Bruins take over first in East

[yave1964]

The Boston Bruins won their seventh game in a row last night to take over first place in the East, 93 to 92 points over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

  The Penguins still hold the upper hand, with a game at hand and eleven home games to 6 for the Bruins.

 

  Boston I speaking though, after a good solid but unspectacular start where the team won about as many games as should be expected and kind of cemented themselves as the eventual division winner by, oh, say Halloween, they have treaded water in a kind of uneventful (other than the Thornton Incident) season as they move on and the team has been retooled.

 

  I have been on the record as not being the biggest fan of Tukka Rask, I think he is like a lot of goalies for better or worse a product of his environment, good teams made okay goalies appear better than they are, but this season I begrudgingly have to admit that Rask has impressed, he has become the goalie they were hoping he would be. He is having a remarkable season and full credit must be given him for carrying the team on his shoulders for large stretches of the season. Kudos to Tukka.

  A few random musings about the Bruins

 

Torey Krug has outscored Chara this year 35-30. Along with Dougie Hamilton and Matt Bartkowski the Bruins have retooled their defense on the fly this season without missing a beat.

 

 Loui Eriksson for Seguin would look even worse if it weren't for the play of Reilly Smith. Smith has 45 points in 66 games to salvage the deal.

 

  Brad Marchand has turned into one hell of a hockey player. On pace for nearly 30 goals and a plus 25 so far on the season, he is one of the best 5 on 5 players in the game today. Remarkably, he does not have a single power play goal.

 

  Iginla on the right wing seems to have aided Lucic resurrect his career after several years of erosion, he has bounced back as the very definition of a power forward.

 

  Finally, after the way Khubodin has played with the Hurricanes, Chad Johnson will be in high demand in the offseason. Sitting at 13-3 with a stingy 2.22 goals against and with Malcom Subban just around the corner Johnson should command some value in the summer.

 

[Lightning fan]

Not surprising IMO, they're by far the best team in the East. Rask is also a Top 2 goalie in the world (it's between him and Quick IMO). ^_^

Bruins are the only team I wouldn't want to face in the first round - provided the Lightning make it.

[flyercanuck]

@yave1964

 

 I've thought Rask to be one of the best (and a big reason the Bruins represent the east in the cup IMO) for a few years. Yes he's on a solid defensive team, but the guy just makes great saves.

 

 Ericksson and Smith for Seguin may end up a good trade for both teams. Seguin apparently had to go . Looks like it took that to learn his lesson. Smith is turning into a pretty good player. Eriksson seems to be underperforming but plays a solid 2 way game that is great for the playoffs and fits the Bruins team M.O.

 

 Marchand has been a hell of a player for four years now. It's just everyone hates him.,,deservedly so.

[jammer2]

  I'm not sure how to take the Seguin deal, either the Bruins got very lucky, or they really did their homework on Riley Smith (probably a combo of the 2). The kid was not on many radars, but the Bruins insisted on him being included in the deal, so kudos to Chiccarelli. Loui Ericksson never really got untracked in Boston, he slumped badly to start and then got concussed, not once but twice. Loui seemed to rebound at the Olympics, with so many stars missing on Team Sweden, he stepped up large and took on a lot of the scoring responsibilities, while still playing a solid 2 way game. I don't think Sweden gets the Silver without his excellent play. He should be able to build on that and have a nice run going into the playoffs.

 

  Without the inclusion of Smith, this deal would have been an outright steal for the Stars. As it sits now, the Stars still won the deal, I believe Tyler will become a 90-95 pt center in this league, and those don't grow on trees. The chemistry he has shown with Jamie Benn has been quite remarkable. One of the very best 1-2 punches in the NHL. These two are gonna have long successful careers feeding off each others talent. The thing that stands out with them is not only their wicked hands, but their feet, man oh man, can these 2 skate!! The Stars very badly need to build forward depth around them, get another legit scoring line going etc....but they are on their way, these 2 are a fine foundation.

[Polaris922]

They only have it for the day     My poor Penguins have had a boatload of injury issues this season and continue to battle them with Neal out now too.  391 man games lost already this season... almost 140 over the closest competitor for the stat in San Jose (253).  Yet we're still fighting for first...  and hopefully will have it back tomorrow.    Strongest team in the east?  The bruins have been on a good roll this week, but I think this is the year we go to the SCF again...  I'm not foolish enough to talk trash about it, I just think the Pens are the better team, and if the injured return for the playoffs, we should be good to go.  Of course, a lot of that rests on Fleury.  He's been stellar in the regular season this year, and that's a good sign that his sports shrink might be working.  

[Bosja]

Video:

 

NHL ICE HOCKEY free prediction from young expert(24.04.14).BOSTON-MONTREAL,RANGERS-PHOENIX

[hf101]

@Bosja

 

You do know that it is March 24, 2014 

[Eric Burton]

Does anyone think that this years team is even better than the team that won the Stanley Cup? They've been smoking hot in the month of March and April.