Rear Admiral's 2013-14 Bruins Preview
“We expect to win the Stanley Cup…that’s what we expect to do.”
Those were the sentiments of confident 22-year-old rookie Torey Krug at yesterday’s Bruins media day. While the rest of the Bs contingent gave off a similar vibe, none were quite as declarative of their intentions as the defenseman from Michigan State who chose Boston over every other team.
And he’s right. The Bruins should expect to win the Stanley Cup. For a team that has been to two out of the last three Cups and is coming back perhaps even stronger this year, anything less than another Zdeno Chara doing his ‘Superman finds a literally dirt-napping Lois Lane’ yell will be considered a disappointment.
The team has moved on from its Game 6 collapse in which a potential Game 7 became a crushing, season-ending loss in less than the time it took for Pee Wee to lose his virginity. It certainly hasn’t forgotten what happened. But, given the Bruins’ renowned resilience, they’ve accepted it as a major negative career event and moved on (and maybe learned to utilize that time-out just a tad sooner).
The Bs are bringing most of the band back together but did lose a few session players in the off-season. Tyler Seguin, who hounded more poon than puck during his eventful Boston stay, was jettisoned to Dallas in what is believed to be the first Helicopter Parent trade in NHL history. Considering hot Southern belles are more prevalent in Dallas than oil money, good luck to Stars management keeping that animal caged (free advice: find a keeper—look what it did for Pat Kane). In three years here, his signature move wasn’t breaking D-men’s ankles but rather “Hi…I’m Tyler Seguin…”. And I don’t begrudge a 21-year-old kid for padding his stats—I just don’t want him doing it at the cost of my favorite hockey team. Nathan Horton found himself a happy medium (as well as a shitload of money) between the apathy of South Florida and fanaticism of Boston by signing with Columbus, though he won’t be ready until December after his shoulder surgery that was first reported here.
Rich Peverley, who the Bs would likely have taken a draft pick for to dump his salary, was sent to Big D with Seguin. After his great playoff run of 2011 with Chris Kelly and Mike Ryder, he never seemed to click quite that good again on the third line and essentially became an overpriced player on Boston’s roster (though valuable to the Stars). The much-beloved Andrew Ference became a salary cap casualty and got himself a nice deal in Edmonton where he was just named captain (with a litter of Stoolies serving as alternates). Jaromir Jagr, while it was great to have him for a memorable run, was never coming back, nor were Wade Redden, Aaron Johnson, or Kaspars Daugavins. Nice guy Jay Pandolfo called it a career after getting to play for the local team. Anton Khudobin, who showed numerous signs of being a #1 during his time here, signed with Carolina and will push Cam Ward for starts.
To fill the void on the top line right wing, the Bs had a quick kiss-and-make-up with Jarome Iginla and brought him into the fold to join playoff savant David Krejci and playoff monster Milan Lucic on the first line (no more complaints about Looch’s deal after his effort last spring, alright?). If they wanted him real bad at the deadline to solidify the roster for the Cup run, how much did they want him after losing their top three RWs? Never mind want, they needed him at that point to fill big roles on their roster. And because Peter Chiarelli is no dummy, he let bygones be bygones. In the two seasons prior to last year, he scored 75 goals. He potted 14 in 44 games last year between a terrible Flames team and the Penguins. He didn’t look too hot against the Bs in the playoffs but then, none of the Pens did. That had more to do with Bs than Iginla. Though he’s 36, Iginla is still a high-end, very hungry player that’s here to win a Cup. He goes into the year with 530 goals and I’d expect him to crack 560 by the April arrives. A great signing and a treat for fans to have on the team.
Patrick Bateman lookalike Loui Eriksson will take over Seguin’s spot on the second line. Eriksson is one of the league’s most underrated players because Dallas hasn’t done shit since Eddie Belfour squelched his last billion and the Stars fell off the NHL radar. But today, he’s a better, much more complete player than the guy he’s replacing (though that could change if Seguin decides to go all post-trade Joe Thornton this year, though I’m not holding my breath with him at center given his body of work here at the position). Bs fans are gonna love his game and effort but should expect a few early hiccups as the Swede hasn’t had all that much time to gel with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand just yet. Even so, 30 goals won’t be surprise at all. And he won’t come to work in last night’s clothes smelling like King Arthur’s.
The fourth line of Dan Paille, Greg Campbell, and Shawn Thornton will remain intact and why not? It’s the most cohesive and battle-hardened energy/physical line in the league. Thornton took the off-season so seriously that he even gave up beer. That’s commitment. The versatile, steady, and heady Chris Kelly will once again anchor the third line (get over the so-called open net miss during the Cup—he got cross-checked as the puck arrived, he didn’t muff the shot). Carl Soderberg, as expected, earned a spot alongside him but hit a rut in the final pre-season game and will be replace with Jordan Caron for the time being. But the Big Swede had a great camp and looks to be a pretty solid addition after arriving under horrendous circumstances last spring. Reilly Smith, who arrived in the Seguin trade and once awkwardly flirted with Peggy Olson, grabbed ahold of the 12th forward spot with an impressive camp.
The D will look pretty familiar. Captain Zdeno Chara will anchor the back end along with Johnny Boychuk, Adam McQuaid, Dennis Seidenberg (who Chiarelli should re-up yesterday), Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton, and Matt “Don’t Call Me Steve” Bartkowski. However, one of those guys will be on the outside looking in to start the season. I’d expect the Bs to rotate the latter three over the early weeks to see who grabs the job by the balls. It wouldn’t be a shock if Dougie ends up on the Foxy Lady shuttle at some point rather than having him on the ninth floor not developing. He showed some nice offensive flair early last year but the brass likely wants to see some more snarl in his own end this year. But Christ, the kid just turned 20. It’s still very early.
Tuukka Rask, who was splendid all playoffs and a Conn Smythe winner if the Bs pulled it off, cashed in big after his season and deservedly so. Provided he stays consistent, and there’s no reason to think he won’t be, he gives the Bs top-end stability in the game’s most important position. There shouldn’t be a drop-off and I wouldn’t even be surprised if he improves on his previous impressive numbers. New back-up Chad Johnson has just 10 NHL games under his belt. Though he was outplayed by Niklas Svedberg in pre-season, Johnson is cheaper and is subject to waivers if the Bs send him down so the practical move is to give him a whirl to start the season.
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Despite some significant moves, the Bruins are still returning their core players (Chara, Bergeron, Rask, Krejci, Lucic, Marchand) and likely upgraded offensively by plugging Iginla, Eriksson, Soderberg, and Smith into the line-up. So yeah, with what they have, Krug is right—they should expect to win the Stanley Cup. And the call here says that they beat the Kings in June to do it for their seventh title. Anything less than that will be a disappointment.
A few more buds for your Season Opener bowl…
*Between “Loooooooch”, “Tuuuuuukk”, “Kruuuuuuug”, “Loooooouuiii,” and, eventually (Ryan), “Spoooooooon”, the Garden is gonna sound like the baboon scene from “The Omen” this year.
*In the category that media and fans pay more mind to than the team, David Krejci will take over wearing the A previously worn by Andrew Ference that he’ll split with Chris Kelly.
*It took all of one night for the Helen Lovejoys of the hockey media to start their anti-fighting crusade. And yes, their sentiments have been echoed by some pretty prominent names. But it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. League response: “At the current time, there is not an appetite to change the rules with respect to fighting”. The NHLPA, the men who should and do have a say in their workplace conditions, are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the status quo. After all, nobody has to fight if they don’t want to anymore. You can even defend yourself like pubescent Padawan and won’t even get suspended.
The irony of the increased anti-fighting rhetoric is that fighting has dropped exponentially in the last 20 yrs. There’s about half a fight per game now. Of course, a lot of the rancor comes as a result of the what appears to be an anomaly with each passing year—the awful summer of 2011 when three physical players died in a short span; one was an addict who OD’d fresh out of rehab (a higher-percentage time for ODs to occur), one who committed suicide (a depression sufferer from long before his first hockey fight), and one who may or may not have committed suicide depending on who you ask (and sadly left a wife and kids behind). Because they were fighters, fighting was essentially blamed for their deaths by some. For whatever reason, Bob Probert’s death was also lumped in here, as if the beatings he doled out somehow gave him a heart attack and not the Himalayas worth of cocaine he put into his body over years of self-abuse. That’s not to blame Probert but only to differentiate that he likely didn’t die young because he was an enforcer. Since then? Nothing, thank the maker.
Just look around at guys who played when you really had to fight to tough motherfuckers pretty often to carve out your career. Cam Neely runs the Bruins. Brendan Shanahan helps keep the league entertaining by doling out his unique brand of justice. Rick Tocchet works in media. Stan Jonathan and Terry O’Reilly, who played in the golden era of NHL goonery, are no worse for wear all these years later. Old NHLers aren’t dropping like old NFLers because football is a much more unforgiving game that puts otherworldly demands on the human body and doles out concussions at a much higher rate. The fact is that old hockey fighters are in infinitely better mental shape than your average retired NFL D-back, not to speak of lineman. But hockey writers clamoring for fighting to stop is as fruitless as the NHLPA petitioning the local newspaper union (do they still exist?) on how to write ledes and slant their stories. And let’s be thankful for that. Because these are grown men who chose this line of work and are perfectly fine with the inherent risks, whether they happen during a consensual fight or not. If others aren’t, they can simply turn the channel.
*The NHL adopted hybrid icing this year so expect more confusion than usual on icing calls. They also added some dumb-ass helmet rules relating to fighting. Oh, and you can’t tuck your jersey in now for some stupid fucking reason. Here’s the rest of the new rule shit. Starting to get like a middle school administration up in here.
*Good to see local guy Ryan Whitney catch on with the Panthers. After having a Cup run with the Pens in ‘08, he was dealt around then suffered some foot injuries. Here’s hoping that he can jump-start his career down FLA with his new goalie, Tim Thomas. Should be an interesting team to watch.
*Not sure why the Isles didn’t go elsewhere for a tender after what they got from Evgeny Nabokov in the first round vs. the Pens last spring. They could have easily beaten Pittsburgh with even a low-end #1 goalie but instead opted to go back to the guy who threw up on his skates last April. Then again, maybe they’re just doing what the Pens have been doing for the last few years.
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*Good to see the league go back to four divisions that teams have to fight their way out of in the playoffs, even if Metropolitan Division is one of the names. I’ll let NHL.com explain the intricacies of the new playoff structure. But where the league erred is not re-seeding for the semis to take out the unnecessary geography factor that is absent in the NFL and MLB. This isn’t a rap war so there’s no need for every final to be East vs. West. Boston vs. Philly or Chicago vs. L.A. can never happen now like it could have back in the day. NHL had good chance to jazz up their marquee event and blew it.
*Playoff teams in the East: Boston, Detroit, Toronto, Florida, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and Columbus. Out West: Chicago, L.A., Vancouver, San Jose, St. Louis, Nashville, Colorado, and Phoenix.
*Non-Bruins blog item of the week. I think we have a new sheriff in town in TV land. After its epic 62 episode run, “Breaking Bad” became the subject of numerous half-baked theories. But BB was always about the story. It was never gonna end with some Tony Soprano fever dream or Daryl Hannah staring into an Albuquerque snow globe. The new GOAT (?) was a rich, sprawling modern day Western noir that was all about its increasingly intricate, high-wire walking plot. Each season upped the ante and nailed every landing. No way was it gonna cheap out on it’s finale like lame-ass “Lost” or “Seinfeld” (yes, the “Seinfeld” finale sucked).
In a show about addiction, Walt himself was perhaps the biggest addict—he became hooked on the adrenaline, power, and ego that Heisenberg provided him and, like many other addicts, it was the death of him. Walt “redeemed” himself after getting porked out of the Gray Matter money and fame. As the series final scene showed us, he “made something” of himself after missing his first kick at the can—his “Blue Baby”. Sure, it killed hundreds, ruined his family, and got his brother-in-law murdered. But like many who make their living on the other side of the legal line, he got addicted to rush like his many meth customers and the money became secondary.
And Walt’s hubris was his undoing. When he asked Hank if he wanted to pick his brain on anything (knowing that Hank had Gale’s notebook in his room), Hank took the bait and set into motion him finding out that Walt was Heisenberg. A truly outstanding show that didn’t leave the “happy” ending everybody claimed. Satisfactory? Hell, yeah. But goddamn gloomy as hell when you consider everybody’s post-Walter aftermath. Kudos to the cast, crew, and writers on lapping “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” while telling the greatest story TV has ever seen.
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