I thought he was OK until Peeke went out. Then he just got exposed. I think his PP instincts are underappreciated.
This is interesting. They *looked* so much worse after he went out. Is it just fatigue/shuffling -related? Just the PK? Hockey analytics are my achilles heel.
$10 to TACA for DRS
$10 to TACA in honor of DRS that the Bruins win the series?
They weren't great together, but it's a tiny sample, 11:58 across the 2 games. Shots were 8-6 Torotno, Scoring chances, 7-4 Toronto, high danger chances 4-1 Toronto, goals were 1-0 Toronto. And they got 85% Ozone starts. I don't think you can parse out who is more at fault, neither were good.
And that’s where I think some criticism can be made of the coach. Breaking the puck out has been a problem all year. Sweeney has made several roster moves trying to address it. He can’t come with anything scheme wise to help it? Maybe counter what the forecheck is trying to make them do?
This Bs team is pretty soft. I thought they'd be one and done until they drew Toronto, which is also pretty soft, and has Boston demons besides.
No need to incubate. By most statistical measures they were a mediocre team, at best.
They tried to build the team around skating ability and speed to make up for the lack of top end skill and they have probably the worst ice surface in the league so it doesn’t surprise me. Puck sticks and bounces everywhere on that surface. And they’re not skilled enough to overcome it.
thanks for doing the math. so counting ot loss as losses it's 36-33 which is I guess what I was thinking. Which yeah isn't awful. But closer to reality for them.
The Bruins have better goaltending, defense and home ice "advantage" in this series. There's no excuse for them not to win this series. They need to figure this shit out. They've have many years of being the better team and getting upset by the underdog, there are seemingly very few years where they are the ones doing the upsetting.
I think a lot of the not retaliating for physical play is due to how they get officiated after the constant whining by Montreal, Tampa, Vancouver, etc after the cup year. They have to get over that, go back to being a physical team, and just kill the penalties if they get called.
Well Sweeney had his chance in 2015 and messed it up (Barzal, Conner, and Chabot being taken 16th, 17th and 18th are absolute killers), but yeah I agree.
Entirely possible, but 1) let's not prematurely write this team's script yet - who knows how far they go and 2) it's so much damn fun having these two guys. I get that it would have probably been the optimal decision, but sometimes it makes for a less fun experience as a fan. We've been through that with some of the other Boston teams.
He also had a no trade clause. I agree with you on Barzal. Guarantee he’d like to have that one back.
100% agreed, I would have been bummed if they had dealt him. Just saying from a purely hockey on-ice standpoint it may have helped them this year. But yeah, I love having both guys too.
I remember TSC (I think) being all in on Barzal during that draft. We should try and find the thread.
Any one of the next three picks would have been better than any of the guys they took, and I actually like JDB a lot. But goddamn. What a wasted opportunity.
For some reason I was really amped up on Ivan Provorov that draft...but there's also this after they took Zboril:
I was also begging them to draft Debrincat over Frederic in 2016.
Maybe I should reach out to Donny, see if he's hiring.
On the flip side, they did perform and raised expectations, preseason means nothing at this point. They are expected to compete in the playoffs as the 1 seed and after last year's collapse, there is rightfully a lens on how Monty navigates this series. I don't think people are ready to fire him, but there should rightfully be some skepticism until he can push the team over the first round. Great regular season coach, can he do it in the playoffs?
I wasn’t calling for his head. I was saying he should be questioned. But that’s probably my bias against coaches in hockey in general. I think 90% lose their usefulness after 3-4 years.
I always figured librarians sold a few things that fell off a truck to make ends meet, but I never imagined they'd be so brazen as to make a competitive sport out of it.
I want to emphasize this quote because it's the crux of my position on this team:
This, very much this. The Bruins, like almost all teams, get upset from time to time in the playoffs. Last year was a particularly egregious example of postseason underperformance and disappointment. But the most frustrating thing about this team as long as I can possibly remember is that it never, ever goes the other way. The Bruins never seem to punch above their weight in the postseason. I don't know why that is, they seem to have all the ingredients of a team that could do so with strong goaltending and good defense. But it doesn't seem to happen.
Sometime yesterday, this thought crossed my mind as well.
Now imagine you are a Leafs fan....
I have read that the building isn't kept cold enough for ideal ice conditions. No idea how true that is. The use of the surface for Celtics games likely plays a part as well. The best surface in the league is in Edmonton IIRC and there are no basketball games played in that arena.
And I think calling out those questions after losing their first game is stupid. As I thought most of your rantings and ravings last year after they lost were stupid and unhinged. I don't find the discussion good or intelligent but largely reactionary and devoid of logic. There's no benefit to calling it first, especially in the playoffs where things can sway and turn so quickly (see: last year). And if they win the next three games and go on a little run, this conversation will be forgotten.
I'm in the same frame of mind. The Bruins didn't play great on Monday night and they still almost sneaked a win away from a desperate Toronto team. Add in that I don't think that anyone realistically thought that the B's were going to sweep the Leafs, so logically, a loss or two would need to be expected.
Yeah, see that's like your opinion man. And yeah, you were trying to thread police.
So what do the other 9 NHL buildings with NBA teams do better than the Bruins? Why would the owners of the building who also own the Bruins (and not the Celtics) purposely make the ice worse? Let me guess, Jacobs is cheap angle? Goes well with Sweeney can’t draft in 2015 and Monty is a terrible playoff coach at 4 wins and 5 losses.
This is very silly. Players routinely complain about the ice at the garden and it's been an ongoing issue for a long time.
The story I was told (by someone who manages the ice at a Hockey East arena) is that it has to do with the contract with the bull gang. Don’t understand how, but they literally can’t change any methods or types of equipment that they use on the ice, and there has been a lot of advancements in ice resurfacing.
