Since I've Been Loving You

Going into today's game against the Flyers, the Bruins were 6 points out of a playoff spot, with 2 games in hand on Carolina. This was a more desperate situation than they've been in lately, even more so because they're playing Detroit tomorrow afternoon. Going by the numbers, it would have been reasonable to say that if they Bruins didn't win this game, they'd have a tough time making the playoffs. I didn't go by the numbers, but before the game I told myself that if they didn't beat the Flyers outright today, I would have to stop believing that they have a chance of making the playoffs. It wasn't because getting one or no points makes the playoffs impossible, but more because if they can't beat Philadelphia when they're in dire need of the points, there's nothing to make me think that they can win enough to catch any current playoff team. They had to win this game to keep my faith.

And they didn't. The Bruins lost to the Flyers, and not even in overtime. Moreover, they got beaten by the Flyers. They sucked. Sure, there were some positives. Patrice was noticeable on a few plays after being invisible since he came back from injury. Wideman wasn't useless for the whole game and actually scored a goal. Jeremy Reich absolutely clobbered Darren Reid in their fight. Savvy decided to care again and, having a little chemistry with Kessel and Bochenski, played a good game. But this isn't the beginning of the year anymore, and it's not good enough to have some positive things going on if we're still losing to the Flyers in regulation. Overall, they didn't play well enough to win when they really needed to. Most of the Bruins were useless today, and even those that were good at times were useless more often than not. Outside of the Savvy-Kessel-Bochenski line, the forwards got very little going offensively. The de couldn't keep anyone in check on the other end of the ice, except maybe Ference and Alberts, who still weren't anywhere near perfect. Chara and Ward are supposed to be our shut-down line, but they were brutal. For a good example of how this game went, watch Mike Richards' game winning goal. Chara skated the puck out from behind our net and, with two Flyers nearby, lost an edge and went crashing down to the ice. Dmitry Afanasenkov came up with the puck and skated in on Ward with Richards. In a 2-1 close to the net, Ward did exactly what he shouldn't have done- he left his feet. Afanasenkov took an extra stride or two and simply passed around Ward's helpless body to Richards, who took a whack at it and forced Joey MacDonald to make a great save. But Bochenski (putting in a good effort to get back on such short notice) accidentally knocked the puck in the net, putting the Flyers up for good. At this point I had to leave the room to watch the game alone, after muttering things like "Ward never sucked this much for Carolina" and "If they lose this game I'm going to start killing people". Keep in mind this was before the Bruins gave up a shorthanded goal to Scottie Upshall. You don't want to know what kind of things I said after that.

After the shortie, NESN went to commercial saying, "...as Scottie Upshall tries to stick a dagger in their hearts." I thought, after I finished twitching, that it was a good analogy. Upshall metaphorically stabbed us, and for the rest of the game we were metaphorically bleeding to death. This is what it feels like to be a Bruins fan. Actually, it's also a good representation of what it feels like to be an Oilers fan right now, except that the Bruins keep dragging me back in and refusing to let me die. With the Oilers right now we're just waiting for the end to come. At least with the Avs I'm still in a good place. With the current winning streak, everyone's suddenly speculating about them making the playoffs, but I stubbornly refuse to. I'm happy right now. They're winning and playing well and I'm enjoying every second of it (except when it was against the Bruins). I don't want to start stressing out and counting points and filling up pieces of paper with reasons why they might possibly maybe make the playoffs if everyone else starts to suck. Come on; they're 8 points back of Calgary and have played one more game. I'm not being pessimistic when I say that it's a tough hill to climb. The Oilers might not win another game this year and the Bruins are trying to kill me. Is it too much to ask for a stress-freeteam that actually wins games? They score goals, which I've already explained makes me happy. On one end, they have Joe Sakic, who is maybe as close to perfect as they come. On the other end, they've got a great group of young talent coming along, from the rookie tandem of Paul Stastny and Wojtek Wolski to the slightly older Marek Svatos (humor me- he'll return) and J-M Liles. The B's and Oilers are going to make me lose my worried mind. The Avs I thank for keeping me sane.

Quick notes

• In addition to being stabbed in the heart and slowly bleeding to death, being an Oilers fan is apparently also like watching the innards being squeezed out of a live caterpillar. This fanbase needs Prozac.
  
• Paula came with Liz and I to the Bruins/Avs game and sat with us in one of the few extra seats (front row- how pathetic). I pointed out Milan Hejduk and told her that he was the one I'd had the dream about. Her, Liz, and the woman next to them agreed that he actually was kinda cute, which freaked me out.
  
• I missed the Oilers game last night because I was out and "didn't care". I still checked the score on my phone until it got to be 4-0 Anaheim. Then I did stop. I don't know if there's a point where I'll stop watching the games. Maybe when they have to forfeit because the only defensemen left are Jason Smith and Laddy Smid? The de situation reminds me of the episode of "Pete and Pete" when the older Pete joins the wrestling team and is forced to actually wrestle when every other person on the team is killed off. I have no idea how I remember that.
  
• While giving a presentation on Dante's Inferno to my English class, I accidentally pronounced the name "Simon Magus" like "Seemon Magus". Eliza asked if I had done it to sound like "semen" and make Skinder feel awkward, but I told her I had actually been thinking of Simon Gagne. She seemed disappointed, but not surprised.
  
• When at the Avs game with her and Liz, we each got the attention of a different person. Liz waved wildly at Petr Tenkrat while he was stretching, and got him to keep looking over and smiling amusedly. Paula (according to her) made eye contact with Zdeno Chara, whom she has dreams about. She can't figure out why; he's her Milan Hejduk. I got the attention of the Bruins mascot Blades, who is, outside of Daniel Briere, my sworn enemy. As he walked by I took a picture, and he started pointing and waving at me, giving me a mild panic attack. Due to him and Wally the Green Monster, I just really hate mascots.
  

Would you want that thing waving at you?

Update: The Bruins beat Detroit. I was asleep for the first two periods, but according to NBC, they played with a lot of desperation. From what I saw and read, Patrice was finally on today, getting a goal and an assist. Savvy still played with some fire, but today it paid off, getting him 3 assists. Tim Thomas was again fantastic, stopping 35 of 38 shots. I still don't care. My faith in them was killed yesterday. Goddamn Bruins.

I Hate the Bruins

This year doesn't make any sense for the Bruins. They had everything. The forwards are young and talented. The most sought-after de at the trade deadline was our #2 guy on a good defensive corps. Tim Thomas is criticized sometimes, but he's kept us afloat and stands on his head when we need it. There was a time earlier in the year when everyone was labelling them as the surprise in the playoffs, should they make it, which it looked like they were going to do.

Now? The Bruins are 6 points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand on Toronto (and a game against them tonight). They're also only 7 points behind Carolina with 3 games in hand. Overall they've got 7 head-to-head matchups against teams they can catch or have to pass to make the playoffs, including 4 against the floundering Canadiens. It's possible that, if the stars align and the Bruins stop sucking, they can sneak in. But I still don't see the Bruins making the playoffs over the Avs or the Oilers. The Oilers are 8 points out of a spot with a game in hand, and Colorado is a point behind them. Their opponents are about equal- Boston and Edmonton's remaining opponents should get an average of 92 points this season, while Colorado's should get about 93. The Oilers also have seven head-to-head games against teams they can catch or have to pass. The Avs have nine, but that's including games against the Oilers that I counted for them but not Edmonton, as they're the ones that have to do the passing. Basically, all three teams are in similar situations, with the Bruins having a slight mathematical advantage in the standings but more teams to get by. There's no reason why I should be dismissing the B's more than the other two, but I'm still doing it. It's just that they've always managed to disappoint me and I don't trust them anymore. For example, the year before the lockout, they were up in the first round 3-1 against Montreal. The Canadiens came back to force a Game 7, which fell on my birthday. We had people over for a small family party to eat cake and watch the Bruins. They lost.

Of course the only reason I'm even putting the words "Bruins" and "playoffs" in the same sentence is because they looked like a legitimate team last night, and of course the reason that they looked like a legitimate team is because they were playing the Forsberg-less Flyers. Ignoring that little fact, I was impressed by the Bruins' effort. Pretty much every player was hustling, led again by Marc Savard, whom I'm starting to have a serious friend crush on. I was talking about this with Paula at the Carolina game a while ago. She was raving about how adorable he is and I agreed, saying that he's the type to cuddle with and tell your problems to. She looked at me like I was diseased and said, "I definitely don't just want to be friends with him, Tizzle." Whatever you want from him, he was working his ass off last night, and for the first time this season looked very frustrated. It was almost a relief to see him shove someone and swear to himself after the whistle- he has so many reasons to be fed up with this team that it was starting to freak me out that he wasn't. Instead of letting his frustration get to him, he channeled it and got himself a 3-point night. PJ Axelsson's goal was entirely Savard's doing. He skated hard into the offensive zone, forced a turnover out of the de, then spun and made a seemingly blind, tape-to-tape pass to PJ in the slot. That goal, coupled with the fact that Marco Sturm called him "Savvy" when interviewed after the first period, made me a happy, happy girl. By the way, is there a person who looks angrier than Marco Sturm? During his interview he seemed like a complete sweetheart but he's got the second meanest-looking face I've ever seen (no one beats Raffi- NO ONE).

The Bruins forwards also benefitted tonight from having more concrete lines (Savard-Muzz-Axelsson, Boyes-Tenkrat-Chistov, Kessel-Sturm-Bochenski, Mowers-Donovan-Reich). In the beginning, there was a lot of miscommunication, but as the game went on there was some chemistry working up. Savard's line has been good together all year, but the other two lines were also working it. I liked the chemistry between Boyes and his wingers and Kessel was good with whoever he was out with. I feel like Phil is one of those people who's meant to be a center. On my team, the girls that we always put at center were the girls who were a liability in any other spot. Since it wasn't very common to find people on the team who actually watched hockey, it was very common to find people who didn't really understand the game. Some girls ("wicked ADHD" as my dad would say) couldn't seem to grasp the positional aspect of the game. They were drawn to the puck and were unable to stand still. So we put them at center, where it was basically their job to fly around the ice, following the puck. I'm not saying that Phil is "wicked ADHD", but if you watch him, he flies around the ice, following the puck, and also seems to love it. Something tells me he'd be a very restless winger. That's not to say he's dumb on the ice, of course. He made a really nice pass to Savvy on the powerplay, which turned into a goal for Sturm. The Bruins have a strangely successful powerplay, sitting at 7th in the league. It hinges on Savvy, who was born to quarterback a powerplay. If there is an open player, he will find a way to get the puck to them. The Bruins coaching staff is smart enough to know this, and have probably told all of their players to get him the puck and get open. Kessel's pass, for instance, was a beautiful pass because it had to go through a lot of traffic. If they're not necessarily forcing it to him, they're definitely intent on getting it there. Why not? Savvy then made a wonderful pass that Sturm just had to tip in. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This doesn't apply to the Oilers powerplay because their bread-and-butter play is much more fixed than the Bruins'. Savvy is hard to defend because he creates options. If you give him a passing lane, he'll get the pass there, and if you give him enough space he'll shoot it himself. The only way to defend against him is to keep him from getting the puck and double-teaming him if he does. The Oilers' play has no options- if the other team takes away the shooting lane from the point, they've got the entire powerplay covered.

So how will the Oilers' 27th-ranked powerplay will do against Ottawa tonight? Let's just hope they don't draw too many penalties.

Quick notes

• Paul Mara is possibly the randomest person on the Bruins. I have no idea whether he's good or not. Last night was the first time I noticed him all year, and only because he got in a fight with Mike Richards. Also because Versus told me his hometown is somewhere in New Jersey, while the Bruins keep telling us he's from Belmont, Massachusetts. He is from New Jersey. He's even more random than before.
• I kind of like Mike Richards. He reminds me of Jarret Stoll. The fight confused my feelings about him, though. I love a 5-11 guy that'll get in a fight, but since Mara is so random I don't know whether or not I like him yet. If he fought Andrew Alberts or something, I definitely would.
  
• Speaking of Alberts, he loves playing with Andrew Ference. Ference is working insanely hard all over the ice, and Alberts looks pretty content letting him do that. There were a couple of plays where Alberts backed down because he knew Ference would take over. I would break this pairing up if I were Dave Lewis. It would benefit both of them.
  
• Joni Pitkanen is a very good defenseman, but I couldn't tell if he was putting effort into the game or not. He could just be like Joe Thornton, who got criticized because he never looked like he was working hard, or he could be mailing it in because he's playing for the Forsberg-less Flyers. Even if it is the latter, on a legitimate team he'd be a treat.
• Tim Thomas owned the third period, recovering well from letting in a shaky goal earlier.
• On the goal-cam view of that shaky goal, we got a hilarious view of Chara flailing his arms wildly, trying to keep the puck out of the net. Every cloud has a silver lining.