Bruins Return To Garden To Battle Devils

Hi Boston, remember hockey?

It’s been five days since the Boston Bruins have played a game, a thrilling win against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night in Canada’s capital where the B’s scored two goals with under a minute and a half left in the third to tie it and eventually win in the shootout.

Tonight, the B’s will play host the New Jersey Devils, a team that has given the Bruins trouble and close match-up’s for years. Under Claude Julien, the Bruins are 3-2-3 against the Devils and no final score between the two clubs has had a goal differential over three, which has happened only once.

Ten games into the season, the Devils, back with Jacques Lemaire behind the bench, are off to a 6-4-0 start, but their road record has been more than impressive, it’s been perfect. The Devils are undefeated on the road with a 5-0 record.

As always, a main cog in the success of New Jersey has been Martin Brodeur, who missed much of last season with a torn bicep injury. However, luckily for Boston, Marty will be watching tonight’s game from the bench as Yann Danis will make his Devils debut tonight in Boston.

With the departure of Scott Clemmensen to Florida through free agency and retirement of Kevin Weekes, the Devils were without a solid back-up and addressed this issue with the signing of Yann Danis to a one year contract worth league minimum.

For Danis, this is his third NHL franchise in as many years, spending last season with the New York Islanders, where he put together a respectable season on a dreadful team with a 10-17-3 record, .910 save percentage, and 2.86 goals against average.

Despite his decent numbers, the same cannot be said when Danis stepped in between the pipes against the Boston Bruins.

In three games last season against the Killer B’s, Danis went 0-3-0 with a .881 save percentage, including a start against the Bruins in the Isles season finale where he was lit up for four goals in 25 minutes.

For Boston, the focus will be on looking to continuing the momentum they gained last week as the team gained five out of a possible six points while without top-liners Marc Savard and Milan Lucic.

The Bruins will still be without Lucic (finger) and Savard (foot) for tonight’s game, but call-up’s Brad Marchand and Vladimir Sobotka have played considerably well and aren’t causing headaches for fans in the Hub of Hockey when on the ice just yet.

Last week, the success for Boston came in the final five minutes against the Sens, a task they surely don’t want to have to repeat tonight with Danis in net. The keys to the game will be to put the pressure on the Devils early and get Danis rattled. However, given the Lemaire trap-style of play, inducing lullabies everywhere since 1993, the B’s may have very limited chances to do so in tonight’s game, creating the mantra of capitalizing on their chances.

Players To Watch

For Boston, the pressure-cooker has got to be building on Matt Hunwick. Hunwick, who missed nearly all of the Bruins playoff-push last year following a ruptured spleen injury, has struggled out of the gate on a defensive standpoint so far in 2009-10. While the 24-year old has three goals in ten games thus far, he’s been a total liability when it comes to defending the Bruins zone responsibly. If this continues, B’s fans will be clamoring for the return of Johnny Boychuk from the press box in place of Hunwick sooner, rather than later.

Tim Thomas, coming off a huge 27-save performance in Ottawa on Saturday will be in net tonight for Boston and will look to improve to 5-3-0 on the short season. The 2009 Vezina Trophy winner has experienced relatively good success against New Jersey, boasting a 4-3-3 record and .920 save percentage, including a shutout of last year’s Devils.

In red and white tonight, while Patrik Elias is tops among Devils forwards when it comes to career points against Boston, Elias will be inactive tonight still recovering from off-season groin surgery, putting the focus on Devils captain and notorious Bruins killer, Jamie Langenbrunner. In 10 games this season, Langenbrunner is already off to a fast start with seven points and a +4. Always the dangerous playmaker due to his size and effective skating, Langenbrunner has already tallied 23 points in 34 career games against Boston and could have more if not contained by the Bruins.

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Ty

Powerplay Outage: Hiller, Ducks Beat Bruins 6-1

Is it too late to change the Boston Bruins motto from “Big and Bad are Back” to “Ten Minutes of Offensive Pressure, Fifty Minutes of Mistakes”?

While it’s still extremely early in the season, there’s no doubting that after a 6-1 demolition of the hometown boys thanks to the at-the-time winless Anaheim Ducks following the steam-rolling of Carolina last Saturday, the fans in the Hub are beginning to wonder what they’re in for this season.

My best advice? Don’t jump off the bridge when there’s still 79 games of hockey left.

Heading into tonight’s showdown at the TD Garden, the Bruins were seemingly back to their offensive-juggernaut ways after lighting up the ‘Canes for 7 goals during a Saturday night physical affair in Boston. Tonight however, Jonas Hiller and the rest of the Anaheim (no longer mighty) Ducks were more than ready. After getting peppered by 19 shots by Boston in the first period of play and only letting one Marco Sturm slapshot get by him, the feeling that this was going to be a difficult night for the Boston offense was beginning to reverberate throughout the minds of the Garden Faithful.

From there on out, it was all Anaheim.

Following an interference call on Matt Hunwick for his rather bizarre knock-down to 6′4″ Evgeny Artyukhin and questionable hooking call against Marco Sturm, the Ducks, who boasted the fourth best powerplay in 2008-09, were set up with one minute and 53 seconds of a five-on-three advantage. Turns out they’d only need a minute and thirty seconds of it to jump ahead.

It was a Teemu Selanne bullet that went by Tim Thomas, who was being screened by Corey Perry uncontested that tied that game and wouldn’t you know it, it was Teemu again who put the puck by a sprawled out Tim Thomas a minute later to give Anaheim a lead they would never relinquish.

After Corey Perry’s goal midway through the second period put the Ducks up 3-1, the Bruins seemed simply unmotivated to win, a sight similar to last week’s home opening against the Washington Capitals. Anaheim, who adopted the idealogy of quality over quantity finished the period with three goals on just six shots whereas the Bruins were held to just one goal on 30 shots through 40 minutes of play.

In similar fashion to the aforementioned game last week, Bruins netminder Tim Thomas gave up three more soft goals in the third period, including a very bizarre shorthanded goal by Corey Perry with under a minute to play and the Bruins were done.

When it comes to tonight’s loss, the Krejci line can simply not feel good about the way they played tonight. Frequently offsides and defensively irresponsible is no way to go through a game, boys. All three members of the Bruins’ second line, Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder and David Krejci finished the night with an upsetting -3.

Kudos to Boston’s fourth line tonight, which was creating offensive chances and throwing the body around all at the same time. Shawn Thornton, who has a knack for scoring highlight-reel goals was kept off the scoresheet but had a very impressive night when it came to moving the puck around and skating.

All and all, the story of tonight’s loss rests on the unsuccessful powerplay put forth by Boston. The Bruins were 0-6 on the advantage, falling to 4-19 on the season.

Dumb Quote of the Night

“*Sarcastic cheers*” – As Thomas stopped the puck after giving up the sixth goal in the closing minute of tonight’s loss.

Yes, Thomas did get shelled tonight, yes he was looking foolish at times, but why are you booing the Vezina Trophy winner from last season after a rough game? For one, the Bruins defense was not giving Thomas any help whatsoever and secondly, wouldn’t you prefer Thomas to work out the kinks from the off-season in October as opposed to in April?

Jersey-Spotting of the Night

A man walking throughout the balcony tonight in Section 314 was sporting a lovely Boston Red Sox away jersey, bearing the last name “Yankees Suck”, featuring the number 24:7. Interesting to say the least as this last name was so long that it makes Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson look like a nameplate belonging to Steve Ott.

What’s Next?

The Bruins will take to the ice in Boston on Saturday night as John Tavares makes his TD Garden debut when the New York Islanders come to town. The Isles are 0-0-2 on the season following an overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators in Canada’s capital tonight. I’m about 95% sure that following tonight’s frustrating effort put forth by Tim Thomas, who stopped 24 of 30 shots, that the Bruins will give the nod to Finnish phenom Tuukka Rask.

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The Vezina & The Flash: Boston Looks To Goalies For Anchoring

Not since the days of Andy Moog and Reggie Lemelin (Apologies to Andrew Raycroft and Hannu Toivonen) were the Bruins considered to have as much strength in net as they did in 2008-09. The goaltender duo of Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez proved to be the best in the National Hockey League, taking home the Jennings Trophy for fewest goals against along with Tim Thomas leaving Vegas with the Vezina trophy in June.

Heading into the off-season, it was pretty much a known fact that Fernandez wouldn't be returning to the Bruins for a third season with the club. The 35 year old, who was acquired in a trade with the Minnesota Wild back in 2007, was seemingly in a do-or-die moment when it came to his health. Fernandez, who was sidelined for 78 games of the 2007-08 season with a severe knee injury that required surgery had just one more chance to prove he could perform at a high level in a contract year with Boston.

As the rigorous schedule of a National Hockey League season took it's toll on Fernandez's back and knees, the netminder often referred to as "The Mexican" (he's from Canada, go figure) seemed ready for what could be one final go 'round with Boston.

Fernandez performed admirably in 2008-09, finishing with a 16-8-3 record and a .910 save percentage for the Boston Bruins. Manny's big moment in Boston come in October and didn't end until December as Fernandez performed exceedingly well in a platoon role with Tim Thomas, going 12-2-1 in the 2008 calendar year with a 1.94 goals against average.

The lack of playing time that followed Fernandez in 2009 was due in large part to the success of Tim Thomas along with what was considered either a back sprain, although rumored to be an "attitude issue" that limited 'Mandez' to just 12 appearances in the second half of the season. Fernandez went on to finish the season poorly, dropping four of his last six games.

Obviously, the play of Tim Thomas went on to lead to both zero appearances in the postseason for Manny and a Vezina Trophy for the 35 year old Thomas. The Michigan-native and perhaps one of the best stories in Bruins history put up career highs in all categories with his 36-11-7 record and league leading .933 save percentage and 2.10 goals against average. His strong play in 2008-09 led to the once dubbed "poor-man's Dom Hasek" goaltender to receive a four year contract worth 20 million dollars.

Heading into this season, Thomas is clearly the number one starter for the Bruins for the fourth year in a row. However, Thomas will have new competition on the bench as prized Finnish goaltender Tuukka Rask has finally cracked the big league line-up and joined Boston. Rask, who was originally acquired from Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for Andrew Raycroft in what's considered the biggest steal in recent Bruins trade history has spent the past two seasons playing for the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League. In his two seasons of seasoning with the P-Bruins, Rask posted a 60-33-6 record and 2.42 goals against average.

Last season, Rask joined the Bruins for a brief stint and participated in one game during the entire season. This one game proved to be the best of Rask's short NHL career thus far. The Finnish Flash held the New York Rangers off the scoresheet, stopping all 35 shots his faced from the blue-shirts offense. His shut-out on January 31st sparked great internet banter from every wannabe-expert who believed that Rask should have either traded Fernandez to make room for Rask, and or give the reins of the starting job to Rask.

Ignoring the hype from the know-nothings who dub Rask as the Finnish version of Roberto Luongo, there's still a lot to look forward to when it comes to Tuukka. On the surface, Rask appears to be that perfectly mechanical goaltender that every NHL G.M salivates over. At just 22 years old, it's very possible and entirely likely that Rask will only get better with time.

The Boston Bruins are expected to continue to limit the workload of Tim Thomas for stamina purposes while giving Rask his first real taste of the National Hockey League. My realistic expectations of Thomas is to play around 55 games around while Rask will get in for 25, perhaps a little more or less if he is to live up to the hype.

On the farm, the Providence Bruins will have the ability to select through a plethora of goaltending options throughout the year in Dany Sabourin, Kevin Regan and newly signed Matt Dalton. While Sabourin is expected to be the number one for Providence, P-Bruins coach Rob Murray will undoubtedly try to give Matt Dalton a good look while UNH-alum and Boston native Kevin Regan re-cooperates from off-season hip surgery.

Something worthy to note, the Boston Bruins likely have the two most volatile-tempered goaltenders in the crease this season thanks to Tuukka's affection for throwing milk-crates whereas Thomas has a tendency to flip nets off their moorings, tackle forwards, knock down wingers, and chase after agitators when things don't go quite his way.

Bruins Winter Classic Jersey Leak?

On the right is a picture of Tim Thomas and one of the Boston Bruins ice girls or Carrie Milbank of NHL.com as one commentor pointed out (any confirmation is greatly appreciated). Notice anything askew? No, it's not Thomas' new watch, it's the jersey. Poising the question, is this the Boston Bruins 2010 Winter Classic jersey?

If so, here's a few pro's and con's of the jersey that the Bruins will don when they take on the Philadelphia Flyers at Fenway Park on New Year's Day.

Pro's

• Very reminscent of the photo's from the early Johnny Bucyk era and jersey sold on Willie O'Ree appreciation day. Everyone loves the Chief and diversity.
• The sleeve patterns don't stray too far away from the Bruins current scheme. Same goes for the shoulders.
• The jersey numbering and letter will most likely be white with black outlining, which should look absolutely awesome.
• Incorporates all of the Boston Bruins normal colors, with what looks to be some added brown on the spokes of the 'B'.

Con's

• This 'B' is far too cartoon-ish for a serious Bruins fan.
• Doesn't this look an awful lot like the old Providence throwback jerseys?
• We know that the Bruins were trying to go for a Pittsburgh look with the powder blue, something that would incorporate older colors but still be very popular among the fans, so maybe our expectations were a bit over the top for the (possible) end result.

Overall, this jersey gets a thumbs up from me if this will be the one worn by the Bruins on New Year's Day. Despite the fact that it may not be this one, or this one, or this one (thank Eddie Shore), it'll still be better than whatever the Flyers could possibly put together looking at their jersey history. Bright orange? Not a good look unless you're working the tarmac at Logan Airport.