knowledge of the game. When a goalie loses a step, they're done.

I also think Bergeron would have more value on an open market than Rask would.

I'm still not a big fan of these long-term contracts. However, for a guy like Bergeron I don't really mind.

Andrew Ference Gives Bruins' Army Rangers Jacket to Matt Brown

Andrew Ference is the classiest of acts. In his last action as member of the Boston Bruins, he bestowed the Army Ranger jacket on Matt Brown. Brown was a Norwood High School hockey player, paralyzed his sophomore year due to injuries suffered in a game in 2010. The jacket was given to the Bruins by a friend of Ference's, Army Ranger Sergeant Lucas Carr. After each game the jacket was given to a Bruins player, by his teammates, who was deemed to be the player of the game.

In a sense, the jacket has come home. Matt Brown participates in road races, and he's pushed in a wheelchair by Lucas Carr, the same Army Ranger who gave his jacket to Ference. As I mentioned in a post the day after the Marathon Bombings, Carr and Brown push each other, literally and figuratively.

Matt Brown had planned to participate in the Boston Marathon, but wasn't feeling well that day. Carr ran the Marathon. And he crossed the finish line moments before the bombs went off. And in true Army Ranger form, he went back to help the wounded. In this picture he's in the sleeveless yellow Bruins shirt in the top right.

You can see him and his tattooed arms in the right side of this picture:

The jacket has been on a pretty cool trip, being worn by Rask, by Bergeron, by the best of the Boston Bruins. And it's pretty cool that it took such a whirlwind tour of hockey greatness, starting when Carr gave it to Ference, and ending when Ference gave it Carr's co-runner, Matt Brown.

It's a garment of distinction, and I can't think of a better person to wear it. Ference put it best when he tweeted:

This jacket represents a lot of great things. I couldn’t think of a more worthy final recipient than you bud. @mjb_3 pic.twitter.com/B9jCCImZE0
— Andrew Ference (@Ferknuckle) July 11, 2013

Tuukka Rask Gets Paid, But I Don't Like the Contract

Two Us, two Ks, $56 million, eight years, too much, too long. It's going to be Tuukka Time in Boston until 2020-21. This deal makes him the highest paid goalie in the National Hockey League.

I like the player, I don't like the deal. If Rask had gone out on the open market who was going to sign him to such a massive contract? Who was going to sign him for so long? I could see either/or, either pay him big money now but keep the deal 5 years or under. Or pay him less over a long term.

I think eight years is too long for a goalie who doesn't have an extensive track record. Rask has talent, and I want him to be the goaltender here, but he's only made 126 starts. This contract will keep him here for 656 games.

I think $7 million is too much for a player with mixed success in the playoffs. His regular season numbers are very good, and overall his playoff numbers are good. He's had some great playoff series. And he's had a very bad playoff series against Philly in 2010. And he had a mediocre series against the Blackhawks.

The Bruins have decided that Tuukka Rask will be the central reason for their success. Or failure. This team will now be forced to build around Rask. And I don't think he's earned that place. The amount of cap space they will use to pay him, for 8 years, is too much. He's a very good goalie, and on a team with more offensive talent he could win a Cup. But it's harder to acquire/keep that talent with such a huge cap hit. And in 2 years the Bruins are going to need to spend to either retain or rebuild their blue-line (Seidenberg has 1 year left, McQuaid has 2, Krug and Bartkowski are restricted free agents in a year, Hamilton in 2).

Rask is good enough to win, with help. He's not a carrier like Thomas was in '11, like Quick was in '12. He's more like Niemi in 2010, or a better version of Crawford this year. The Bruins are paying him like a carrier. And he hasn't yet played like a carrier in the playoffs.

Corey Crawford will make $2.7 million next year. The Blackhawks won a Cup because he was okay and his teammates were great. Jonathan Quick carried the Kings to a Cup and he makes $5.8 million, and will do so until 2023. Rask hasn't won a Cup as a starter, played only okay in the Cup Finals, and he's getting paid like a Conn Smythe winner. Why?

What has Rask done to merit the highest annual salary for a goalie (tied with Pekka Rinne) in the League, along with a contract nearly a decade long?

I'm happy he's the goalie in 2013-14. I'm not thrilled he'll be under contract in 2019. I'm not thrilled he'll be taking up so much cap space.

Tyler Seguin Needs to Learn How to Party AND Perform

At his introduction to the (begin sarcasm) ravenous (end sarcasm) Dallas hockey media, Tyler Seguin was asked what it would be like to be part of a young team that was attempting to build itself up. It was a hockey question, not a question about his social life. But that's how Seguin answered it.

"There's a lot of young guys. On my last team, I was the only single guy."

Seguin then went on to talk about hockey again.

This is just a few days after the Stanley Cup finalists traded him away, and after his former GM talked about how he needed to get his act together, on and off the ice.

The reaction to Seguin's promiscuous social life is a bit harsh for my taste. It reminds me of Gronkowski. It seems like pundits and fans want these guys to live monastical, celibate lifestyles. Like Puritans, wearing drab dark clothes, only drinking a few ales with your teammates on off-days, waiting until marriage to engage in wanton acts of carnality. That's not going to happen. Nor should it.

Partying is fine. Almost every young athlete parties. And so would any of us. Look back to when you were 21. Now imagine you were paid millions of dollars and were famous.

You can perform on the field/ice/court while partying, too. Gronk performs on the field, when he's on it. And he got injured on an extra point, not on an extra pint. He got reinjured, again on the field, not in the bedroom having a sevensome with the Bryant University women's volleyball team. On the field he performs. He's already caught 38 touchdowns, and sets records at his position.

Then there's Patrick Kane, who is only 3 years older than Seguin, already has 2 rings, won the Conn Smythe, has an Olympic silver medal, and has established himself as a star in the NHL. He was a #1 overall pick in 2007, and he parties his ass off.

He scored 9 goals in the playoffs, 3 in the Finals. He performs.

Stevan Stamkos parties. Crosby parties. How many Russian players took a turn with Anna Kournikova? Remember when Tom Brady was banging Tara Reid? Then he and Bridget Moynihan got together. Then he finally settled down with Gisele. Shit, some people have pointed out that Brady and the Patriots won more when he was single.

All these guys go out and have fun. Except Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning. But even they probably go to county fairs and indulge with some cotton candy. And, of course, church.

What separates Seguin from Brady/Kane/Gronk is that those guys are able to perform AND party. Seguin is only able to party. The other guys have fun, then get down to business. They split their time. Seguin seems to want to party all the time.

He needs to realize that pussy is a renewable resource. It's not going to run out. There are going to be plenty of girls that will want him, even when he's a 40 year old with half his teeth making the NHL minimum. In 20 years he'll have the opportunity to sleep with girls that are only now being born.

In his current division he'll be able to go to Chicago and hang out with his buddy Kane. He can go to Denver and get some stoner girls. He can go to Minnesota and warm up with some University of Minnesota Golden Gopher girls. He can go to Nashville and hook up with some country singers. And in Dallas he can hang out with his new single teammates, as well as the Cowboys, and maybe even Manny Ramirez if he gets promoted to the Rangers. The opportunities to have fun are endless.

Why does Seguin party as if all the beertaps and vaginas in the world will dry up in the next 2 weeks? Why does he refuse to take a day off? Why did he spend more time guzzling Jagermeister, than skating around the Garden post-game with Jagr?

I think he has a confidence issue. He hasn't done what he's expected to do in the NHL. It's the first time in his life he hasn't met expectations, his own and everyone else's. So instead of facing that fact and working to improve, and also facing the possibility that he might fail, he's tried to master a different arena. He's king of all his parties. But on the ice he's a 3rd line winger that doesn't score. He can't fail at his social life. He's going to get drunk and get laid and be the envy of all his guy friends, who follow him around like bromosexual groupies. But on the ice, he is facing the possibility of failure for the first time in his life, and he's not confident enough to try to push through that.

Patrick Kane and Tyler Seguin are about the same size. Who plays more physically? Who plays less afraid? Who seems more confident?

Maybe having single teammates in Dallas will actually help Seguin. Maybe they'll point out that there's a time to have fun and a time to work. It'd probably be easier for Seguin to listen to that from other single hockey players, who love to go out as much as he does, as opposed to the older, married guys he was teammates with in Boston.

Or maybe he'll continue to party and not perform.

Like any job, nobody cares about your personal life so long as you show up and work well. Seguin hasn't done that. He hasn't performed. He hasn't demonstrated that he's putting in the effort to reach his potential. He can still party, but he has to figure out how to perform as well.

Anyway, it's not our problem in Boston anymore.

I'm Sick of Jon Lester

The Red Sox are once again a likable team. They have plucky, determined players who are playing at 100% of their ability, in some cases more than 100%. And with few exceptions, the players themselves are easy to root for.

One person that still draws my dislike is Jon Lester. I am so tired of his act. It isn't just his poor performances on the mound, it's how he carries himself and how he dismissively excuses his failures.

When he struggles he becomes a diva on the mound, glaring at the umpire like a little kid in the grocery store checkout line who was just told by his mother that he can't get one of the candy bars from the side shelf. He pouts, he snaps his glove angrily, and then he'll throw the same pitch in the same location and whine about it again.

Do you think umpires appreciate that act? Do you think umpires get their assignments and see they're behind the plate for Lester and think good things about him? Maybe that's why you don't get those borderline pitches, Jon. Maybe the umps are sick of your mini-tantrums.

Lester fails to admit that he isn't that good anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. He seems to attribute every bad outing to a series of bad calls or a few lucky swings. But his quality is clearly not what it once was.

Hitters make much more contact against him than they did in 2010 and 2011. He strikes out fewer batters (225 in 2010, 182 in 2011, 166 in 2012, and he's on pace for about 176 in 2013). He allows more hits (166 in 2011, 216 in 2012, and a pace for 215 in 2013), and opponents hit much harder against him (14 HRs allowed in 2010, 20 in 2011, 25 in 2012, pace for 25 in 2013). From 2009 to 2011, he allowed 31 doubles every year. In 2012 he allowed 49, and in 2013 he's on pace to allow 51.

And instead of admitting that he has, over a significantly long stretch of time, struggled, he'll build himself up. He pumps his own tires. After last night's 5 inning, 5 run, 9 hit, 2 walk outing against the 3rd worst offense in baseball he said:

"I felt like I threw a lot of good pitches tonight. Maybe a handful of balls found the middle of the plate, they did a better job of fouling balls off to get to those pitches. It goes back to I felt like I threw the ball better than what the line score says."

No, Jon, you didn't. You fell apart last night. You needed 112 pitches to get 15 outs. You threw first-pitch strikes to only half of the 26 batters you faced. And while the Mariners did foul off 28 pitches, they hit 18 into play, 2 for doubles, 1 for a homerun, and 6 more for basehits. The M's hit .240 as a team, and last night they hit .375 off Lester, with an OPS of .961.

And that homerun came after your team had tied the game for you, against the great Felix Hernandez. And boom, to lead off the bottom of the 5th, you serve up a homerun. That's not what good pitchers do. And good pitchers don't pat themselves on the back after such outings and ignore their shortcomings. They acknowledge them, they take responsibility, and they work on them.

Lester is a throwback to the 2011 Collapse. It's never his fault. Other members of that incredibly unlikable team have either left town or reformed (see: John Lackey). Not Lester. His diva antics are the same on the mound. His performances are worse. His refusal to take responsibility is a vintage 2011/2012 attitude. Either he needs to change it, or the Red Sox need to change their roster.

Photo Credit:
Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Bruins Sign Iginla, Salary Cap Threatens NHL Success

The Bruins finally got Jarome Iginla. They had been pursuing Daniel Alfredsson, but the Red Wings secured the Swede for a 1-year $5.5 million bounty. So just like Jaromir Jagr was the silver medal when Peter Chiarelli failed to get Iginla at the deadline, Iginla is now the silver medal after pursuing Alfredsson.

Iginla will have a base salary of $1.8 million, with up to $4.2 million more incentives. It's a 1-year deal. Similar to Alfredsson, Iginla is a veteran that is looking for a Cup.

The guy has scored 30+ goals for 11 straight seasons. And with the departure of Horton and Seguin, the Bruins desperately need wingers. Wingers who can score.

The Bruins have 6 legitimate top-6 forwards. Krejci and Bergeron are excellent centers, you hang on to Lucic and Marchand, you add Eriksson and Iginla. It isn't a bad top-6 at all.

There's been a lot of movement in the NHL, thanks to the salary cap. Which means that while this off-season has been more interesting, it also means that fans must re-learn their teams rosters once the regular season starts. It also means that successful big market teams like Boston and Chicago can't retain the talent that they've developed. And that's bad for the NHL. The TV ratings were great for the 2013 Finals because two big markets that cared about hockey were involved.

Seguin and Horton were both popular players in Boston. Local stars. People bought their t-shirts, both from the Pro Shop and from street vendors.

Who in Dallas will care about whether Tyler Seguin scores or not? Who in Columbus will care about how physical Nathan Horton is playing?

Location, location, location. Seguin and Horton were stars in Boston. But because of the cap they need to be shipped elsewhere, where teams do poorly and nobody cares about hockey.

The salary cap is intended to prevent big market teams from overspending and pricing out medium/small market teams, making it difficult for the big teams to buy success. But in the NHL there are a handful of micro markets, like Phoenix and Miami, that lower the cap number for everyone, and also absorb talented NHL players that would draw a crowd (and TV ratings) in hockey-interested markets.

The NHL's biggest strength since the '04-'05 lockout has been the success of teams in big markets and in hockey-interested markets. LA, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Toronto, New York. However, the NHL has developed a system that focuses on putting dying franchises on life support, in markets that cannot support them, at the expense of teams that succeed.

It's like having a popular, successful restaurant in downtown Boston, then not allowing them to pay their best cooks and servers, and sending those quality employees to some crappy diner nobody goes to in north Texas or central Ohio.

Vettel, Vettel Uber Alles

All is well in the world. A Limey has won Wimbledon and a Kraut has won at the Nürburgring.

Do you see what happens when tires are only part of the storyline and not the entire story? We get a close race that goes down to the wire, and we get the best car and the best driver winning. Sebastian Vettel finally won his home Grand Prix, edging Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean for an all-Renault powered podium. Vettel added to his lead over Fernando Alonso, who finished 4th in the F138 Ferrari.

I'm getting a sense of deja vu. It's like the season is starting over again. And in a way that's true with the new/old tire construction making a debut Sunday. It's like we're back in Melbourne. Mercedes are once again struggling to convert great qualifying performances into great race performances. And Lotus are incredibly strong, just as they were before Monaco. One constant is what Vettel and Red Bull are doing.

It's really special to watch, and I feel as though some of the critics are missing out. Those who claim Vettel is lucky or argue that the car is responsible for the success of the driver are failing to appreciate how remarkable the combination has worked, over and over and over, from Grand Prix to Grand Prix, from qualifying to raceday.

Look at the other teams. All of them fluctuate up and down, having a few good races, a few bad ones. Lotus looked very sharp yesterday, yet they are 4th in the constructors' standings because of their inconsistency. Mercedes are second in the standings but struggled yesterday, and also struggled before their covert Pirelli test. Ferrari are closing in on Mercedes, but even Alonso admits that they've lost significant pace. And McLaren are in 6th, their 12 point combined performance yesterday was their BEST of the season.

There's parity in the other F1 teams. Mercedes look good for 3 races, then Lotus charges toward the front, then Ferrari dazzles with a few strong performances. The only team that remains steadily strong is Red Bull. And instead of trying to find fault with that, and instead of harboring hope that heroic matador Fernando Alonso slays the bull (as NBC Sport's Will Buxton and Steve Matchett seem eager to see, every week trying to map out a way for Alonso to win despite his car's inadequacies), just sit back and appreciate the heights being reached by this driver and this team.

We're witnessing Formula 1 history being written by this 26-year old driver and this team which is in its 9th season. It's incredible to behold. This was his 30th win, only 1 shy of tying Nigel Mansell for 5th all-time, 2 behind Alonso for 4th. His 27.27% win rate is better than Prost, Senna, and Stewart.

A few side thoughts from yesterday's race:

I'm glad the cameraman struck by Mark Webber's tire is okay. He suffered some broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a concussion. After the death of a marshal in Canada, I'm glad Formula 1 isn't adding to their list of track worker fatalities. These men and women working the race assume a significant amount of risk, with a relatively slim slice of the glitz, glamour, and glory pie that F1 brings to town. Red Bull were fined 30,000 Euros for the unsafe release, rightfully so.

Felipe Massa might have cashed his check with Ferrari. He attributed his spinout to his own error, then claimed he couldn't get the car back in gear. This is his latest race-ending incident of the season. He's only scored 12 points in the last 4 races. How interesting will the silly season be if there are open seats at Red Bull AND Ferrari? And with McLaren's struggles, don't rule out there being a vacancy in Woking as well.

This wasn't a typical Vettel yawnfest. He had to sweat for this one. I couldn't help but be reminded of another German driver. One of Michael Schumacher's most impressive attributes was his ability to respond to the gauntlets laid down by his opponents. Vettel did this yesterday. He pushed as hard as he needed to push, when he needed to push, and he never gave Grosjean or Raikonnen an opportunity to pass him. His ability to find that extra tenth of a second when it mattered most was very Schumacherian.

The Hungarian Grand Prix is an agonizing 3 weeks away. Vettel has never won that event. With 3 weeks I'm sure the teams challenging Vettel and Red Bull will have analyzed themselves and there will be more reshuffling from 2nd place back. But not at the front. At this point in F1 history, how can you pick anyone but Vettel to win?

Photo Credits:
AP Photo/Michael Probst
Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Seguin Does Dallas

No more "Thank you, Kessel" chants at the TD Garden. The brief Tyler Seguin era in Boston is over. He, Rich Peverley, and Ryan Button were sent to Dallas for Loui Eriksson and 3 prospects. And I can't say I'm a big fan of the deal. Although I understand it.

The Bruins make cap space for themselves in this deal, about $4 million. Which they need in order to pay Tuukka Rask and Patrice Bergeron. And they need that cap room because they gave Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley too much money. I don't think the Stars wanted Peverley (6 goals and 12 assists last year). He was a throw-in, with his $3.25 million salary cap hit.

I don't think this has much to do with Seguin partying or his attitude. He's a famous 21-year old NHL star in a hockey city, he's going to screw around. Maybe he pushed the partying a bit much, I don't know. You know who else doesn't know? The media. The media depends on Twitter and third-hand accounts to piece together what these athletes do in their social lives. Instead of just going to a bar where Seguin and his friends go, and doing first-hand journalism.

We have a tradition here in Boston when an athlete departs a team in a confounding way: there are stories told about the behind the scenes reasons for him to go. There are all sorts of stories flying around about Seguin's personal life irritating the Bruins' front office. The most salacious being that Seguin was locked in his hotel room during the playoffs, under guard to make sure he didn't leave that room. Which is probably a twisted fact. The Bruins stayed in a hotel in Boston during the playoffs, and I'm sure there were security guards in their section of the hotel, which is a standard practice when teams stay at hotels, at home and on the road.

I can't say I'm excited about losing Seguin. And I'm not excited at all about gaining Eriksson. Eriksson's ceiling for production seems to be between 25 and 30 goals. Seguin's ceiling is much higher. Eriksson is also 6 years older.

Seguin hasn't produced in the way we've expected him to, especially in the playoffs. Then again he's 21-years old. His tenure with the Bruins has always been focused on learning defense. And he bought into that defensive mindset and changed positions because of that. I would have preferred Seguin have another season here, a full season without a Swiss Lockout vacation, a full season to prove he wanted to take things seriously and take that next step as a scorer.

And here's why. Some might argue that the Bruins were on the verge of a Stanley Cup without Seguin producing. And that's true. So maybe the B's don't need him. Then again, had Seguin produced in the Finals, the Bruins win the Cup. Two timely goals in the Finals from Seguin and there's a parade not a trade.

So the Bruins didn't need Seguin to do well for the team to do well. But if he had done well, they would have won it all. He has the talent and the capability to be an over-the-top kind of player.

Ultimately, though, the salary cap forces teams to make tough decisions. I'd rather have Bergeron than Seguin. I'd rather have Rask than Seguin, although Rask at over $7 million a season for many years seems like a lot, but that's for another post.

I do wish the Bruins had been more careful with their 3rd line contracts. As good as Kelly and Peverley were in 2011, that type of player is easy to replace at a bargain rate. The type of player Seguin could be is not easily replaced. And the Bruins are paying for their generosity to those 3rd liners by giving up a potential 40+ goal scorer.