Game #58 Preview Suite
Notes: The Devils are extremely beat up. Hall has missed 20 games and hasn’t even begun skating again. Miles Wood is out as well, along with Sami Vatanen and Stefan Noesen. So this wasn’t a good team before, and now it’s had to dip hard into its AHL team. This is how you tank, folks…this is the first of a back-to-back, they’re in Minny tomorrow, so Schneider may go instead of Kinkaid…Palmieri only has two goals in his last 11, which probably necessitated the swap of Zajac and Hischier…Hall has missed over 20 games and is still the third-leading scorer on this team, which tells you just about everything…
Notes: Kunitz plays his 1,000th game tonight…Koekkoek rotates in for Forsling, and we’d honestly be happy if Forsling never rotates back in. He sucks out loud and was awful against Boston…speaking of awful against Boston, Brent Seabrook was truly special on that night as well…we’re intrigued by the Sikura-Saad combination…Sikura managed a 55% share on Tuesday when the rest of the team was getting buried…Gustafsson, along with Forsling, managed a 22%. That’s monumental…
Game #58 Preview Suite
This would be a good time for a confession. I don’t know what I want, people. Would I be happy if I never heard from Stan Bowman and John McDonough? I mean, maybe? Probably not. They have to talk at some point. And yet when they do the best reaction I can hope for is laughter. I also don’t know what it is exactly I want them to say. While Theo Epstein-like transparency would be nice, that hasn’t exactly worked out that well for Theo of late either.
But I also find it curious you can find in-depth interviews with both of them when the Hawks are in their only streak of looking like…well, barely competent. Should they lose the next five I wonder if we’ll hear from McDonough. I’m guessing no, at least until the announcement of some other useless event the Hawks have procured from the league. Anyway, Stan Bowman gave Tracey Myers of NHL.com some decent time, and we’re going to go through it piece by piece (much like Man On Fire).
On reports the Blackhawks will ask defenseman Duncan Keith before the trade deadline if he wants to stay in Chicago or waive his no-move clause and accept a trade to a contending team:
“I’ve been asked that since the report came out. What I say is the same thing: whenever we’ve had those types of discussions, I wouldn’t comment. It puts the player in a tough spot. I’m not going to get into whether we have or haven’t, will or won’t. The fair thing to say is, both of those guys (Keith and defenseman Brent Seabrook), we’ve played our best hockey in the last stretch when they’ve been playing together. I think [Keith and Seabrook] have been a pair for this last stretch when we’ve played well, and they’re playing well. That’s what we need from them right now.”
Well, huh? Here’s Keith’s CF% during these past eight games: 41.6% scoring-chance share: 41.7% high-danger chance share: 40.9. I’ll spare you what Seabrook’s numbers are, but I assure you they’re also burning piss. Oh, and the save-percentage these last eight games when Keith and Seabrook are out there? .989. But I’m sure they are totes responsible for that.
Again, I don’t expect Stan to shit on the first winning streak of the year or try and talk anyone out of getting excited (good seats still available!). But the fear is that they actually believe this shit. And it wouldn’t be a crime to say something to the effect of, “The results are nice, and the players have worked hard and stuck together to earn them, but there are still aspects of our game that need improvement. We’ve been lucky, but we can build on that.”
If you’ve watched this team most games, you see that Keith and Seabrook can’t get out of their own way (Seabrook couldn’t get out of a sloth’s way right now). Say, this strange, yellow, warm liquid on my ear must mean it’s raining!
On the report that the Blackhawks asked Seabrook to waive his no-move clause, something Seabrook said isn’t true:
“Same answer. The hard part is if I say, well that’s true, the next time you have to keep doing it. You shoot a few [reports] down, then if you decide not to comment on the other one, people think that’s the true one. That’s not always the case. I get it, I realize why the fans want to know. I just think it’s more fair to the players to not be put in that position. It’s unfortunate it went that way, but I realize that the world we live in now is that way. Reports become facts until proven otherwise. Sometimes it should be the other way. I don’t want to specifically comment, other than to say he’s played his best hockey lately and I hope he keeps it up.”
Not exactly a hard-denial, is it? Stan’s right here, that it does put the player in an awful position. Which…would be the exact reason a team would leak that sort of thing? Get the onus off of the organization? Just spitballin’ here. And again, if “this” is Seabrook’s best hockey–as he was an absolute hemorrhoid last night–then Stan knows exactly why these reports are surfacing/being leaked.
On the job done thus far by coach Jeremy Colliton, who took over after Joel Quenneville was fired Nov. 6:
“The biggest thing I can applaud him for is his disposition and positive approach, even in light of a tough start. He never got frustrated, never got down, didn’t allow our group to feel sorry for itself or get upset about things. We still aren’t near where we want to be, but we’ve made a lot of strides. When you start to see those things together, and I think the players are starting to now see and starting to get excited. It’s one thing to believe what someone’s telling you and you want it to work, but it’s not working. Now it’s starting to work, and they start to feel like, ‘wow, now I get it. Now I understand what he’s been saying.’ When you’re around our team, you can pick up there’s a good vibe around the guys. They’re excited and can’t wait to play the game.”
Again, there’s no reason to think Stan is going to hang out his chosen to guy to dry, and nor should he. And some of this is right. Colliton did stay positive, hasn’t singled out anyone, and basically kept his head down. The power play is better, as we keep saying.
But overall, the structure is still rotten. This team is still woeful defensively, and while the personnel will never allow it to be a good defensive team, we repeatedly point out changes that could be made to help it that aren’t being made. It’s fine if the guys are more excited because results happen to bounce their way for a couple weeks, but there is still very little to suggest that this is being built on a foundation made of anything other than sand. While the Hawks blue line is truly terrible, there are some equally terrible blue lines around that are keeping things a little tighter than the Hawks are. That’s because every team is better defensively than the Hawks. It doesn’t really HAVE to be like this.
Ok, Strome’s development can be credited to Colliton, I guess. But we need more than a few weeks of that, too. The idea that this is “starting to work” flies in the face of everything that’s happening on the ice aside from the goalies playing really well and more pucks going in than have been. And you saw last night what happens when one of the goalies doesn’t go Siegfried and Roy.
On assigning 19-year-old defenseman Henri Jokiharju to Rockford of the American Hockey League:
“Sometimes guys get sent down because they aren’t playing well, and sometimes they get sent down because of circumstances. In Henri’s case, it was more circumstantial. He’s played over 20 minutes every game in Rockford and that’s what we’re looking for. Our defense has evolved over the course of a year. We didn’t have [Gustav] Forsling and [Connor] Murphy at the start of the year. If they had been here, Henri may have been in Rockford the whole time. It’s not because he’s not deserving of the NHL; it’s a hard League to play as a teenage defenseman. I think there are only two teenage defensemen in the league (Rasmus Dahlin, 18, of the Buffalo Sabres and Miro Heiskanen, 19, of the Dallas Stars). When you get to be 20, 21, you see those guys filter their way in. They’ve gained experience at the AHL level, they’ve finished college, whatever they do. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid, and he’s not far away. We can bring him back at any point. It’s not disappointment; far from it. He’s exceeded my expectations with how well he’s played.”
This isn’t wholly incorrect either, but if you’re trying to sell me that Gustav Forsling would have kept Jokharju in the AHL at the start of the year had Forsling been healthy, I would use that as grounds for canning your sorry ass right then and there and calling it a love story. Gustav Forsling is Brendan Smith levels of bad, and those of you who have been around here for a while know that I don’t say that lightly. I think Smith is the worst player in the NHL and have since he came up, and I’m telling you Forsling is right there.
Stan is right on circumstances, though. Jokiharju is right-handed and the only Hawk capable of playing on the left and letting Jokiharju be aggressive and get up the ice and support him a bit is Connor Murphy, who was hurt and then didn’t play with him. While the numbers were promising with Keith, we saw far too often a teenager having to clean up #2’s messes all the time. The pairings with others were nothing short of a disaster. So on some level, I get it.
If Jokiharju does come back, it had better be to play with either Murphy on his off-side or Dahlstrom as a third-pairing. But the Hawks have some culpability here in not putting a very young player in the best possible place to succeed. I think that’s what Q was doing when he was here, and I think Q thought that Keith might adjust his game a bit to compensate. He didn’t, we saw what happened.
The interview goes on to talk about the Hawks prospects, and the Holy Troika of Boqvist, Mitchell, and Beaudin get mentioned. And Stan should talk up these guys, because he’s going to have to trade one or two of them. All three will not fit on the roster in the next three years, unless Seabrook is bought out, Murphy traded, Gustafsson gets sold while the price is up (which should be happening now but whatever) and the Hawks add people for these kids to play with. But we’ll have all summer for that talk.
It had to happen sooner or later, but who would have ever guessed the Hawks’s seven-game win streak would end at the hands of a team that can do more than just feign competence on the ice? Oh, you did? The Bruins ran over the Hawks from start to finish, who were a complete open sewer in their own zone tonight (more so than usual, even). Compound that with a relatively weak showing from Delia and the fancy stats finally match up with the outcome. Let’s dig around this one.
– None of us here at the Program are too wild about this man-to-man defensive scheme Colliton is dead set on making happen. Tonight is a perfect example of why that is. The Hawks posted an embarrassing 34+ CF% at 5v5. They didn’t end a single period on the positive side of the ledger. Sikura and Seabrook (?!) were the only two Hawks who had a positive CF% on the night. Over and over, the Hawks were caught double teaming because they either can’t or won’t communicate with one another when someone loses their man, which is often, because as a team they’re so goddamn slow.
This was evident on Boston’s second goal, when Murphy got caught playing Bergeron too far out along the far boards. Toews came over to cover along with Murphy, leaving Dahlstrom hanging out to to dry against Marchand and Heinen. Either Murphy needs to stick with Bergeron all the way, leaving Toews to cover Chara at the point (which is where Bergeron threw it after reading the double cover, and which doesn’t really solve the problem of who’s covering one of Marchand or Heinen down low) or Toews needs to call Murphy off and let him retreat. They did neither, and Chara had all the time in the world to throw the puck down low to two open skaters.
This was evident on Boston’s third goal. Delia gave up a comically bad rebound right in front of the net, which looked like how a dense and painful fart sounds. Of course Gus and Gusser were on the ice for that, covering absolutely no one and giving Heinen and Marchand all the time in the world yet again.
This was evident on Boston’s fourth goal (are you sensing a pattern?), with Murphy coming out way too far to cover Krejci on the near boards, leaving Jake DeBrusk all alone in front of Delia for an easy tip. This one’s a bit more excusable, since it was at the end of a PK, but still, Murphy doesn’t need to skate almost entirely past the near-side dot to cover Krejci from that bad an angle.
Those three goals were all a result of someone losing their coverage and no one covering his ass. Whether they’re communicating or not (they’re not) doesn’t really matter, because even if they are (and again, they aren’t, as evidenced by how profoundly open these goal scorers were), this team simply doesn’t have the speed to cover when coverage is blown. You’d think those thick rims Colliton borrowed from Rivers Cuomo’s dumb ass would help him see that, but here we are. This system will not work for this team as presently constituted, especially against teams who are better than “gas station toilet overflow,” which Boston decidedly is.
– This was probably Connor Murphy’s worst game of the year, and if he’s not playing well, they’re fucked. He was caught out of position more often than not and took that terrible cross-checking penalty that ended up leading to Boston’s fourth goal, which, surprise, Murphy’s poor positioning capped off. They can’t all be winners.
– Forsling and Gustafsson were festering scabs tonight too, each with a 22+ CF%. On Boston’s third goal, Forsling did that thing where he’s facing his own goaltender when his opponent scores, which is a very normal thing for an NHL defenseman who’s being showcased to do. There’s not really anything Forsling does right out there, but when your alternative is Slater Koekkoek, all you can do is wait for the sweet embrace of death to blot out the misery, because Chiarelli can’t save you anymore.
– The PK was a urethral wart tonight too. Sure, they technically killed off a 5-on-3. But Caggiula’s awful positioning on the first PK led to Boston’s game-tying goal. Then, in the third, Torey Krug drew both Kruger and Dahlstrom along the near boards, leaving Murphy alone against Heinen and Cehlarik. There’s no reason for a D-man to fly to the near boards on the PK like Dahlstrom did.
– John Hayden sucks, and the sooner they trade him to whoever takes over Peter Chiarelli’s mantle as head dumbass, the better.
– Brendan Perlini played seven minutes at 5v5 and had 0 CF and 15 CA for a 0% CF on the night. That’s fucking something. I’ve never seen it before and never want to see again.
– Kane keeps his scoring streak alive at 15 games, dropping a nifty pass to Keith, who then handed it off to Gustafsson on a 4 on 4, allowing Gus to RuPaul his way toward his 12th goal. Other than that, though, Kane was a ghost, but given how he’s quite literally carried this team over the last several months, you sort of get it.
– Watching Brent Seabrook lose the puck to no one and have to take a tripping penalty as his recovery—which led to Boston’s first goal—was very on brand.
This is what this team will look like against anyone who’s actually sniffing at the playoffs, not simply the beneficiary of the NHL’s lust for faux parity. They aren’t fast enough to play man and aren’t smooth enough to recover against teams that pressure them. Fortunately, the only marginally good teams the Hawks play for the rest of the month are Dallas and Columbus, so it’s possible they keep this playoff-run farce up for a bit longer. That would be OK, because the winning was fun, like trying to eat four dipped combos from Al’s in one sitting.
Onward. . .
Booze du Jour: Makers 46 and Pedialyte (The De-Rehydrater)
Line of the Night: Hung out in the Mute Lounge tonight.
First Screen Viewing
Flames vs. Lightning – 6:30
The term “Final Preview” gets tossed around a bit too much. The Lightning probably should have been a Final team last year, but ran into Braden Holtby (though the dunderheads of NHL analysis will tell you it was because they weren’t tough enough, because that’s always the default, horseshit excuse). The Flames might have to negotiate Vegas and then San Jose before even getting to a conference final. But on the shortlist of teams that will be expected to go deep into May, these two are definitely on it. The Lightning have gotten to their why-should-we-give-a-shit phase of the season, dropping a couple games they normally wouldn’t. The Flames still seem insistent on playing Mike Smith for a some reason. But this one should have both teams’ attention tonight.
Second Screen Viewing
Maple Leafs vs. Avalanche – 8pm
The Leafs are swinging out west for a bit, and though the Avs are collapsing to the point that they’re around the Hawks in the standings, they at least can run with the Leafs for a period or two. Should be a lot of goals in this one because neither team has a goalie playing all that well at the moment. Feels like a 6-4 here.
Other Games
Islanders vs. Sabres – 6pm
Stars vs. Panthers – 6pm
Capitals vs. Blue Jackets – 6pm
Hurricanes vs. Sabres – 6:30
Devils vs. Blues – 7pm
Red Wings vs. Predators – 7pm
Flyers vs. Wild – 7pm
Rangers vs. Jets – 7pm
Coyotes vs Knights – 9pm
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 23-24-9 Bruins 31-17-8
PUCK DROP: 6pm
TV: NBCSN non-locally, NBCSN Chicago locally
PLAYIN’ HOUSE WITH SHINE: Stanley Cup Of Chowder
If some of this recent winning-streak for the Hawks is based on getting to play some lower-tier competition, that will change a bit tonight on Causeway St. Then again, the state they’ll find the Bruins in doesn’t exactly make them a premier force either. It doesn’t have to make sense, because it’s hockey and it’s the NHL. And I guess I’m contractually obligated to point out the Canucks lost last night, this is the Hawks game in hand on them, and they could climb higher. If that matters. Which it might. But probably doesn’t. But maybe.
Anyway, the Bruins. They’ve won four of five, while inspiring exactly no confidence in their fans while doing so. They needed overtime to get past the Kings and reeling Avalanche. They needed a shootout to get past the confuse-a-cat Rangers. They scored one goal against the Caps. So it’s not a clear demonstration of raw power, exactly. The Bs are third in the Atlantic, in a real tussle with the Leafs and Canadiens. And it’s one of these weird happenstances that only takes place in the NHL, where it might actually be beneficial to finish fourth in the division. Second or third means going through either the Leafs or Habs and then the Lightning. Swapping over to the Metro could see a team have to get past a somewhat illusory-Islanders team and then any of a flawed Pens, Caps, or Jackets. The easier path is clearly marked.
The Bruins are also beat up. It was announced this morning that David Pastrnak is out for three weeks with a thumb injury, and this was a team that was one-line-plus-one-center anyway. Now David Krejci has no one to play with again, and the unholy alliance of Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand will look to their right and wonder how Danton Heinen got there. Clearly, the Bruins are screaming out for a move, and should be in on any discussion for Panarin, Duchene, Stone, and whoever else. That is if they think they can make anything of this season. Given the age of Bergeron, Marchand, and Zdeno Chara, they don’t really have seasons they can just give away.
All that said, this is the Bruins team you remember. When Bergeron is out there, they’re one of the best teams around. When he’s on the bench, they are most decidedly not. When he’s playing, the Bruins carry nearly 60% of the chances and attempts, and are below water when he’s on the Gatorade. Krejci is having a wonderful season, and he’s doing it with interns and contest0-winners on his wings for the most part. David Backes is broken and dead. None of the kids that showed flashes last year have backed that up. Jake DeBrusk has three goals in 2019. Heinen has been a nothing. The Bruins are short, and would look to be short if they run into the Leafs in the first round, and would heavily struggle with the Canadiens’ speed at least.
The defense is at least healthy, which is most certainly wasn’t earlier in the season. Chara, McAvoy, and Krug are all back. Chara is still getting done by cutting down his game more and more and letting McAvoy do the work beyond the Bs blue line. Krug is still a choose-your-own-adventure at evens but a power play weapon, making him Michigan Gustafsson, really. But that’s ok, because the goalies have been really good. Both Tuuke Nuke ‘Em and Jaro Halak are over .920 on the season, and Rask hasn’t lost in regulation in nearly two months. So even when Bergeron isn’t keeping everything on one end, the Bruins get bailed out most of the time.
To the Hawks. Dylan Sikura will replace Kunitz in the lineup to keep him saved for his 1,000th game at home on Thursday, because that’s a huge occasion for this organization. Apparently. The defensive rotation will continue. What the Hawks need to do is figure out how they want to handle Bergeron. Bruce Cassidy will toss him out against anyone not named Toews every chance, and the Hawks are either going to have to try and survive or change quickly. Bergeron and Marchand against Anisimov and Hayden is not going to be funny for anyone in red, so that’s one the Hawks will probably try and get away from and have Toews or Kruger take on the big assignment.
Eight is better than seven, even if it’s empty.
Game #57 Preview Suite
It is apparently still the time of the Ent. Zdeno Chara might not be what he once was, how could anyone be, but at the age of 41 he is still an effective force on the back-end for the Bruins. If only other d-men around could have aged so gracefully.
Cleary, Chara does not dominate the game like he once did. From the heights of the beginning of the decade, Chara’s metrics now hover around the team-rates, including bottoming out last year at a -3.9 CF% relative. He’s back to right at the team-rate this year. His xGF% never swung too far below from what the Bruins were doing as a whole, as though he may have given up more attempts as the years have worn on it’s still pretty hard to get to the high-danger and middle on a d-man with the wingspan of Mothra.
The Bruins have helped the cause. Chara has been taken off the power play for the last three seasons, and is averaging just five seconds per game on it now. Which basically means he’s out there when the penalty is ending. This year, they’ve tried to cut the amount he’s out there on the kill as well, averaging less than three minutes of kill-time per game for the first time in four seasons. Clearly, the Bruins know that 41-year-old legs can handle only so much.
Chara’s offensive production has fallen off in recent years, and he’s been paired with more offensively inclined d-men like Charlie McAvoy of late. It was only two seasons ago that Chara put up 37 points, but he has only seven in 37 games so far this year. Chara’s charge has been to simply be a free-safety for McAvoy most of the time, which his body is more attuned to.
It also helps that Chara has kept himself in great shape, so even though the tasks and job-description change, he’s able to perform them. While the Bruins may wish to get that booming slapshot up the ice more often or his underrated vision, they realize what they have. Perhaps at that age, you do what you’re told no matter what. At least some people do.
But Chara has always carried more water than that. He’s the longest-serving captain in the NHL, wearing the “C” for the Bruins for 12 years, basically since he walked in the door from Ottawa in 2006. Which makes what comes next so awkward, or could.
Chara is on a one-year deal for $5M, and has made it clear he has no plans to stop playing. At this point he’s made enough money that he doesn’t need to break the bank, but the Bruins also aren’t going to want to insult him with an offer. The Bruins have about $20 million in space for next season, though McAvoy and Brandon Carlo are going to see pretty big raises. The Bruins also desperately need a winger or two to maximize the last prime years of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, as the latter has been forced to play with muppets and scarecrows basically all season. The Bs are expected to be major players for Artemi Panarin in the summer, and if they miss out there you can be sure they’ll be after Matt Duchene or Mark Stone or the like. With Bergeron 33 and Marchand 30 and Krejci 32, you can see the urgency.
So Chara will probably have to wait until after July 1st to see what the Bruins have left for him, but he’s not going anywhere else. And eventually, probably next year, will have to move down the lineup to a second or third pairing. But he’s done well with being asked less, and there’s no reason to think that will stop.
Game #57 Preview Suite
We went to our normal Days of Y’Orr crew. No one told us they were all dead. Some relative forwarded us to someone named Jon Fucile. So here you go. We don’t know either.
Not that you could do this, but the Bruins are in a tussle with the Canadiens and Leafs for the 2nd and 3rd spots in the Atlantic. Technically, wouldn’t it be better to finish 4th and deal with whatever dreck wins the Metro instead of Toronto or yet another series with Montreal?
I’m torn on that, though I’d lean towards preferring a match-up with the Metro. The Bruins have handled the Maple Leafs pretty well over the past couple years, but the Leafs have more than one line which could be a problem in the playoffs. Tavares actually playing some meaningful playoff games could cause him to Hulk out and go nuts and as much as I love Zdeno Chara, he already looks tired. Pretty soon Bergeron is going to have to play D and pull a Weekend at Bernie’s with Chara. Doesn’t bode well for the playoffs.
Because the NHL playoff schedule sucks and there’s a chance Toronto and Tampa could meet in the first round, it’d be nice to watch those two teams beat the shit out of each other and hope the Bruins could make a series of out the scraps if they happened to make it to the second round (which is doubtful anyway).
The Metro is such a crap show but the Bruins just got their first win against the Capitals after losing 14 straight to them so not sure I’d want to see the Caps in the first round.
Though I’m confident the Bruins could give the Penguins or Blue Jackets a run. Yeah the Pens have Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Kessel but they have less D than an early 90’s John Wayne Bobbitt and over in Columbus Bobrovsky forgot you’re supposed to play well in a contract year. So yeah I’d say play for 4th and hope for the “best” from the Metro.
I mean… go for #1! Yeah! Rah rah and all that.
The Bs have been racking up points, but they’ve gone to OT with the Flyers, Rangers, Kings, and Avalanche of late, none of whom are above the remedial class. Any worries there?
Oh yeah. The Bruins score less than me and I’m married. When the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line isn’t out there, this team couldn’t score on an empty net. Well, maybe that’s a tad harsh. But they’d definitely have trouble scoring on a blind folded Martin Jones, and he can’t stop anything this year. And now with Pastrnak being out at least two weeks with a busted thumb, scoring is likely to dry up like Oilers playoff chances after opening night. This was a problem last year too and management failed to address it. We never learn from our mistakes.
Well, except for firing Chiarelli. But it was too late. IT WAS TOO LATE.
They have to get David Krejci any winger, right?
They have to but I’m afraid they won’t. Even if I drink a gallon of Bruins Kool-Aid I still know this team has zero shot at a long playoff run without adding more to the second line.
Boston management is too addicted to their failing prospects, though. Sweeney should’ve made a move or two last year when some of the top B’s prospects had some value before they tanked hard this year. They’ve tried spreading out the scoring by putting Pastrnak on Krejci’s wing, but then you break up what is arguably the best line in hockey.
The rumor mill is popping with Panarin to Boston rumors, and I think he and Krejci would look GREAT together but I’m not sure even that that the Bruins have enough depth scoring to be a threat to a healthy Tampa Bay team. Also rumors that the Bruins are front runners to add Wayne Simmonds, which is a trade I would LOVE if I had a time machine and could get the Wayne Simmonds from 3-4 years ago. Vintage Wayne Simmonds is what Bruins fans pretend Milan Lucic was.
The Bruins last year seemed to have introduced an impressive collection of younger players. But DeBrusk hasn’t scored in forever, McAvoy is made out of graham crackers, Heinen has 16 points, and one or two others have flattened out. What’s the truth here?
I hate to admit it but I think we all got suckered in last year with way too many young kids playing over their heads. It caused management to mostly stay firm this offseason as well and feed the fanbase some crap about having what they need already in the system. The signs were there, but we ignored them like an unwanted step child.
This year they came crashing back to earth like the Challenger. I still believe McAvoy has the talent but he can’t stay healthy long enough to get any kind of rhythm going. This is why I’m pro HGH. At least specifically for McAvoy. He’s the one out of this group I’d cut some slack.
DeBrusk is a classic Bruins case study. Both management and fans LOVE their power forwards and give them way too long of a leash. There were even a few rumored deals on the table last year where the Bruins could’ve included either Carlo or DeBrusk and got Landeskog in return but luckily for Colorado we’re the drunkest city in the US because management was like NO WAY WE WOULD’VE EVEN TRADE DEBRUSK FOR MCDAVID. Now he’s struggling and you’d have trouble trading him for an autographed copy of Gigli signed by Ben Affleck.
Boston also overvalues 4th liners every since Shawn Thornton and Gregory Campbell led the Merlot Line to a couple of great seasons a decade ago. Heinen, a guy with 4th line talent at best, gets propped up because of past, clearly unsustainable success.
Boston blew this whole thing more than my mom, and she’s a prostitute.
Game #57 Preview Suite
It used to be that David Backes being a shit-gibbon was kind of our little secret. The rest of the NHL looked upon him as the usual “valuable warrior” type, because he was too damn slow to avoid contact and was always around after whistles. Oh, and he captained the Blues, who were too stupid to ever change their game from knuckle-dragging antics and yet were views amorously by various, drunk hockey analysts who longed for the days they could no longer remember thanks to what happened in those days. Backes being the subject of Brent Seabrook‘s fury in 2014, at what was basically the height of the recent Blues-Hawks rivalry, only added to the legend. Surely he must’ve got under the skin of an actual accomplished player like Seabrook!
But with NHL contracts under the greatest scrutiny of any sport thanks to the hard cap, it didn’t take long for Backes to wear out any goodwill in The Hub. Because as he skated around like he had kept all of his rescued puppies’ shit with him, and had to be moved to wing because of it, Bruins fans couldn’t help but wonder how much they were paying this guy. And it’s only gotten worse with just five goals in 45 games this year.
Now everyone thinks David Backes is a waste of space. Everyone thinks he’s a jackass. But we knew. We knew before it was cool. We knew Backes to be the perfect embodiment of why the Blues never went anywhere, too focused on the wrong things and not fast enough. We knew Backes to be so desperate for Pierre McGuire’s cartoon hearts from yapping that he turned Bryan Bickell, who was outscoring him at the time anyway, into a one-man symphony for a game in 2013. We know that Backes only ever won three playoff series in his time in St. Louis, and he had all of 12 goals in 49 playoff games there.
We knew. Now everyone does. It’s not as fun when it’s not your secret, is it?
Game #57 Preview Suite
