Da Beez

Thomas was great last year, not so much this year. At the salary he earns he will be very difficult to move.

100% true. Some guys have been content to coast through games and lots of nights the compete level just wasn't there. It didn't help that Thomas hasn't played as well as he did last year. I am really liking Rask; that kid hates to be scored on. His reaction after the goal was priceless, so was Lucic's reaction. The Bruins have a tough schedule to finish the year, they will have to be at their best to get into the playoffs.

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Sobotka and Wheeler? That's a pair that should never be dropping the mitts, even Cooke would fight one of them ;) I think Cooke will duck Lucic/Chara/Thornton. I definitely wouldn't want to see Bergeron do any fighting, the last thing the Bruins need is for him to be concussed again. I think if Cooke had his way he would fight Hunwick or Marchand and hope to avoid all the big boys for the rest of the night.

Nah, that wouldn't be right. Lucic shouldn't fight Crosby any more than he should have fought Georges Laraque. Cooke should have to fight Lucic, but my guess is he won't step up to fight. The gutless POS didn't fight Steve Downie after that guy attempted to injure Crosby so I can't imagine he will fight anyone on the Bruins who can actually fight.

That's been the pattern this year

Agreed. Julien can't shot the puck for the players, they have to finish their opportunities. They are not giving up very many goals so they have to make the best of their opportunities. I don't think a shake up is needed, and Julien didn't get stupid over night. Hopefully they can get some wins in the next four games before the Olympic break. Montreal, Buffalo, Tampa and Florida are all teams they should be able to compete with and hopefully beat. The teams are all so close that the Bruins really need to win or else they are going to drop out of contention.

I agree with this. I hear a lot of fans use the "we outshot them" defence when they lose (nothing against you Jason). If you get 47 shots you need to get more than 2 goals. I find shots on goal to be a useless stat, Morris and Wideman each got 4 SOG and Chara and Boychuk accounted for 5 SOG between them - without good traffic in front and forwards who are deflecting the puck, shots from the point are not too difficult for a good goalie. It is of much more concern to see Satan and Lucic get no shots. I expected the Bruins to take a fall from last year but I never expected to see them stuck in 12th and so consistently crappy this year.

Tonight is a must win game.

Did Komisarek play this year?

They are certainly underwhelming compared to last year. They are in tough against the Caps and the Canucks, any points from those games will be a bonus. It would bring great joy to my heart if they manage to pummel the Habs a couple of times in the next 2 weeks :D This is probably true unless they start playing much better. The top 4 teams in the East and maybe Ottawa have all been consistently better than the 8 teams behind them.

The graphics and finish of the new Grafs look nice. The retro stick has a "Hanson" paint job and the WWll stick has two models of curve. The WWll sticks also have "Sally" or "Betty" on the shaft. My LHS is a big graf dealer and they have had the sticks in for a while. I didn't bother to buy a Graf because graphics don't really matter to me and I have a perfectly good U+ CL that I am currently using.

Let these guys sit with Cam Neely for a night and hopefully something good will rub off.

True, there is always a new crop of young enthusiastic guys who want a shot at the title. I wish Kypreos would lose his taste for being on TV, I think that guy sustained some brain damage ;)

"when a crusher becomes a rusher, he soon becomes an usher" I like big Georges and I think he is still among the top heavyweights but I feel he somehow felt he was "above" the enforcer role. Injuries limited his role somewhat but he just didn't seem to feel the need to fight anymore.