I promise I won’t post highlights from every Bruins game. It’s just that the season is brand new and I am kinda psyched to have hockey back.
I watched a chunk of the second period yesterday, but somehow missed both goals. I didn’t see the third or the overtime at all.
The Bruins beat the Canadiens in their home opener last night. The final score was 6-4 so it was a defensive effort (yikes!).
So the Bruins season has begun. How’s game one going?
The first period could have been worse, I guess. I mean, no one in the building was struck by lightning or spontaneously combusted or anything.
We’re down 4-1 in the second period.
Oh, pardon me. After I typed the previous sentence I double checked the score and now we’re down 5-1 in the second.
Crud.
Oh, and to make matters worse… as expected, Jeremy Swayman did not start in goal for the Bruins. Joonas Korpisalo did. Prior to the game I picked him up for my free yahoo fantasy hockey team. I didn’t have any Bruins on my (auto-drafted) team and I wanted one, and I knew he was starting tonight, and I didn’t have any other goalies playing, so I picked him up… and he’s let in five goals in 1.5 periods.
Double crud.
Today is a big day.
The Royals beat the Yankees last night. How cool is that? The Padres beat the Dodgers the night before last. Also cool. All four MLB Division round series are tied at one game apiece. That is excellent. More games for everyone! Fantastic!
All of those things are good, but none of them are the reason for his little post. Nope.
This post is about hockey, my friends. The NHL season kicks off tonight! Huzzah! It’s opening night for the Boston Bruins! The Bruins are saying that Jeremy Swayman might actually start tonight. That seems unlikely to me given that he’s missed all of training camp and has had all of one practice with the team. The article mentions that he’s been training with Boston University… which is nice… but that hardly equates to an NHL camp. I think maybe we should give him a few days, don’t you?
Now there is also the possibility that the game won’t be played. Big chunks of Florida are still digging out from Hurricane Helene, and they are about to receive the second half of what could be a catastrophic one-two-punch when Hurricane Milton (category 5) hits. Last I heard the expected landfall was tomorrow and that the Miami area would be mostly missed. Is that true? I know the Tampa Bay Lightning canceled a pre-season game last night due to the impending storm, but that was pre-season on the other end of the state. We’ll have to see how things unfold today. I would be surprised if they play the game tonight, but Florida is kind of a fascist nightmare so they (meaning the government and the people who voted for the government) really don’t seem to give a shit about things like human life and public safety so maybe they will play. I don’t know. I love going to Disney World in Florida, but outside of that little chunk of the state I am pretty much grossed out by the place.
Whatever happens down in the Miami area (stay safe, everyone. Hang in there), today is NHL opening day. Let’s celebrate! Happy Game Day! Bring on the 2024/25 season!
Go Bruins!
At long last, some good news for Boston Bruins fans. The team has finally signed their starting goalie, Jeremy Swayman. After a nasty arbitration experience last season, Swayman held out through training camp, missing the entire thing, before signing a new deal.
I am not sure how the team is going to handle the roster to start the season. The opening game is two nights from now. Has Swayman being training on his own? Will they send him to Providence to get himself up to speed, or will they just throw him into the fire on Tuesday and hope for the best? Who knows.
Here’s an article from NHL.com that might answer those questions but I am too lazy to read through it right now. All I know is that the deal is for eight years and 66 million dollars. Yikes!
Bring on the season, folks. It’s hockey time once again.
Happy NHL Free Agency Day. The free agent signing window opened earlier today and the Bruins have landed a couple of pretty decent names. Elias Lindholm might be our new top line center. We’ll have to see how things shake out at training camp, but it’s possible. He has a 40 goal season in his past, though not last season. Nikita Zadorov is a defenseman who seems to have a bit of a reputation for punishing hits. If that’s how he plays he’s going to be a fan favorite around here. Bruins fans love big hitters.
They are both western conference guys so I don’t really know much about them. They both look good on paper, and they both also cost quite a bit of money. We just have to make sure there is enough salary cap space left to sign Jeremey Swayman to what we all have to assume is going to be a huge pay raise.
On the flip side of the free agency coin, we’ve lost Jake DeBrusk to Vancouver, and Pat (we hardly knew ye) Maroon to the Blackhawks. Those are the only departures I’ve found in the various live blogs I’ve been constantly refreshing throughout my lunch break.
Come on, General Manager Don Sweeny, we need more signings… especially Swayman. Let’s go.
I don’t want to write this post. I am too sad. Too hockey sad, to be specific.
Usually when I do these playoff prediction things I end being right a little bit more than 50% of the time. Not this year. This year I am sub 50% and it hurts. Oh well. What’s a Bruins fan to do?
After three rounds I had predicted the winner of seven out of 14 series. Exactly 50%. My coin flip control group/comparison was not so lucky. The coin was right on five out of 14 series. That just proved that blind guesses have miserable luck… or something along those lines.
In the Stanley Cup Final between the Panthers and the Oilers, the coin and I both picked the Oilers and we were both wrong, damn it. So my final success rate for the entire playoff season is 7/15, or about 46.7%. Awful. Miserable. The coin flip’s final success rate for the entire playoff season is 5/15, or 33%. Even more awful. Even more miserable.
Boo, I say. Boo. I just had a really bad postseason. Honestly, any postseason that doesn’t end with a big victory parade in Boston is a bad postseason, but some are more pathetic than others, you know what I mean?
The Red Sox play the Blue Jays tonight. My sports fan energy is 100% focused on baseball now. Go Red Sox.
The Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup.
I watched the clock tick down on a gamecast on nhl.com. I didn’t actually watch the game. I thought about it but I didn’t want to jinx anything. My bad.
The Oilers failed to complete the greatest comeback in professional sports history and the Panthers avoided the worst collapse ever.
The team that bounced my Bruins for the second year in a row went to the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row but unlike last year they stuck the landing.
Shit.
Oh, and the Bruins traded Linus Ullmark last night too. We’d best get someone legendary with that first round pick.
Shit.
The second period just ended and the dream of a legendary Edmonton come back has taken a step back.
Florida has a 2-1 lead.
Shit.
20 minutes of regulation left in the game, the series, and the NHL season.
Come on Oilers!
Happy Stanley Cup Final Game Seven day, everyone.
After one period of play, the Oilers and the Panthers are tied at one goal each.
40 minutes of regulation play remaining to find out if the Panthers can avoid the most pathetic collapse in professional sports history*, or if the Oilers can complete the greatest come back in pro sports history.
I’m rooting for the Oilers, but given how impossible it is to come back from down three games to none in a seven game series, my money (if I had any) would be on the Panthers… even though I friggin’ hate them.
Come on, Edmonton. Let’s do the impossible and bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada where it would belong if it didn’t actually belong in Boston.
*Sure, there have been a bunch of instances of teams winning a series after being down 0-3. It’s happened in Boston twice. The Bruins blew the three games to none lead against Philly in 2010 and I have still not recovered, even though they won the Cup one year later. In happier news, the only time it’s happened in Major League Baseball history is when the Red Sox came back from down 0-3 to take the American League Championship Series from the fucking Yankees.
Why is this the biggest come back ever? I think it’s happened five or six times in pro sports history, but I don’t think it’s ever happened in a championship round. Pretty sure this would be the first. All the more reason to consider it impossible.
It would be nice to see Florida blow it and lose in utterly humiliating fashion, but it still wouldn’t make up for them beating the Bruins two postseasons in a row. It’s a start though.
Inside the Red Head's Head 