So there have only been two games since I last wrote so this one won’t be very long. I was going to give you all a break from my long rants this week but then I decided there is something else I want to talk about but I’ll go into that after my Bruins stuff.
Right now, the Boston Bruins are a very good team. They are 6-2 and second in the Northeast Division with only eight games played while Montreal in first has played eleven games. The Bruins have scored a solid 24 goals and only given up 11 with the strong goaltending of Tim Thomas. As of this posting, Thomas has a .984 save percentage, a .50 goals against average, three shutouts, and all six wins. He is certainly making his case for being the starting goalie and he’s got it as of now.
The Bruins are undefeated on the road and 2-2 at home (2-1 at the TD Garden). Their powerplay percentage sits at 21.9 percent which is not anything special but so far it’s about five percent higher than last season. The penalty kill is doing great right now killing off 93.1 percent of penalties. Overall, everyone looks great and everything is clicking. Tim Thomas is being a brick wall in net, the defensemen are a buffer zone, and the forwards are scoring the goals. That is a good recipe for the rest of the season.
Okay so I said I have something else to talk about. I want to talk about the sad fact that every or almost every morning I wake up to a new case of a NHL player doing something stupid. The last incident that made me want to share this concern was the Daniel Briere incident. Don’t get me wrong, I love the physical side of hockey with hard hits and fights but I like clean, legal hard hits. No Matt Cooke blindside hits or Daniel Briere crosschecks to the face off a faceoff.
What is happening to NHL players? Are they all losing it? Certain players have that reputation of doing stupid things but it seems like everyone is doing it these days. I would never think of Briere as being a dirty player. Then again, he is on the Flyers so Hartnell and Carcillo are bound to rub off him at some point I guess. And I understand that players get angry at other players but there are appropriate ways to take of things. No crosschecks to the face like Briere.
There have already been nine suspensions of the 2010-11 season and we are only 12 or so games in. Of those nine, only five are related to illegal hits or slashes which is still five too many. The other four are players just being stupid for stupid’s sake, making gestures, getting instigator penalties in the last five minutes, and grabbing a fan. Yes, that’s correct Rick Rypien’s suspension was for grabbing a fan. On top of those five suspensions, four players have been fined for hits or attempted head butts.
I understand that some hits may be accidents but there are still too many incidents of players getting hurt from illegal hits. Is winning the game so darn important that the players don’t care what happens to opposing players? There are rules for physical play for a reason and that reason is because no one wants to see players get carted off at every game.
Anyways…sorry about the rant but this was something that is just driving me crazy. Hockey is an entertaining, physical game to watch with no need for illegal, injury-causing hits.
Back to the Bruins…I hope they win on Saturday since I will be going to the game. Even though I am going to the game to see the return of Vladimir Sobotka, I still want the B’s to win the first game I go to this season.
Kristin Carbone
Pierce Arrow Blogger
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