So who's going to shadow Hossa, Bondra, Savard & Slava Kozlov?

Rolston's not a good comparison, because Rolston had an absolute cannon from the point, and Bergeron doesn't have much of a shot.

I agree Bergeron can handle playing the point - I think he could even handle a full time switch to defense. He's probably better at playing the point than everyone but Leetch, Stuart, and Slegr (who is, unfortunately, not good enough all around to warrant a place in the lineup).

But that is all beside the point.

FACT #1: The Bruins' power play has absolutely sucked since the Thornton trade.

FACT #2: Mike Sullivan and Bergeron joined the Bruins at the same time - the start of the 2003-04 season. Since then, Bergeron has more power play goals than anyone else on the team. And he's scored only one of them from the point (on a soft but well placed wrist shot the other day).

FACT #3: Bergeron is most effective as a scorer in close. Probably at least half of his 16 goals in his rookie year came from in close. No, he's not a big mucker type, but he is extremely quick, and he uses his quickness to pounce on loose pucks and quickly get a well placed shot off. That's a more valuable skill than anything Brad Isbister brings to the table. Izzy goes to the front of the net, but he is so slow to react to rebounds and looose pucks that he seldom gets a shot off a rebound even though he is right there.

FACT #4: Milan Jurcina is a better defensive defenseman than Bergeron, Slegr, and Leetch, and he has an excellent shot from the point. He is not a typical offensive defensman, but his shot would still be a weapon on the power play, if he would get any time there. And, he would be less likely to make the type of ill advised pinch that Bergeron made last night giving the Caps a breakaway. (While the Bruin power play been largely ineffective with Bergeron at the point, Bruin opponents have taken advantage of Bergeron and scored several shorthanded goals while he has been on the ice).

If the Bruin power play we doing well, I wouldn't complain about who was playing on it. But since the Thornton trade, it has been downright awful (something like 10%). Given that, it makes no sense to 1) take the best "in close" scorer on the team and station himf ar away from the net, and 2) not use a player who is better on defense and has a terrific shot from the point.

Screw the chahts - I'm going to the game! (and rooting for the blue team.)

He was doing the same yeoman's work on Jagr in Saturday's NYR game. Gotta love Per-Johan.

I think they should try to extend PJ now (higher priority than Samsonov), and make the "A" on his sweater permanent.

Thrasher scouting report -

The 'Axe will save us' mantra won't work against Atlanta - they have far too many offensive weapons. You have to play them with a very close checking game. If you start playing end to end hockey it will be over quick. If you press too much in your offensive end, they will burn you.

They've played poorly three out of the last four games, so perhaps they're vulnerable, but I think they're going to come out on fire.

The key to shutting down the Atlanta PP is to be aggressive. Attack the puck and play Kovy tight. If you sit back in a box or whatever they'll kill you.

The player to watch is Kari Lehtonen. Each game he gets better, and its almost at the point where to beat Atlanta with him in net, you have to hold Atlanta to 2 goals or less. He's that good. watch the save 2/3 the way through this clip They show it from 3 angles.

Looking forward to the game - The Thrashers give away a one-year car least at every home win. I'm due.

The Bruins are usually a very passive PK team.

What are the Atlanta lines? A glance at the stats suggests that they basically have one scoring line (Savard, Kovalchuk, Hossa). Is that right?

No - they play those three together only on the PP. New lines tonight with Bondra back - edit - Bondra was the team's #2 goal scorer (ahead of Hossa) at the time he was injured.

Kovalchuk/Savard/Bondra "1"
Kozlov/Stefan/Hossa "1a"
Larsen/Aubin/Vigier - checking line, normally centered by Holik
Boulton/Slater/Mellanby

Havelid-Sutton
Modry-Hnidy
Exelby-DeVries

It is ridiculous that I can't spell the word ridiculous speed by Bergeron makes that goal happen. Nice bounce we got, too.

Monbo's not just on the bandwagon, folks ... he's driving it!

I scored a goal off a bounce like that in my rec league once. (Except that in my case I partly fanned on the rebound off the board, and the puck was knocked in by the goalie's mask as he dove across the net. )

Is it just me, or did Thomas look horrible on both goals? The tipped shot from the point changed direction, granted, but the little closed leg hop he gave was pretty ridiculous. On the stuff shot for the other goal he committed to going down very early to take away the pass, even though the shooter was at a very difficult angle and the B's had defenders covering. Don't get me wrong, I know Thomas has been thrown to the wolves with the injuries to Raycroft and Toivonen, but sometimes he really does look like he doesn't belong and he's very lucky he's not caught out of position (i.e. turning his back to the puck, going down early, misplaying the puck behind his net) as often as he probably should.

Monbo also built it in his garage with blood, sweat and tears.

Tremendously important W.

PJ for Captain!

You've got to like the win, but you can't like the power play. The Thrashers did everything within their power to hand the Bruins the game with all of their 3rd period penalties and the Bruins couldn't put them away. Give credit to the B's for pulling this one out with a 5 on 5 goal, but, as Monbo will attest to when he gets to his computer, the Thrashers really hurt their own cause and wasted their energy on the penalty kill.

4 points away from the playoffs.

If the Bruins manage to climb all the way back into the playoff race, one would have to think Sullivan's job will be safe for the rest of the year, as will probably Mike O'Connell's.

It's not over by a long shot, though. A lot of games left. Too bad they can't get Montreal right now, when they're playing so poorly and Theodore's allowing 4-5+ goals a game.

They play Montreal 2 times in the next 5 games. Hopefully they'll stay cold.

Apparantly, Sullivan has saved his job with some well-timed blow jobs of referees.


Certainly the worst officiated game I've seen in a long time, if ever. That being said, the Thrashers continue to look flat as they have for the past week. The Bruins did a great job being in position defensively in front of the net, as I repeatedly saw from my upperdeck seats behind Thomas in the 3rd period.

ugh

Huge Win for the B's!! On the road! Against a team that needed it as badly as they did and who has a ton of offensive firepower (though to be fair their D would have room for Monsieur Gill in the top two pairs.) PJ rocks! I am totally rooting for him and the Swedes in the Olympics.

4 points back undefeated in 6 and we get Washington at home on Thursday.

Let's get this roll going!

I've got bad news for you. The Thrashers are sending a D-man to the Swedish Olympic team (Havelid.)

I assume you mean in regulation, right? They're 4-0-2 in their last 6.

He's still a rookie, he is 3-0-2 i believe and he actually put one of those goals in himself, i'll let him slide on that, it evens out with the fucking amazing save against the caps the other night. I'll take him over anything else we have right now, more power to him, I hope they leave him in net no matter who comes back till his arms drop off .. heh.

Monbo, yesterday:





The Globe story says today that Sullivan, rather than having Axelsson shadow Kovalchuk personally, instead did a fair amount of line-matching, putting the Axe-Primeau-Isbister line up against the Kovalchuk-Savard-Bondra line. While Savard did score a goal last night, I'd say that strategy worked out very well for the Bruins.

It's no coincidence that the Bruins have been playing much better since Thomas became the starter. He's healthy, and he was the Finnish League MVP last year. He's provided the best goaltending the B's have gotten all year long and has kep the team in the games he's started despite being badly outshot for most of them. If the Bruins make the playoffs, Tim Thomas' recent stretch may very well be the major factor.

Thomas is 32 years old. He's no rookie.

To call the goals he allowed last night "bad" is preposterous. A goalie always looks bad on a deflection, whether it's Thomas in net or Brodeur. And some of the saves he's been making are ridiculously good. Stopping the one-timer last night with the blocker part of the glove: priceless.

tons of pics from last night's game here. I did not take them.

AJC account written by JMOH's brother-in-law (or something like that.)

I can see Hartley's beef because you're always mad after a loss, especially one with such a large penalty disparity. In this new NHL this seems to happen more and more frequently. Last week the B's got 2 pp's to the Stars 8. The next game vs. Anaheim they were assessed penalties 10 times to only 4 for the Ducks.

In this NHL crap gets called. And Id argue the hooking call Leahy got last night was as bad as any penalty handed out. As Jack Edwards said, apparently Leahy is strong enough to knock the huge Andy Sutton totally off balance with a flick of one wrist.

Anyway, on to the Caps tomorrow.

Honestly, the only call that looked bad was the roughing call on Boyes against the scuzzball Andy Sutton.

I was only surprised because the referees typically call the Bruins for all sorts of ridiculous shot while letting Bs opponents get away with tacking them on breakaways and stuff.

I agree that the guy has made some incredible saves in the past few games, but he worries me alot. If you watch the way he reacts while the puck is moving in the Bruins' defensive zone, he is constantly crouched low in the net. He also goes almost exclusively to a split on two on ones and breakaways and usually does not stay square to the shooter. A good example of that was the shootout against the Rangers. He went to the splits so many times, it was just a matter of time before someone got the puck up (which the final goal scorer for the Rangers did).

I'm not saying that he hasn't done a good job, what I'm saying is that he is out of position a lot and I would be very surprised if he keeps the starting job over Toivonen or Raycroft(unless Raycroft remained incredibly bad).

I picked up on his crouch during the shootout as well. The Rangers continually tried to deke rather than shoot when he was giving them the corners. Bizarre. Does he maintain this positioning throughout in-game situations as well? While I don't think his stance is quite as pronounced (frankly, I haven't noticed), I'd be curious about the opinions from any netminders out there.

EDIT: At 5'11" 180lbs, this is likely par for the course (Thomas Bio). Or maybe he's been watching too many Andy Moog highlights.

I think Thomas has found that by taking away the lowest part of the net (which is a strength for him since he's a pretty small guy) he gets the best results he can. It's harder to lift a puck and pick the corner than it is to slide it in along the ice, so Thomas plays the percentages and seems to go OK with that. And the Moog comparison isn't a bad one as Andy was only 5 foot 8, tops. I met him once and he looked a bit closer to 5 6" to my eyes.

damn, that was a cool sequence leading to sturm's nifty goal.

also, trot nixon is sitting between the benches in the 3rd. someone gave him a puck. he was sportin' his ws ring.

And was looking as fat as ever.

Another solid win for the Bruins. Since Thomas has been starting in goal, the Bruins are 5-0-2, getting 12 out of a possible 14 points. The change has been remarkable.

Another game where the hotshot rookie was held scoreless, although Ovechkin certainly had his chances and probably lost a goal on the penalty shot to bad ice and bad luck. Still, the Bruins kept him scoreless and they won the game.

Hal Gill treats the puck like it's a live hand grenade. I have yet to see him make a good pass this season.

I hear San Jose is shopping Thornton. Anyone want to trade, say, Sturm, Primeau, and STuart for him?

Nice win. Boy, is Brendan Witt always so surly? Someone should start lacing his coffee with Prozac or trade him to a winning team, stat.

I have to admit I hated the trade at first but it seems (knock on wood) the worm is turning for the B's with Sturm, Stuart and even Primeau and his 3rd line playing a huge part. Coupled w/ Thomas and Bergeron and theyre looking good.

Any word on the Isbister injury? Watched the game w/o sound but it looked like a knee. It looked possibly intentional and Witt was spearing w/ Sturm earlier. That guy is a huge DBag.

Was there tonight. Great, great game to watch - very entertaining. I thought it was a huge win as well - Sturm's goal was one of the highpoints of the season for me, because it always seemed (up until this stretch) that the opposing team would score that goal.

If they can get Razor healthy, I say move him at this point. Toivonen and Thomas have shown they can handle the job between the pipes, whereas Raycroft has not adjusted to either the new speed of play or just doesn't have his mobility anymore after that injury.

I don't know what team would be looking for a second-year goaltender with a major injury history who hasn't shown much in the way of ability in either of his stints this season, but it's possible they could package one of the also-rans with him and get an okay-to-decent player back in return.

I'd be tentative to shake-up the team's chemistry at this point, but there has to be someone else that could go to make any deal sweeter, right?

He's now 5-0-2, technically he is a rookie no matter his age, and i'll take anything he can give and i'm just not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and break down every save or non-save he makes at this point.

Shit. Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit .

It is far too late in the season for the Bruins to take comfort is meaningless moral victories. They need points, and tonight they didn't get any.

You cannot give up more than 50 fucking shots on goal and expect to win a game. Ever. If not for Thomas in net, the game would not have even been close.

You cannot get THREE separate chances at 5 on 3 powerplays and fail to score on any of them and expect to win the game. Ever.

You cannot allow the winning goal to be scored off a faceoff because of a horrific defensive breakdown. Unacceptable. You cannot give up 2 goals in the span of 20 fucking seconds after having fought back to take the lead and expect to come back to win.

A truly aggravating game tonight. If the Bruins miss the playoffs this year, this is the game I'll look back on as the backbreaker.

Fuck.

Agreed on all fronts.

WTF is up with the passing on the power play? My son's mighty mite team has better passing. I am surprised NYI didn't score 3 shorthanded goals.

I was out tonight. How the fuck did they lose again to the Islanders? They are 0-3 against one of the worst teams in the NHL. This team is very frustrating.

EDIT: SJH summed it up nicely. Watching this team is not enjoyable.

I'm loving the Tim Thomas era.

The Broons seem to be getting a lot of good things from the #1 line and the checking line, but not much from the others. If they had one more sniper for the #2 line, they could be much better.

As long as they get rid of my two whipping boys, Gill and Fitzgerald. They probably don't actually have anyone better than Gill to replace him on the roster I guess, but they should cut his minutes. And Fitz is just old and kind of useless and makes too many mistakes. But he's LOCAL, so he has to stay I guess.

Is Toivonen expected back before the olympics break?

No.

Bruins up 2-0 in the first, thanks to the Bergeron line! A goal for Bergeron, bringing his stats up to 9-20-29 in the 26 games since Thornton left.

A goal and an assist for Boyes, who is the 4th leading rookie scorer.

Why do we own this team? Bring on the 8th seed.

5-0 now. Let us not forget that Thomas has been instrumental in this beatdown - absolutely stellar goaltending.

no kidding, this is the third time in a row the Bruins are just crushing them .

After tonight the Bruins will be responsible for 27% of their losses

That pass from Boyes to Sturm was just unbelievable. Someone was hooking Boyes, and Chara was covering Sturm!

Tremendous game for Boyes, who has really been playing well over the past week or so.