Bruins Nation

Islanders goalie (and former BU star) Rick Dipietro is the man!



Also the Red Sox clinched the Al east yesterday after an amazing comeback by Baltimore over the Yankees! The Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins, and maybe Celtics are going to win their respective championships!

Tomorrow the Bruins are playing their last preseason game against Rick Dipietro and the New York Islanders. I will be at the game, preseason tickets are cheap so I recommend that everyone try and go. If you can't go however, the game will be broadcast for free over NHL center ice online. The game is at the garden at 4.

Another preseason loss for the Bruins. I caught the first two periods of this one via CJAD. Marco Sturm scored for the Bruins in the first period, and Tim Thomas played fantastic in net. In the second period though, the Habs scored three goals. Andrew Ference scored in the third, but the late rally was not enough.

Some big news coming from the NHL today, Steve Downie was suspended without pay for twenty games and will lose near $65,000. This comes after his very illegal hit on Dean Mcammond earlier this week.

The hit was illegal in every way possible! Downie left the ice and was in the air when he blind-sided Mcammond towards the head well after the play. Mcammond had to leave on a stretcher (he had a concussion). After the hit, the entire Senators team (including Shean Donovan) crashed Downie and started beating on him. I just found a video, check it out:

On Sunday afternoon the Bruins dropped another game to a Canadian foe. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Bruins 4-3 in front of just under 10,000 in Halifax. The Canadiens jumped out to an early lead when forward Tomas Plekanec scored a natural hat-trick. Down 3, Chuck Kobasew scored. Then Higgins put the Habs back up by 3. The Bruins played great in the third period, with Murray and Savard scoring but it wasn't enough. Manny Fernandez ended his first full game with the Bruins with 33 saves, one of them on a penalty shot. There are no highlights though, there is nothing remotely good about losing to the Canadiens. It doesn't matter that it's preseason.

Also, it is official now: Mark Mowers has been traded to the Anaheim Ducks for defensemen Nathan Saunders and Brett Skinner. Both defensemen were immediately assigned to Providence. Mowers was just not needed. David Krejci, Peteri Nokelainen, Glen Metropolit, Nate Thompson, Phil Kessel, Patrice Bergeron, and Marc Savard are all in camp competing for four center jobs. I still have no idea who is going to be centering the fourth line. I am assuming Kessel, Savard, and Bergeron will all have their jobs come October. In my eyes right now, the 4th line job is between Metropolit and Krejci. Krejci because he absolutely lit up the AHL last season, and Metropolit because of his age (he's 33, if he wasn't good he would have already been cut). Thompson may surprise me though, and Nokelainen (who has been playing all three forward positions) may get a job as a winger for the Bruins.

Just announced: Cam Neely has been hired by the Boston Bruins as vice president.

Even tbough it was a loss, there were some highlights. Phil Kessel, Nate Thompson, and Bobby Allen scored, sending the game into OT despite being down 2-0 at the end of the first. Also Dennis Wideman and Jeff Hoggan got into fights. What was very depressing was the shootout though. Kessel, Krejci, Savard, Metropolit, Lucic, Bochenski, and Nokelainen all missed the net. Thomas made sure six didn't go in but the seventh went by him. 0 for 7 should not happen, ever.

Luckily the Bruins will get to rebound today in Nova Scotia against the Montreal Canadiens. The lineup is almost the same for the Bruins. Fernandez will replace Thomas, Bergeron will replace Mowers, and Murray will replace Bochenski. Thornton, Reich, and Chara are not playing either, which takes a large part of the Bruins toughness out of the line-up. The greatest rivalry in the NHL starts their pre-season play today at 3:00! As of now Center Ice is not showing the game, I will update if I find any media sources covering the game.

Update: 4:18
Now that the CFL game is over, CJAD is broadcasting the game. The Habs are currently up 3-0, Tomas Plekanec has beat Fernandez three times for the natural hat-trick.

The Boston Bruins will take on the Toronto Maple Leafs at the garden today at 4:00. Claude Julien, while addressing the media, stated that he plans on having Tim Thomas play all 60 minutes, with Tuuka Rask on the bench just in case. Here are the twenty guys playing tonight:

Shaefer-Savard-Bochenski
Lucic-Krejci-Kessel
Metropolit -Thompson-Thornton
Hoggan-Mowers-Nokelainen

Andrew Ference, Andrew Alberts, Matt Hunwick, Dennis Wideman (Third preseason game, the only Bruin to play in all three), Bobby Allen, and Matt Lashoff.

Thomas
Rask

The Bruins this afternoon will try to bounce back from the 3-0 loss that they suffered at the hands of New jersey on Thursday. This game will be on NHL Center Ice (preseason is free).

P.S. Season starts in under two weeks!

Alright, Racist may be the wrong word to use, but it spruces up the title. Anyway, tonight the NHL is only showing the games involving canadian teams on NHL Center ice online. Since the Bruins are playing New Jersey, there is no way for me to catch the game. This upsets me...there's nothing I can do though, so all I can say is: Go Bruins!

NHL Center Ice showed this game online, preseason is free and I'm loving it. The Bruins won the game 3-1, dominating New York. Thomas and Sigalet played solid in net, but the best part of all was the fact that the Bruins threw down the gloves four times. Shawn Thornton, Milan Lucic, Andrew Ference and Zdeno Chara (yes, Chara threw down) all fought Islanders players last night.

Two goals came from Jeff Hoggan and one from Chuck Kobasew, who has been playing very well in camp. The Bruins also had a very different defense style. I can't quite name what is was. One guy would attack the puck while the four other guys would play in a square like zone, all backing up the guy who was attacking the puck while covering guys on the other team. It looked good, and it shut down the Islanders. Hopefully this system will work a lot better then the Dave Lewis method.

I went to Sunday's training camp practices and scrimmage, and the team looked very good. Most notably in my eyes were the improvements of Mark Stuart and Chuck Kobasew. Kobasew handled the puck very well during the scrimmage and Stuart really held his own against everybody. One very funny event took place in the 2nd half of hte scrimmage when Jeremy Reich went to bump Chara and was sent backwards. Reich tried to give Chara an off-balance shove but it didn't even phase the tallest player in the NHL.

Chiarelly just announced that he has cut nine players from the trainig camp roster. Daryl Boyle, Reid Jorgensen, Jamison Orr, Chris Collins, and Mike Brown will attend the Providence camp though. The four others (whose names I will not type because they are quite difficult) will return to play for their respective junior league teams.

Also, some interesting headlines around the NHL are: Former Bruin Anson Carter has been invited to and will attend the Edmonton Oilers training camp...And Buffalo and Pittsburgh will participate in the first outdoor NHL game this January in Buffalo (at the Buffalo Bills NFL stadium)

And I must acknowledge this: The Patriots for the 2nd straight week demolished their opponents 38-14. First it was the Jets, the it was the Chargers. I know I shouldn't be saying this, but this team could really go undefeated. Tom Brady is playing so well now that he has wide recievers, and the Offensive and Defensive lines have been overpowering every single guy lined up in front of them.

This news does not surprise me. Scott Niedermayer, the 2007 playoff MVP has not yet decided whether to give it another year in the NHL. So when he opted not to show up to the Ducks training camp on Tuesday, they suspended him. This move makes it so the 6.75 million that Niedermayer would make does not count against the Ducks salary cap if Niedermayer decides to retire. Also Teemu Selanne, the Ducks leading goal scorer, has not decided whether to give the NHL one more season. Both Selanne and Niedermayer were enormous parts of the Stanley Cup Champion Ducks last season. If they both decide to comeback, the Ducks will be a strong team defending their championship. If they don't come back, the Ducks are going to be a 7th place team tops.

The Boston Bruins just announced that Forward Ben Walter has been traded to the New York Islanders for forward Petteri Nokelainen. Nokelainen was a former first round draft pick but has been battling injuries.

Also training camp starts tomorrow with the rookie physicals and rookie skate in Wilmington. Veteran physicals are Thursday. Here is the schedule

I don't know about you but I am very excited about this season. Last season the Bruins should have done much better. Dave Lewis' strategy just did not work. Chiarelli fired him, got a new coach, got some new skaters and a new goalie. This season the Bruins should do much better. I'm thinking second place behind Ottawa in the division (by a point or two) but then we eliminate them in the playoffs on our way to winning the Stanley Cup for the first time in over thirty years.

Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe was in Wilmington today and reported that 20 skaters took to the ice today for a 45 minute skate and some scrimmaging. Andrew Ference was there but did not skate, which worries me a little. Like it or not, Andrew Ference is going to be a huge part of this team this year. if him and Alberts can do what Mara and Stuart had trouble doing on defense last season, the Bruins offense will really be able to shine.

Chuck Kobasew has yet to arrive in Wilmington, which is a surprise because in my eyes, he has something to prove. The Bruins last season traded a very talented center in Wayne Primeau for Chuck Kobasew, who was unable to do much last season due to injury.

Also, Boston Bruins tickets go on sale Saturday, September 15th at 10:00 AM.