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.

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.

Game Review: Bruins 3, Sabres 1 (March 8)

The Bruins are Proof that the Problems in the New NHL Aren't Actually Universal Despite What Brian Burke Believes

Apparently hockey is going through a horrible change that is deeply distressing...


Essentially Burke is upset because he had to send Colton Orr to the AHL (thank heavens he cleared waivers!) and he had to send Orr to the AHL because, as an enforcer, there is no longer a spot on the roster available for a player who isn't necessarily the best skater (in other words, is nothing but a fighter) in the new and evolving NHL in which Brendan Shanahan suspensions are strict and frequent. He feels that because of Shanahan's excessive "policing", the physical aspect of the game is being forcefully removed and accountability on players who take cheap shots is placed solely on the shoulders of league disciplinarians (Shanahan) rather than players on the ice. In the past, for example, if a player like Downie takes a run at Phaneuf (who can protect himself, by the way), Orr comes out and makes Downie pay for it. Throwing a cheap shot directly leads to physically paying for it on the ice in that game, rather than perhaps a penalty and waiting to see if you do or don't get suspended by Shanahan. If Downie throws a questionable hit on Phaneuf, nobody on the Leafs can respond to it, because apparently the fact that Shanahan will look over the hit means nobody can respond to it on the ice.

Gregory Campbell on Faceoffs

Bruins Center Gregory Campbell Breaks Down Art of Faceoff as Part of Game Within Game

 

Draws are an art, and if you ask anybody, even the top guys still don't have it figured out. It's a lot of practice. It's something that you have to take pride in, because it's a big part of the game.

I think it's a lot of reading the opposing players. Other players have different tendencies. If you're going against like [Tomas] Plekanec from Montreal, he tends to tie up and kind of block your stick from sweeping through and uses his feet. I think you have to be able to adjust throughout the course of the game.

It's more just experience playing against guys. Whether you're on your forehand or your backhand you have to adjust as well. If somebody is doing something, you might want to talk it over with your wingers or defensemen and say listen, 'This guy's been tying my stick up all night.' So that creates a battle there so just come in and help. Because a lot of times if you're not going to win it clean you need help from your linemates or the two defensemen.

It's definitely a five-man responsibility. Obviously the center bears it on his shoulders the most and gets credit for it and when he loses it gets the blame, but your linemates have to show some awareness with being quick to jump in there. A lot of times it's a stalemate there where the puck's just laying there and you need that extra help from the wingers. Any center will tell you that the success of the center has a lot to do with the wingers and the defensemen.

Obviously it helps me a lot working on it. We do it always after morning game-day skates, and we have some pretty good faceoff men on this team. Bergy is one of the best, Bergy, Kells and Pevs are all extremely good at it. They've been working at it for a long time, so I try to learn from them.

I think it helps. Right now we have two righties playing center and two lefties playing center, so I think Claude does a good job of reading the game, seeing who's doing well on that particular night and putting us out there in situations where we're going to succeed. Sometimes it's tough for a lefty to go out there on his weak side against somebody that's good on draws who's on his strong side. So he'll put out two righties and if one gets kicked out he has confidence that the other can go in and win it. We also have the ability to have more than one natural centerman on a few lines, so that's something that helps too.

I think in the offensive zone sometimes you're more creative. You set up a play off a draw. In the offensive zone it's more about getting the win, and winning it clean. In the defensive zone it doesn't matter if you tie up, as long as you get the help. You just don't want to lose it clean. In the offensive zone sometimes you want to go forward and make a play off it that way, but in the defensive zone it's all about not losing it clean.

Some linesmen are more strict than others. They won't let you cheat as much. And every centerman in the league cheats. That's something that you have to kind of push your limits to see what you can get away with. Worst-case scenario you get kicked out, but there's always a little battle in the faceoff circle with the two centermen trying to get leverage and trying to get your stick in there, your head in there, your body in there and disrupt his stride. Most linesmen are consistent, but you defini
tely want to be aware of that.