Off-the-Ice Alter-Egos

I normally wouldn't actually try to write something like this the way I did here, but it was helpful for me to express my surprisingly rational feelings about Tim Thomas' greatness on the ice and poor discretion off of it. I think the following reflects the final stage in the grieving process - acceptance.

Ever since the White House "incident" last season and his Facebook posting about it, I have gone back and forth between thinking Tim Thomas is an obnoxious idiot for saying that shit on Facebook and thinking everyone who judges him for it is an obnoxious idiot. The bottom line is that I love Tim Thomas for what he has done for the Bruins and that will never change. But why must he continue to progress into a more and more unlikable person off the ice? While I will always love and appreciate Thomas, I am not so sure that him possibly never returning to the Bruins is a bad thing.

LOTS of Bruins 11-12 Highlights

As the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals loom just 2 days away, us Bruins fans are struggling to cope with the reality that the Bruins are not part of it this year. Every aspect of the playoffs taking place leading up to the beginning of the Devils/Kings finals series on Wednesday reminds me that the Bruins were there last year, and it makes me so sad (sadder than I already am) that they aren't there anymore - and even more so, that what seems like yesterday when they were there, was actually a year ago. To try to cope with this sadness, I will post some of my favorite videos from the 2011-2012 Bruins regular season, which offered some amazing moments in and of itself.

These are in no particular order, and are only a dozen of the endless amount of videos I wanted to post, and perhaps plan on posting this summer.

I have to admit, looking through these season's highlights, I realized how unbelievably fortunate I was as a Bruins fan this year to experience a dozen home games that were all (except for 1 or 2) absolutely fantastic! I have so many wonderful Bruins memories over the years, starting with my first game in 1997. I miss them so much, and look forward to the wonderful memories they are going to give me the opportunity to be apart of in the years to come.

So You're Rooting for the Bruins...Playoff Guide! (with The Bear & The Jacket)

This time last year, I created a 6-part guide on my Tumblr called So, your favorite team didn’t make the playoffs this year and you’ve selected the Boston Bruins as your adopted team: The Complete Guide. Since it was fun to make, and it clearly played a pivotal role in the Bruins winning the Cup, I am going to do it again this season to ensure I do all that I can individually to help the Bruins win the Cup again. Don't be fooled, I am still superstitious as hell, so I am knocking on wood as I write this. But it's really fun to look at what I wrote last year, knowing they would go on to win the Cup, and how different things are this year. I will be writing this years version and posting it sometime before the playoffs start! Maybe even before the season ends. We'll see.

Right now I am very inspired to get a start on it, actually. I do some reminiscing below, including The Bear ads and the magnificent of Mark Recchi and THE JACKET.

The Bear, The Gang, and the Good Ol' Bruins Are Back

It's fitting that Thornton's goal broke a 38-game goalless streak and Seidenberg's goal broke a 28-something-game goalless streak on a night that the Bruins proved they had finally broken a collective losing streak that sucked the life out of them from January through the early weeks of March.

I was extremely uncertain coming into tonight's game about what to expect from the Bruins. I hoped, obviously, that they would continue to improve and play great hockey that they are capable of. They seem to be on that road, with each passing game in the past week or two another step in the direction of playing in playoff mode. Tonight certainly seemed to have a playoff-like intensity to it, at least in the 3rd period. I had forgotten what it was like to see them play so well, and be successful. I don't want to jump the gun and say they're gonna keep it up and steamroll into the playoffs, but they are showing that they are on the right track.

Which is why I was hesitant to expect a win tonight. Tampa was so devastating the past two games they played against the Bruins, and the Bruins in general have been awful against the Southeast Division. But the 4-game season series ends at 2-2, with the home team winning every game. Playing well at home was something important they needed to re-establish before the end of the season; they had proven that they could play well on the road during the California road trip. But their shot totals had been down, and they still had some kinks in their game. Tonight, it's great to see they continue to iron out those kinks in their game.

This game was a huge relief, and Love That Dirty Water playing over the Garden sound system after the game ended almost gave me déjà vu from last years playoffs wins at home. You can't blame me since this was against the Lightning, like in the Conference Finals: things like Roloson in net playing great hockey and the recent resurgence of The Bear, who we hadn't seen since Tampa fans got unreasonably offended and outraged over the Bruins brilliant marketing scheme from last year's playoffs; after Tampa fans bombarded the Bruins marketing staff with personal threats, The Bear was no more.

He made his triumphant return yesterday in another genius marketing bit, The Bear and the Gang, and you can't help but think the Bruins debuted this on purpose at this perfect time. To put a cherry on top of how trolly and brilliant this is, check out the banner hanging on the wall in the background of the basement set of the show:

That is unmistakably the same poster. Genius. Anyway, let's look more at tonight's game!

Since it is so insanely fun to bask in wins like this, I'm going to talk about why this game was great, and why they are finally turning it around.

On the Bruins Turning Things Around

I hope they have. I like to convince myself of things, but it's too soon to know, so we have to sit patiently and wait for when they play again. Suddenly 2 days seems like a long time. So I will spend some of  it trying to reassure the belief that the Bruins are heading into the final stretch o the regular sesaon and into the playoffs playing better and better hockey. Here is some 'evidence' to help.

Things were bad for a while, and remained that way longer than it should have, due to reasons like Gregory Campbell explains below:

When things are going bad, you can start to squeeze your stick. That’s a term in hockey when you’re frustrated or scoring is hard to come by, you’re uptight and you’re not allowing things to happen. Rather, you’re trying to force plays and force things to happen. I guess it’s just another word for being tense and uptight. When things are going well it just seems like there’s flow in your game and things just kind of work out. Squeezing your stick is something that might be relevant to our team now, but it certainly isn’t the solution. (Source)

After last night's win, Tim Thomas said:

I feel like something's turned...It's a good feeling. Even before the game tonight I felt that way. I could just feel it in the locker room. (Source)

If Tim Thomas says so, I have a lot of confidence about the truth of the statement, especially because weakness in defense and lack of confidence in goaltending was also a main contributing and maintaining factor of the losing streaks and awful play.

In the same article, Thomas is quoted as saying:

When you're feeling good and feeling confident, you're glad to be in that position...That's part of the reason I picked goaltending in the first place. It's an important position in the outcome of the game. That can be a blessing and a curse, depending on how things are going.

The above article also goes on to quote Shawn Thornton:

[Thomas is] human, right?..Everyone has ups and downs. It's on us to be better around him when he's having an off night. The problem was we were collectively having off nights together.

As usual, Shawn Thornton eloquently and accurately describes a complex problem in simple terms: "we were all collectively having off nights together".

Considering my belief of the Bruins as the ultimate team, it makes sense that they play well together as a team and awful together as a team. They're just that dedicated to and reliant on one another!

The following post will have some data to show another reason I think things are going to start looking up.

Return of the Rolston

Words cannot describe how happy this makes me. TWO OF MY FAVORITES, HAPPY!

The Bruins beat the Maple Leafs 8-0 on Monday night, sweeping the season series with Toronto with 6 wins, and outscoring the Leafs 36-10 and shutting them out twice. Tim Thomas earned the shutout; while he only had to make a few saves, he made some great ones. The Bruins had a strong defensive game all night, however, and appear to be learning how to walk again after months of stumbling.

I have a lot of feels and thoughts.

Bruins Sign Veteran Goaltender Marty Turco as Tuukka Rask is out 4-6 Weeks; Turco subsequently spelled name Tuurcco

What a whirlwind of a day for the Bruins! Fans waiting for several hours after they were promised a statement on the extent of Tuukka Rask's injury sustained against the Islanders on Saturday. Seemingly moments later, the Bruins announced the signing of former Dallas Star and Chicago Blackhawk and current wanderer Marty Turco. Chiarelli seemingly wasted no time in searching for a new back-up for Tim Thomas, a difficult situation to resolve when the trade deadline is long gone and the team's minor league goaltenders are not quite ready for or trusted with the responsibility of giving the team a chance to win while still allowing Tim Thomas to stop and catch his breath after expanses of 5 games in 7 days or something equally ridiculous that the Bruins currently face on the schedule (because the NHL schedule-makers are the most incompetent entity in the league - including referees.)

Only a few hours after the Bruins released this statement regarding Tuukka Rask's injury, Peter Chiarelli then announced the signing of veteran goaltender Marty Turco, to a one year contract. The contract has a few significant stipulations due to the nature of the situation: (1) Because Turco is a UFA returning to the NHL after playing in another pro league during the season, he must clear waivers first after the contract is signed (think of Nabokov last year when he tried to sign with Detroit and got snapped up by the Islanders); and (2) Because Turco was signed after the trade deadline, he may not participate in the playoffs this season should he clear waivers. Although an annoying policy, it is certainly justifiable to keep teams honest and, as I will explain below, this particular circumstance may be perfect for strictly regular season play from Turco.

Tuukka is said to be sidelined for 4-6 weeks, at which point the Bruins will be in the final games of the regular season, or already in the first or second round of the playoffs. Turco's ineligability to play in the postseason is irrelevant because Tuukka should be back by then. In the next month or so before we get there, however, the Bruins definitely needed more reinforcements in net. AHL goaltenders Khudobin (injured) and Hutchinson (sucks or something) were not adequate enough to provide any relief to Tim Thomas over the course of the final stretch leading into April where the Bruins have several back-to-back games, a West Coast road trip, and a span of no more than one day off between games for a few weeks. 

While Thomas is clearly the Bruins starting goaltender by now, he cannot be expected to play in every single game for the rest of the season. This poses two significant risks: (1) over exhaustion from playing that many games in such a short span of time will make him vulnerable to injury, and (2) will certainly drain some very important long-term rest to prepare for the brutality of the playoffs (especially if he is going to perform the way he did last year).

Bruins: 7 Assorted Spokes

(Photo Credit: VickeVictoria/Flickr)

7 various topics are discussed in a few short paragraphs below:

• Line Changes and Trades
• Tim Thomas and Facebook-gate
• Shawn Thornton Quotes
• Refs, Goalie Interference, and Clockgate
• Bruins Are 1-3 in February
• Bruins Charitable Work
• Predators on Saturday Afternoon