Didn’t say they were unbeatable, just that it’s hard to argue that they’re not the best team in the East, and perhaps the entire League, right now and that they’d be very tough to beat in a 7 game series.
Make excuses for the stats all you want, there’s no denying their scoring depth. It wouldn’t be hard to flip that same argument and say that they’re not “running up the score” so much as just simply being that much better than the crappier teams.
The difference between a good team and a bad team is surprisingly minimal, talent wise, and you can bet every player on a team losing 4-0 is doing their best to keep it from becoming 5-0 or 6-0 or 7-0, etc.
Like them or don’t, and I don’t, Boston is really a very good team and even though the stats point to them cooling down at some point, they can afford to have their Goals per Game and Save % drop back to Earth and still be the odds on favorites to at least win the East.
We’re only halfway through the season and a lot can change between now and then and probably will, but as it stands right now they’re beasts.
Not sure you can whine too much about the way the Bruins play with some of the downright cowardly crap that Vancouver runs with. I’m a B’s fan and I admit they’re not the cleanest team in the league - a lot of it comes because they play really physically, but some of it is over and beyond - but the Canucks are no better.
I’m not sure what the hell Marchand was doing on that play; I’ve seen a couple of articles saying that he was trying to avoid the hit, but I have to think there were about four or five less dangerous ways he could have done that, so that’s a pretty BS argument for me. I’d have no problem with him picking up 3-5 games off. I have nothing bad to say about Salo, and for a guy with so many injuries in his career, it really sucks that he’s going to miss another chunk of games for a stupid hit like that.
On the other hand, I have no idea how you can see Burrows poke Thornton in the head/neck with his stick to start the first fight, then run like hell and hide behind six teammates when Thornton says something about it, and not be embarassed to have him on your team.
Any neutral observers see that game? I’d love to hear your comments.
Because, I mean, to me, nothing says ‘goon squad’ like jumping one opponent with five guys (plus a couple leaning over from the bench), with the fifth guy in throwing punches (so it’s not like he can claim he was just trying to break things up)… But wait, the Bruins were on the one guy end of that one, weren’t they? (And the one guy at least claims he got a stick in the throat to start it). But the Bruins must have done something wrong, because they got a game misconduct on one of their leading scorers… a misconduct that was immediately rescinded by the league.
And nothing says classless instigators like clearly (loud enough that even the ref can hear) challenging an opponent to a fight, then trying to draw a penalty by backing off when he drops the gloves. Oops, that wasn’t a Bruin doing that either… (To their credit the refs got this one right.)
But any thoughts from a non-Canuck, non-Bruin perspective?
Crosby, Neal, Backstrom, Green - I might give away my tickets to the Caps-Penguins this week. Okay, the two Caps are just day-to-day, not necessarily going to be out.
Wow - Brad Marchand did get 5 games. I’m glad to see a little justice in the NHL for once.
As for getting a neutal opinion on that game - how many ‘neutral’ fans were really watching a 1 PM EST hockey game on a NFL playoff weekend - a game which wasn’t broadcast on any major networks? Seriously, this was the only Stanley Cup rematch game for the season and it got horrible coverage. Pretty stupid since it was considered a very entertaining game by most media accounts I’ve read.
But I will admit the Canucks fought back - plenty of gooning to go around for both teams. The Bruins just seem to take things a little - further. Like the huge scrum ended with penalties to the Bruins since they had to get a few extra shots in after things calmed down. And of course the Marchand thing.
Everyone and their brother wanted to trade Karlsson away last year, but I said no. They all laughed when I drafted him in my fantasy hockey league. Now he’s in the talk for a possible Norris trophy. Who’s laughing now?
Again, I’m in Bruins-land, but I don’t think the referees’ reactions to the scrum was such a model of justice that we can use the penalites to call one team worse. I’ll just point out that immediately after the game the league rescinded one of the Bruins penalties for the scrum.
But yeah, submarining a guy along the boards is a horrible crime that really taints the whole team; a simple suspension is really not enough. I mean look:
Wait, did I get confused about which team was which again?
(For the record, no penalty was called for that check, let alone a suspension.)
Why are Boston fans still whining about this? A hip check isn’t illegal - but Marchand hit at the knees. Watch Shanahan’s video- it explains what he did wrong well enough.
Ballard and Hamuis’s hip checks are different. Besides the knee level hit, as Shanhan explains it also doesn’t help that Marchand was recently suspended, he gave Salo a concussion and just moments earlier he was punching Sami in the back of the head from behind.
To top it off, Sami did not have the puck. Remember Aaron Rome getting a 4 game suspension for a clean hit on Horton last year - but it was interference because he didn’t have the puck?!? Also, it is Sami Salo - a very honest and clean player by most objective accounts. If the hate is on why not try to drop someone like Burrows or Lapierre who actually could be accused of agitating?
In the very recent past Boston had a respectable team. But read your own forum boards - HFBoards - and I see a lot of Boston fans calling for an end to the recent goonery and a return to integrity. Most of them want Marchand to smarten up. Getting a 5 minute major and 5 game suspension doesn’t help your team.
I’m not really complaining about Marchand’s suspension; I’m complaining about Canucks fans pretending that their team is some sort of angelic model of purity while the Bruins are Hanson Brothers-with-even-less-talent crossed with Hitler.
Again, I acknowledge that I live in Bruinsland, so it’s hard to be objective, and if there’s someone who doesn’t live here or in Canuckistan, I’d love to hear your opinion. I mean, that’s the entire reason I posted what I did.
But again, I don’t see how being jumped by five guys plus a couple on the bench (and remember the fifth guy in was punching, not trying to stop anything) shows ‘goonery’. I don’t see how it’s somehow more classy to back away from a fight when both people have agreed to it loudly enough for the ref to hear than it is to drop gloves. I don’t like the culture of fighting in hockey; I kind of wish they’d treat it like any other sport and immediately kick out anyone who takes a swing. But agreeing to fight and backing out (in order to try and get a cheap penalty on the other guy) isn’t being clean; it’s being just as violent but dishonest and classless.
And again, I’m not complaining about Marchand, but honestly I don’t see a whole lot of difference between Marchand’s and Hamuis’s hits. Marchand was a fraction lower, centered on the lower thigh near the knee, while Hamuis was center of the thigh. Hamuis hit a guy who had already released the puck and was trying to get around him before Hamuis went into his crouch, wheras Marchand crouched over the puck to a guy coming on to him about to initiate contact. I don’t see why the outcome (concussion or no) should really matter.
I’ll grant that previous disciplinary action should lead to a stronger outcome, but it’s hard to see why at game-time one is not a penalty while one not only deserves suspension but indicts an entire team.
Seriously, get over it. You expect NHL referee to call all hits on Vancouver perfectly but the rose colored glasses come on whenever it is against the Guins. I’m actually shocked by the miracle that they called it right this time on Marchand.
Here is a very good article, non-biased, that explains the whole thing. Again, Marchand was nailed hard because he caused injury, the 30 sec before the hit clearly show it was predatory, and he’s a douche player who has been suspended before. These things matter to the NHL as has been shown time and time again.
The article I linked shows Mason’s hit as well as some other hip/clipping checks from the playoffs. And it fairly points out that Hamuis should have got a penalty. But just a penalty - as the hit wasn’t predatory, it was during the playoffs, and he has a clean record - AND the only player he injured was HIMSELF. He was out for the whole 7 game series with Boston after that hit. It cost Vancouver big time to lose one of their two best D-man. Would Vancouver have won if they had Hamuis - we’ll never know, but I don’t whine about it.
And I live in Oregon, I’ve never lived in BC. For the record, most of your Bruins are from Canada, which you derogatorily call ‘Canuckistan’.
I don’t care if they dressed the Wilkes-Barre Penguins out there, I didn’t think I’d see the Sens drub them again for a long long time. What a feeling!
To be clear, I meant no disrespect or insult in anyway by using “Canuckistan”. I only meant the area of supporters of the Vancouver Canucks NHL team. If this ever comes up in future threads, I’ll try and use a different term (Canuckville? Vancouver-Canucks-NHL-Teamlandia? ). Feel free to refer to me as a resident of Bruinsistan if that helps.
And of course, the players on an NHL team (just like any major league sports team) have nothing to do with the city the team is based in. In the end we’re basically all cheering for laundry, even if it’s fun to get excited about what the laundry is doing.
Roughly the midpoint of the season. Who whould have thought that at this point Pittsburgh and Washington would play and the loser (except for an OTL by the Penguins) will be out of the playoff postitions.
The thing is… and I say this as a devout Sens fan… I didn’t think the Sens played all that well. They were outshot and outhit. But Ottawa’s shots went in and Pittsburgh’s did not.
How the Senators are in fifth I cannot explain. They just don’t look that good, but they win games.
