Boston Sports Then and Now

Campbell and Bettman's refusal to take a tough stance on headshots and intent to injure is going to cost a player his career.

Bruins All-star center Marc Savard fell to the ice Sunday afternoon after a devastating blow to the head at the hands of Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke. Savard left the ice on a stretcher and was later diagnosed with a Grade 2 concussion and his return this season is in doubt.

But don’t blame Matt Cooke. Not entirely at least. It was Cooke who struck Savard, yes. Savard never saw Cooke coming and had no opportunity to defend himself. If not for Cooke’s errant elbow Savard would likely be playing tonight in Toronto.

But Cooke doesn’t deserve all the blame. Instead look to the NHL offices, specifically head disciplinarian Colin Campbell.

Campbell’s “spinning wheel of justice” has been so erratic and senseless that it offers no deterrents to hits like these. At times it seems as though Campbell flips a coin in his office to determine whether or not someone is punished. Campbell is so maddeningly inconsistent that it is almost impossible to tell what types of hits and plays will be penalized.

Headshots are a regular occurrence around the league, especially this season, largely because there is little to no punishment for driving your shoulder or elbow purposely into an opponent’s head. And if you’re a first line star player the wheel of justice never affects you.

Read the rest of this entry →

Matt Cooke should have been missing more teeth after his hit on Marc Savard.

Sean Connery’s character, Officer Malone, said it perfectly in the 1987 movie, “The Untouchables.”

“If they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue!”

Granted Matt Cooke isn’t Al Capone, but the Bruins aren’t no Elliot Ness.

How can you not retaliate after your star offensive player, Marc Savard, was clocked by the notorious Matt Cooke?

Cooke, the player who has been suspended a multitude of time for cheat shots.

This isn’t your Daddy’s Big Bad Bruins.

If this happened in the days of Terry O’Reilly or even Lyndon Byers, Cooke would be holding his teeth in his hand.

Paging Milan Lucic.

Paging Shawn Thornton.

Paging Steve Begin.

Paging Claude Julien.

Why didn’t the Bruins coach send one of his “enforcers” to avenge the hit on one of their team leaders?

Read the rest of this entry →

Can the Bruins stop the high flying Capitals?

The improving, but still offensively impotent, Boston Bruins welcome Alex Ovechkin and the high powered offense of the Washington Capitals to the TD Garden.

This is the second meeting between Boston and Washington this season, with Washington spoiling Boston’s home opener with a 4-1 whipping of the boys in black and gold. The Capitals owned the Bruins last season going 3-0-1 against Boston.

Washington is running wild in the East this season, scoring at will no matter who is paired together. The Capitals are on a 10 game winning streak in which they have scored 48 goals while allowing just 21. Alex Ovechkin scored 26 points in 15 January games while his swing man Nicklas Backstrom has scored 7 points in his last 4 games. In 17 career games against Boston, Ovechkin has 10 goals and 20 points.

The game against the Capitals comes at a bad time for the Bruins. They are coming off of two games where they left it all out on the ice but still came away without a victory. They need a win to boost their confidence but the match-up against the Capitals presents all sorts of problems.

Boston is on a 7 game losing streak that has seen them muster just 11 goals while giving up 24. Boston cannot afford to get into an offensive shootout with any team, but especially the Capitals. Zdeno Chara has been playing lights out defense the past few games and will be tasked to shadow the Russian sniper and keep him off the scoreboard.

Read the rest of this entry →

Ryan Miller stifled the Bruins and stole a game for the Sabres.

“We were better, but unfortunately we’re looking at the end results, and it wasn’t there.” Boston coach Claude Julien said. “If we’re going to start winning hockey games, we can’t dig ourselves a hole every night and try to get out of it. But our whole game was much better than it has been.”

For the first time in a long time the Boston Bruins showed up but unfortunately the result was the same in a 2-1 loss to Ryan Miller and the Buffalo Sabres.

Henrik Tallinder opened the scoring early when he threw a wrister on net through heavy traffic that Tuukka Rask saw just a second too late to put Buffalo up 1-0. Late in the first Thomas Vanek would add another on the power play when he beat Rask on a second chance opportunity right in the crease to put Buffalo up 2-0.

Early deficits on the Bruins recent skid often meant fans were “treated” to their team playing like empty shells, just going through the motions to get to the end of the game. But not on this night.

If you didn’t look at the scoreboard you would think this was 2008-2009. Vladamir Sobotka, Shawn Thornton, Milan Lucic and even Patrice Bergeron were getting into scrums and trying to send a message to the Sabres. Boston chased down every back, hit back every time they were hit and played with more ferocity than at any other point this season. If not for another spectacular Ryan Miller performance the Bruins may have had this one.

Read the rest of this entry →

The transactions that changed the Bruins.

This is a compilation of the Boston Bruins’ top acquisitions via trade or free agency of all time. All of these players had an impact on the franchise, but not all of them resulted in championships.

These players skated for the Bruins for many years or a short while. However, they are listed here because they all helped the Boston Bruins for the better during their stay.

10. Adam Oates-Oates had a stellar career with Detroit and St. Louis prior to coming to Boston. In St. Louis, he was paired up with sniper Brett Hull. They were one of the most feared tandems in the game. Hull

Adam Oates

had three straight seasons with at least 70 goals and Oates was feeding him the puck.

The Blues dealt Adam Oates to the Bruins after a prolonged hold out. Saint Louis would get pivot man Craig Janney and defenseman, Stephane Quintal in return.  Boston’s management probably had the images of Oates feeding Neely as he did with Hull. However, that dream never came to fruition due to Neely’s injuries.

With Neely sidelined, Oates became a better all around offensive player. In ’92-’93, he had his best career scoring season. Oates posted 45 goals and 97 assists for 142 points which was good for third in the NHL (Mario Lemieux and Pat Lafontaine finished first and second respectively).The Bruins finished with the best record in the league but got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

Oates had another great season in ’93-’94 season when he finished third in the NHL yet again with 112 points.  Oates had 53 points in the lock out season of ’94-’95 and finished his tenure in Boston with two more 70 point plus seasons.

The Bruins were going with a youth movement and traded Oates on March 1, 1997 to the Washington Capitals with Bill Ranford and Rick Tocchet for Jim Carey, Anson Carter, and Jason Allison.  The players the Bruins got in return had sparks of greatness but never had the consistent numbers of Adam Oates. He shouldered the offensive load during his stay in Boston especially with the injuries to Cam Neely.

Read the rest of this entry →

After his latest knee injury, Marc Savard knows the injury list too well.

I can’t recall a time a team has more decimated by injuries to key players. Some players like Savard and Lucic had been hurt twice this season and we are just past the mid point of the season.

Milan Lucic has only played 12 games due to ankle and finger injuries.

Patrice Bergeron has missed 3 games thus far due to a broken thumb. He will be out another week and a half.

Marc Savard has been limited to 28 games because foot and most recently knee injuries. Savard could miss anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks.

The defense has been affected by the injury bug as well. The Bruins have lost Mark Stuart to a cracked sternum and Andrew Ference to a severe groin injury.

Can the Bruins weather the storm?

Read the rest of this entry →