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The NHL: A Year in Review (Part 2)

Hello again, everybody. This part will focus on the NHL season as a whole. If you would like to see my analysis of the Bruins’ Season, please check out Part 1. I may mention a few Bruins points because some things have developed since I wrote the first part. But I’ll save that for the end. For now, let’s take a dive into this season as a whole.

League Leaders

Goals: There wasn’t much surprise when looking at the goal leaders this year. Once again Sidney Crosby scored the most goals.... wait, what? This. to me personally was one of the biggest surprises of the season. After Crosby’s past few seasons with concussions I thought he was washed up. I will begrudgingly admit that I was wrong. Something that I think is incredibly beneficial to the marketability of the sport of hockey was the amount of younger talent that was in the Top 10. Obviously there were the perennial 30+ goal scorers like Kane and Pacioretty, but the emergence of Connor McDavid, Patrik Laine, and Auston Matthews were somewhat surprising. Especially Laine and Matthews, who were both rookies this year. The NHL is desperately in need of more offense, and it looks that the next generation will easily provide it.

Points/Assists: Speaking of McDavid, this kid was advertised as the next Gretsky and those projections might actually come to fruition. This lost a bit of steam after he missed most of his rookie season in 2015-16  with a shoulder injury. Obviously there will never be another Gretsky, but this kid might be the next closest thing. I mean, the kid can’t take a picture with fans to save his life (I’m serious, look it up), but he can damn sure play hockey. He led the league in both points scored and assists. This would propel McDavid to win the both the Hart Trophy (League MVP) and the Ted Lindsay Award (League MVP as voted by the players. Imagine if he didn’t get injured in his rookie year? Not a bad season, if I do say so myself.

Goaltending Numbers: If we take a look at Goalies who had a nice year, leading the way are Sergei Bobrovsky and Braden Holtby. Holtby the most wins for a goalie in the season with 42(!) and the most shutouts with 9. I’m not a fan of Holtby, but that 42 win stat is VERY impressive. This means he started way more than half the games and continued to play at a high level for that whole time. Very Impressive indeed. Bobrovsky  led the league in both save percentage (.931) and GAA with 2.06. Also impressive, but in all honesty, I think this season will be an outlier for Bobrovsky, just as his first Vezina season was in 2012-13. He’s decent, but he’s not THAT good. The two years he hasn’t won the Vezina he’s put up very pedestrian numbers at best. Ultimately, these stats brought home the Vezina for Bobrovsky.

Playoffs

This season’s playoffs were some of the best that I’ve personally seen. The only way it could have been better is if the Bruins won, but I digress. Every game was fought tooth and nail for one team to come out on top. I would have to do research but I would be willing to bet that the average margin of victory was less than 3 goals. There just weren’t a lot of lopsided victories. Not to mention that this playoffs broke the record for most overtime games in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs ever with 18 games, which is insane.

The Penguins once again took the cup home after defeating the Nashville Predators in 6 games. They’re the first team to repeat since the Detroit Red Wings repeated in 1997 and 1998. I was honestly surprised. I thought they were porked as soon as I heard that Kris Letang was out for the playoffs after getting back surgery. They proved me wrong though, and captured their 5th cup in franchise history.

Just as a side note to wrap up here: Are the Capitals ever going to win a cup? I sure hope not. Watching them be a disappointment season after season, is very satisfying. There was a wide open lane for them to do this this year, as the roster was basically the best it was ever going to be, and their arch rival’s best defenseman was injured. Yet they fell short. Again. At this point there should be a choking hazard label on every Washington Capitals jersey.

Final Thoughts

This season was pretty awesome. From the young talent emerging, to the great month and a half of playoffs everyone got to watch, and also to the fact the Craig Anderson’s wife conquered cancer, this season was great. So I’m just gonna address two loose threads that didn’t really fit anywhere above. Can Sidney Crosby stop getting preferential treatment from the league? Christ almighty, the man chopped Mark Methot’s finger off with a slash, and he didn’t even get a fine. If you haven’t seen the video of Methot’s finger hanging off look it up, its gruesome. Crosby doesn’t even get slap on the wrist? Come on, man. (He also speared someone and didn’t get a fine for it either, but what do I know.) Then there’s the reemergence of the 1-3-1. Please, go away. PLEASE. I HATE the 1-3-1. It’s awful. It takes all of the flow out of the game, and I believe it covers up glaring holes that a team may have. If you look at roster comparisons between the Senators and all of their opponents (Bruins, Rangers, Penguins), they have a weaker team, in my opinion than all of those teams. Yet this stupid system allows them to have a shot. This stupid system makes the game borderline unwatchable. So please, for the love of God, go away 1-3-1. No one wants you here.

That’s basically it. I’ll probably do some sort of Bruins preview before the season. But until then I’ll see you in the next post, and thank you so much for reading.

P.S.- JIMMY HAYES GOT BOUGHT OUT LOL.

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The NHL: A Year in Review (Part 1)

My, my, my, how much things can change in a year.

Hello again everyone, it has been QUITE a while, if I do say so myself. I’m back again, this time to reflect upon not only the Boston Bruins, but hockey in general. Quite a lot has happened since my last post in April of 2016, some of it good, some of it bad, so lets take a dive into what has gone on in the world of hockey. This post will focus solely on the Bruins, Part 2 will dive into the rest of the league. As the Joker would say, ”Here. We. Go.”

Young Guns

We begin in Boston, where the Bruins currently stand in a dramatically better position than they did the previous summer. Whereas last year there were severe holes everywhere across the roster, this year provided a long look at how the young talent may shape up coming up from the AHL. Needless to say, it was a giant leap in the right direction. Brandon Carlo looks as if he has the potential to be a top two d-man on this team, and even, dare I say, take away minutes from the iron-man that is Zdeno Chara. Look, I know that Carlo did not have a successful second half of the season, but playing number one minutes against the best forwards in the league as a rookie... I’d be willing to wager a lot of talented young players would look like that. While we’re talking about young d-men, let’s talk Charlie McAvoy. This kid looks like an absolute STUD. Both his vision of the ice and control of the puck are something that you would see from a regular NHLer, never mind a kid who was dumped into the NHL on an emergency basis in the playoffs. Did I mention he got top minutes with Chara? Or that it was in THE PLAYOFFS? Now as good as the young talent looks on the defensive side of the ice, the forwards are another story. Granted you saw the emergence of David Pastrnak as a legitimate threat, but other than that, we saw countless amounts of players come up from Providence and make little to no impact. I’m not hitting the panic button yet on the farm system, but it is rather worrisome. Hopefully Zboril can come up from Providence and provide more of an offensive spark. Overall though, this year has me optimistic, something I haven’t felt in some time.

Playoffs

Now let’s talk playoffs. This series showed me a few things right off of the bat.

With the Bruins d-core fully intact they might have stood a better chance.

Erik Karlsson is NASTY.

The 1-3-1 is the worst thing in sports ever.

Erik Karlsson is NAAAAAASTY.

Now first of all, I’m not gonna be some sort of honk here and say, “WELL THE BRUINS HAD INJURIES SO WE COULD HAVE WON.” I don’t think they would have. Would they have had a better shot? Absolutely. Could they have won? Probably not. As much flak as the Senators get for not being a good team (mostly from yours truly), I do have to look at the scoreboard and tip my cap. They made it to the East Finals, and beat a Rangers team that was MILES ahead of the Bruins. So yeah, Ottawa is pretty good.The thing that isn’t good about Ottawa is their system. Good God, sometimes watching a game with the Sens in it is akin to watching paint dry. As a fan of not only the Bruins but the sport of hockey as well, the 1-3-1 is very worrisome to me. But I’ll talk about that more in the next part.

Overall, the Bruins looked.... honestly not that bad. Given the fact that their D-core was DECIMATED by injuries, it came as no surprise that they allowed Erik Karlsson to walk all over them. Rask looked pretty good, though I will say he definitely coughed up a game that the Bruins should have had in Game 2. And like I said above, the youth is definitely trending in the right direction. They’ve got some playoff experience under their belt, and its time to see if they can turn that into anything in the next year. Pastrnak looks (as I said above) like a legit threat in the regular season and if he can keep that going in the playoffs- look out NHL.

As good as the Bruins looked sometimes in the first round, there were times that they looked equally as bad. The first case that comes to mind is when the Bruins lost in Game 4(?) in OT on a tap in goal because Tommy Cross looked like he was picking his nose out there. So definitely some, not all of the young d-men look like they’re ready. Another glaring issue: Brad Marchand. In yet another postseason, he was essentially non-existent. 1 G and 3 A in 6 games just isn’t enough from a guy who was a few goals away from being the top goal-scorer in the league. Not to mention he cost you home ice by getting stupidly suspended in the last 3 games of the year. The bottom line is, if the Bruins make the playoffs, he needs to perform.

The Offseason

So, now what?

This year was a huge leap in the right direction. The young guys got some experience, you got a new coach (who looks like he’s got a good head on his shoulders), and you made the playoffs. Believe it or not, this team actually isn’t that far from being a competitor. They need a true number one d-man, and for the love of god, give Krecji a right winger. But truly, those are the biggest holes they need to fill, and with a bunch of pretty good players hitting free agency this off-season, it looks like a possibility that the Bruins could be even closer to the Cup next year. So this is what I’d like to see from the Bruins:

Continue to draft and develop Defensemen.

Sign a right wing/ top 4 d-man.

DON’T MAKE ANY TRADES SWEENY FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

So we’ll see how they do. I’ll do a nice season preview for the Bruins around September. But next up is Part 2. Hope to see you there.

Thanks so much for reading.

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My message to Don Sweeny: You can't have your cake and eat it too

First and foremost, my name is Mason, and welcome to my blog. This is where I’m gonna put any and all thoughts I have about stuff that’s going on in the world. And when I say “stuff”, I mean mostly sports related content. Also all of this stuff is my own opinion, blah blah blah. Enough with the formalities, let’s get to the subject at hand.

I’m a Boston sports fan, which in hindsight, this should probably be in the paragraph above, but whatever. As you can probably judge by the title of this post, I’m going to talk about Boston’s favorite underachiever, the Boston Bruins. For those who don’t know, with five weeks left in the season the Bruins held first place in the Atlantic division. All they needed to do, was win five games in their last thirteen and they were in the playoffs. Much to my dismay, and Boston’s dismay as well, they missed the playoffs for the second year in a row after capping off a 3-10 run with a whimper as they lost to Ottawa 6-1.

6-1.

To the Ottawa-freaking-Senators.

With this loss, many people, fans and Boston sports media alike, thought that the the tenure of the head coach, Claude Julien, had finally come to an end. A bit ironic considering the Bruins had an enormous ceremony commemorating Julien for becoming the most winningest coach in franchise history only 2 weeks prior.

So as the Bruins ended their season with the tiniest of whimpers Boston fans held their breath awaiting the news that Julien was fired. Instead, we got a press conference with both GM Don Sweeny and Claude Julien.

Now before we get to the next part, I should probably tell you how I feel about Claude. Personally I think he’s a great coach, albeit a bit too touchy with the ice time of his young players. That being said, at the end of the season, his players tuned him out. Whatever he was telling them fell on deaf ears, and I, like so many others thought it was time for a change.

Apparently Don Sweeny did NOT feel the same way.

When asked at the presser about the head coach’s future with the team, Sweeny said, “Absolutely.”

When I found out I was surprised. Yet at the same time I thought to myself, “Well, Claude IS a good coach, and the inconsistency probably had more to do with the roster anyway. With a revamped d-core, and some better depth on the third and fourth lines, the Bruins should be able to be a great team in the Eastern Conference again next year. But Sweeny still has work to do.” Seems like a fair assessment right?

Wrong.

When asked about the roster, Sweeny has this to say: “I don’t believe we need a major overhaul. I believe we need to continue to forge depth within the organization.”

What?

WHAT?

This makes absolutely no sense. Sweeny and the Bruins opted to keep the coach, which is absolutely fine. That means most of the blame for the collapse passes to the players. Then Sweeny doubles back and says no, that he believes there does not need to be a major roster overhaul in order to become a contender again. You just cannot have it both ways.

Either the blame is on the coach, or the blame is on the players. Like my parents used to tell me, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If there’s no blame anywhere, then it sounds like Sweeny is trying to say that this team is absolutely fine where they are. This suggests that there is a lack of urgency in the organization. This suggests that there is no direction in the organization.

This suggests that Don Sweeny does not know what he is doing.

I know I should not jump to conclusions so quickly, but one needs to look at the moves he has made so far.

Reily Smith for Jimmy Hayes? Bust. Keeping Loui Eriksson at the deadline? Not worth it. Trading a third round pick for Zac Rinaldo? Come on.

Even though we cannot quite jump to conclusions about the Hamilton trade, and he did make a good signing in Matt Belesky, this resume is not very promising. Whether or not Sweeny wants to admit it, there are GLARING issues on this team, most notably the d core. Don Sweeny needs to make moves, that’s the bottom line. Who knows what could happen? He could be playing his cards close to his chest for all I know. But one thing is for certain; for better or for worse, this summer is going to be very interesting.

Thanks for reading.