The Army Ranger Jacket

During the 2011 Stanley Cup run, the Boston Bruins gave their "player of the game" a vintage Bruins jacket that Andrew Ference bought on e-bay. Read more about it at the end of this post. Last year, their short playoff run involved a padlock necklace that ended up, in hindsight, to be a sad reminder of the impending lockout. This season, Andrew Ference decided to return to the Jacket route, introducing an Army Ranger jacket to the team given to him by a personal friend that is himself an Army Ranger.

After each win, the previous recipient of the Jacket passes it on to the next person they deem to be the player of the game. This is how it has gone so far:

(Credit)

Learn Some Irrelevant, Possibly Incorrect Krejci Things

Don't you ever desperately want to pass the time until the next series, but it's only Monday night, into Tuesday morning, and the series doesn't start until Saturday? And suddenly you're in a black hole of YouTube videos that have nothing to do with the Bruins, and you really miss Blake Wheeler? I looped back around to David Krejci thankfully...and stumbled upon some semi-recent interviews from the lockout when he was over in the Czech Republic.

Here is the video, which, can you believe?! is in Czech! Why would they be speaking Czech in the Czech Republic? I watched a few minutes of this despite knowing it was entirely in a language I cannot comprehend because I'm really bored, I like watching Krejci speak Czech, the set is cool, and it felt like "Inside the Actors Studio" a little bit.

When spontaneous English did not happen, I deferred to twitter to help me find someone to translate the video. And since twitter is awesome and full of great people, this wonderful woman came to the rescue! This interview isn't actually interesting, and doesn't have any worthwhile insight, which makes it even more wonderful that she took the time to translate it for me. Seriously, thank you!

Below is the video and the tidbits that were worth sharing because I'm starved for entertainment.

35 MORE! Reasons To Love Tuukka

Because we can't get enough! And because reason #1 was reason alone to make another list. Make sure you read the first 40 Reasons, of course.

Bruins YouTube: Bear Hockey Rules, History Will Be Made

Bruins Hockey Rules:

• Winter Classic jerseys
• Hibernation always ends in October
• Hang up the phone
• Never tuck in your jersey
• Never date within the division
• Christmas gifts
• Bellyfat
• Always have your victory dance ready
• Never leave early to avoid traffic
• Bear Hunter
• Never disrespect the Garden
• Never disrespect the jersey
• Seat upgrade
• Obey restroom code
• The Bear's Cup

The Bear & The Gang:

• Bear & The Gang Opening Credits
• Bear & The Gang Episodes 1
• Bear & The Gang Episodes 2

History Will Be Made from 2011:

• Bobby Orr: What if Bobby Didn't Fly?
• 4/23/11: History happens in Double OT
• 5/2/11: History doesn't let up
• 5/6/11: History doesn't let history repeat
• 5/17/11: History doesn't act it's age
• 5/19/11: History ets nothing by
• 5/23/11: History doesn't back down
• 5/27/11: History awaits.
• 6/6/11: History makes a statement
• 6/13/11: History works fast.
• 6/15/11: History returns to Boston.

AHL President is pissed NBC refuses to acknowledge the AHL

Edit: read a much cleaner version of this on a much more stable website on Stanley Cup of Chowder here (published as as of 10 am Monday morning)

Dennis Seidenberg: learned to be a champion in PHILADELPHIA.

The AHL President Rants on Twitter

On Sunday evening after the broadcast of the Bruins/Rangers game, the president of the American Hockey League (AHL) went on a mini-rant on twitter that was totally legit. What sparked the tweets was basically the fact that one of the biggest story lines of this series so far is the rookie defensemen filling in on the Bruins blueline - Krug, Bartkowski, and Hamilton - and how two of those three rookies came straight from the AHL and their immediate success in the NHL playoffs can be directly attributed to the AHL.

40 Reasons to Love Tuukka Rask (in case you don't already love him!)

Tuukka Rask! He is pretty great, isn't he? Are you still on the fence about whether or not to embrace him? Here are some reasons that should help make up your mind. Hopefully you will soon be doing what you see in the GIF below without any shame!

We're all Rask fangirls and fanboys at heart.

5v5 Plus-Minus per Game & PDO: 3/22/13

Using statistics from the great Behind The Net, a quick comparison of where a team ranks in the statistic of 5-on-5 goal differential per 60 minutes and where a team ranks in the league standings in terms of points shows that it is pretty accurate. 

The Bruins rank 5th in the league in points, and are 5th in the league in this particular stat as well. 

Interestingly, the 3 teams with the biggest variation in 5v5 rank and points rank are all southeast division teams: Carolina, Washington, and Tampa Bay - all who have a relatively high 5v5 rank, but are very low in actual points rank. 

I also have a chart for PDO from the last 3 weeks (this week here, last 2 weeks here).