Clarencethehorse's Blog

We are a mere two games into the season, and I already hope that the Bruins worst game of the year is behind them. When the on-ice highlight of the night is YouTube sensation Junior Seau riding the zamboni, you know you’re in deep trouble. Especially against the offensively gifted and opportunistic Washington Capitals.  But that is how bad the Bruins looked  in losing their season opener 4-1 this past Thursday night.  The Bruins went 55 games last year before losing by more than two goals, but they got that dubious accomplishment out of the way early this season.  Here’s a play that sums up the game: Milan Lucic looking like Lurch  early in the third period as he was caught flat-footed  by Alex Ovechkin, who jumped on the loose puck and quickly buried a snap shot past a surprised Tim Thomas to put the game essentially out of reach at 4-0.  Lucic’s play mirrored the entire evening for the Bruins, as they lost battle after battle.  That was the first time I noticed Lucic on the ice all nite, and many of the B’s forwards simply did not show up for this game. Patrice Bergeron, who got the Bruins lone goal, may have been the only exception.  This was not the way the Bruins wanted to perform in their most anxiously awaited opener in years.  For Saturday’s game, they needed to bounce back quickly and decisively, or long suffering Bruins fans would be putting their B’s jersey back into their closets amid cries of “Why did we trade Phil Kessel?!”.

What a difference a game makes.  The Bruins faced Aaron Ward and the Carolina Hurricanes for Game two, and they beat them handily, 7-2, beating them up physically along the way.  Instead of the crowd cheering on Seau riding the zamboni, we had Zdeno Chara  riding Tom Kostopoulos like a mechanical bull.  Offensive woes of the season opener? Not anymore, as seven different Bruins dented the twine.  The power play outage against the Capitals?  No worries, as the B’s tallied 4 PPG’s against the Hurricanes.  Their forwards, who were so ineffective against the Caps, were creating offense with crisp break-out passes and aggressive rushes to the net.  After being outshot 34-20 on Thursday nite, the B’s outshot the Hurricanes 42-27.  When the Hurricanes tried to save a show a little life in the fisticuffs department, they got beat up even worse than on the scoreboard.  Milan Lucic was challenged by an ill-advised Jay Harrison in the second, and Lucic made him pay,  as Harrison looked like JFK arriving at Parkland Memorial Hospital as he made his way to the bench.  Ex-Bruin Andrew Alberts, who had sparked a 5-on-5 scrum in period 2 when he threw a questionable high hit on Marco Sturm, was also bloodied by Shawn Thornton in a third period bout.

The Bruins also dedicated the Fred Cusick  Broadcast booth at the TD Garden.  Here’s some more classic Fred.

So with a 2.43% sampling of this season in the books, this much is apparent:  the Bruins are NOT as bad as they looked against Washington in game 1, but they are also most likely not as good as they looked in game 2 against Carolina.  Next game:  Thursday at home vs. Anaheim.

Any Ben Folds fans out there?  Here’s a clip from his Saturday show at Calvin Theatre in Northampton

This entry was posted on October 4, 2009 at 11:47 pm and is filed under Boston Bruins, Hockey, Music with tags Ben Folds, Boston Bruins, Fred Cusick, Milan Lucic, Shawn Thornton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.