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Post by crafar01 on Jun 10, 2019 12:49:41 GMT -5
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Post by DonnyBrook on Jun 10, 2019 12:59:22 GMT -5
you beat me to it. what aaron rome did to horton makes him an automatic club member of the blues. between the coach and their cheap hits and their goalie with the jimmy durante nose....i hate them as much as the canucks. Perron reminds me a lot of Maxipad. blues are like the 70's flyers for crying out loud. with that said i would not be surprised if sweeney looks to add one of their heavy hitters when they become a free agent..that usually how the b's work..oh i like that guy..he beat the shit out of us...
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Post by madmarx on Jun 10, 2019 13:38:37 GMT -5
Saw that yesterday along with renting a hotel to celebrate , as bad as the Leafs Fans planning the parade route in October..
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Post by KSJ08 on Jun 10, 2019 13:40:43 GMT -5
Perron reminds me a lot of Maxipad. blues are like the 70's flyers for crying out loud. with that said i would not be surprised if sweeney looks to add one of their heavy hitters when they become a free agent..that usually how the b's work..oh i like that guy..he beat the shit out of us... WHatta expect W/Berube & the real POS Steve Ott behind the bench!
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Post by KSJ08 on Jun 10, 2019 13:41:32 GMT -5
Yeah I really hope that comes back to bite'm in the ass!!
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Post by offwego on Jun 10, 2019 16:00:18 GMT -5
Saw that yesterday along with renting a hotel to celebrate , as bad as the Leafs Fans planning the parade route in October.. Apparently a skid of champagne on ice somewhere too.... Although that doesn't surprise me. That skid kinda follows Lord Stanley around. From house to house. I'll give them a pass on that one 😉😁😂😂😂
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Post by madmarx on Jun 10, 2019 16:19:57 GMT -5
Saw that yesterday along with renting a hotel to celebrate , as bad as the Leafs Fans planning the parade route in October.. Apparently a skid of champagne on ice somewhere too.... Although that doesn't surprise me. That skid kinda follows Lord Stanley around. From house to house. I'll give them a pass on that one 😉😁😂😂😂 When you have never Won maybe you should use a little patience ..
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Post by offwego on Jun 10, 2019 18:27:27 GMT -5
Apparently a skid of champagne on ice somewhere too.... Although that doesn't surprise me. That skid kinda follows Lord Stanley around. From house to house. I'll give them a pass on that one 😉😁😂😂😂 When you have never Won maybe you should use a little patience .. No kidding. These blues fans as almost as obnoxious as hab fans
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 11, 2019 9:32:40 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 11, 2019 9:32:50 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 11, 2019 9:34:16 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 11, 2019 10:27:50 GMT -5
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Post by kjc2 on Jun 11, 2019 12:16:09 GMT -5
I don't mind them having a contingency plan just in case they win but having all this stuff leaked after the fact just rubs the salt in and makes it sting a little more. I like it!!
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Post by crafar01 on Jun 12, 2019 6:30:54 GMT -5
Christ, even the GM is a whine ass.
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Post by kjc2 on Jun 12, 2019 8:48:59 GMT -5
Christ, even the GM is a whine ass. The Bruins should have pulled a Scotty Bowan as well, fresh coat of paint on the visiting locker room and the windows nail shut.
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Post by crafar01 on Jun 12, 2019 9:15:14 GMT -5
Christ, even the GM is a whine ass. The Bruins should have pulled a Scotty Bowan as well, fresh coat of paint on the visiting locker room and the windows nail shut. Now that would have been funny. I guess he apologized after, but WTF? You're a GM and a visiting one at that, in what way does that make you special?
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 9:38:14 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 9:42:21 GMT -5
BOSTON – A glass or two of vintage wine.
An introspective walk in Stanley Park not far from the Pacific Ocean.
A harrowing cab ride with rowdy Vancouver Canucks fans in pursuit.
An emotional reminder from an assistant coach that to win a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final isn’t just to win a game but to create a legacy.
Some TD Garden ice surreptitiously poured onto the ice in Vancouver during warmups.
These are the threads that create the fabric of destiny, the tapestry of a champion.
The NHL last hosted a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final eight years ago with the Bruins facing the Canucks. The ultimate one-game, winner-takes-all match to determine whose names will forever be etched on the Stanley Cup.
With the Boston Bruins back to such a rare moment in time, readying for Game 7 against the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night at TD Garden, members of the 2011 Boston team remember what it was like to prepare for the grandest finale in pro sports.
The 2011 Bruins fell behind 2-0 in the series against the NHL’s best regular season team, making it look like the Canucks would win the series in a rout. But Boston cruised at home to tie the series. Vancouver again shut down Boston in Game 5, the Bruins prevailed in Game 6 and Game 7 was set.
Earlier in the series, the Bruins practiced at home and then flew West, but to change things up, they flew to Vancouver on June 14 and arranged to skate late in the afternoon at Vancouver’s downtown rink, Rogers Arena, at 5 p.m.
Bruins coach Claude Julien, now coach of the Montreal Canadiens, recalled that the arena staff wouldn’t turn on the lights until the appointed time late in the afternoon.
“I remember we couldn’t get on the ice earlier,” Julien said. “They didn’t want us going on any earlier so there was gamesmanship there no doubt.”
Longtime NHL forward Chris Kelly said that practice was loose and fun, a chance to stretch their legs after a long flight.
“It was the last practice of the season and we knew that,” said Kelly, who is currently the player development coach with the Ottawa Senators.
The team was staying at the Westin Hotel not far from downtown, and close to assorted bars and restaurants, not to mention the city’s famous Stanley Park that edges Vancouver Harbor and English Bay. Usually the team would have gone out for dinner somewhere in the city’s picturesque downtown, but with the emotion building and the possibility that a Canadian team was going to win a Stanley Cup for the first time since 1993, the Bruins decided to eat together in the hotel.
There weren’t any long video sessions or anything like that. All of the work had been done except the final act in a play months in the performing.
“I find in a series like that a lot of the heavy lifting is prior to Game 1,” said longtime player and coach Doug Jarvis, who was in his first season as an assistant on Julien’s staff in Boston.
By the time Game 7 rolls around it’s just about reminding players of small things.
The fact the team stayed in the night before just added to the notion that they were “in the bubble,” Jarvis said.
“I think the idea was, the players could stay together, stay cohesive, stay bonded and not having to be dealing with finding restaurants,” Jarvis said.
Assistant coach Geoff Ward said the team as being remarkably calm.
Mark Recchi speaking after Game 6, told his teammates that after winning Game 6 there was no way they weren’t going to win Game 7.
“Mark Recchi had been a real sort of barometer for us throughout that playoff run,” Ward said. “Everything he’d said had unfolded exactly that way.”
Rugged forward Shawn Thornton was a scratch in the first two games of the series, but the veteran tough guy came on in Boston for Game 3 and the series took on a completely different tone.
In Vancouver before Game 7, Recchi called or texted and invited Thornton to come up and share a special bottle of wine.
Regardless of the outcome of that game, Recchi had already decided it would be his last game.
“I just knew, for me, the next day I was ready to put my head through the glass after that, all the respect I have for him,” Thornton said.
Beyond the obvious nerves, though, Thornton said he felt a quiet confidence about the group.
“Not cocky,” he said. “But we had put the pieces in place and built it to where we thought we were in a really good spot.”
Now a senior vice president with the Florida Panthers, Thornton was part of a physical fourth line with the Bruins along with Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille known as the Merlot line because of the color of their practice jerseys. They are not exactly like the current Bruins’ fourth line that has been an offensive sparkplug this spring.
“That wasn’t our focus,” Thornton said. “Ours was we’re just going to hammer the shit out of them.”
Kelly recalled watching the nightly news in his room in Vancouver and how the Stanley Cup final was the top news story. “I remember thinking, wasn’t there more important things that were going on in the world? But you realized, wow, this is a big deal obviously.”
Having been to the final in 2007 with Ottawa, Kelly understood how important this was not just to Vancouver and that market but to a nation without a championship to its credit for decades.
In the aftermath of the Boston win, Kelly admitted he felt a bit for Vancouver and what they were going through given the expectations of the nation.
Other players like Rich Peverley, a trade deadline acquisition from Atlanta, recalled watching the Canadian sports channels and how most were predicting a Vancouver victory.
“We were definitely up against the odds,” Peverley said.
Because Game 7 of the final, the first such moment in Boston franchise history, was played at 5 p.m. local time, there was no traditional morning skate, so the players tried to find ways to fill in the time before heading to the rink.
It was a beautiful day in Vancouver so a number took a walk in Stanley Park.
One group of players came across a television reporter doing a hit setting up the game and, as they passed, he could be heard predicting a Vancouver victory.
“We started chirping him a bit, giving him a hard time,” recalled defenseman Andrew Ference.
Ference had been with the Bruins since being acquired from Calgary in 2007. As a member of the Flames, he had been on the other side of the coin in 2004 when the Flames led Tampa in the Cup final but couldn’t close out, dropping Game 7 in Tampa 2-1.
Ference spoke about that with his teammates before Game 7 in 2011.
“You’re looking for whatever edge whatsoever,” said Ference, who is now the NHL’s director of social impact, growth and fan development.
When you have a chance to win the Cup, all the families and friends are abuzz. “You’ve got sugar plum fairies dancing in your head imagining all the fun you’re going to have,” Ference said. “No matter what you do you can’t completely shut out those thoughts.”
The path to get to a Game 7 is so long, so arduous, it almost defies description.
Ference recalled walking with Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara and others the morning of Game 7. They were ghostly white from having been indoors for seemingly weeks, their playoff beards matted and unmanageable.
“You’re all beat up,” Ference said. “You feel like a mutant.”
Campbell, now a development coach with the Columbus Blue Jackets, recalled the collision of emotion as Game 7 approached. Two months of waging a battle every other night only to be confronted by the finality of Game 7.
“For whatever reason, I found that strange,” Campbell said.
He caught a clip of in the aftermath of this week’s Game 6 win by Boston when Bergeron was talking about the terrifying idea of losing and having the season end before they believed it was time. It was an emotion that Campbell identified with going back to 2011.
“It is terrifying,” he said. “I think that’s an appropriate word.”
You try not to think about how much it would hurt to lose having put in all that effort to get to a Game 7, Campbell said, “not to mention the lifetime of work everybody puts in trying to win a Stanley Cup.”
The team met in the morning of Game 7 in Vancouver to go over some small details.
The key, Julien said, was not to overwhelm the players. At this stage of the season, everyone knew what was at stake and what needed to be done. So it was a matter of having brief special teams meetings and a brief team meeting.
“I remember Claude’s speech in the morning was well thought out,” Campbell said.
Ward delivered an emotional talk about what was at stake for this team.
He had taken the occasion of preparing to write a note to his four kids about what this moment was like for him, some of the lessons he learned and what it would mean, not just to the Bruins but their families and friends and their community. It was a letter that served as a tribute to the people who help people like Ward get to this potentially life-altering moment.
Julien thought it was so poignant he asked Ward if he would read it to the team.
“It was different,” he said. “It got to be emotional. Which I didn’t’ think it was going to be.”
“Just kind of from the heart what it meant to him and his family,” Campbell said. “It resonated with everybody. I was ready to run through a wall after that. He’s such a genuine guy and doesn’t talk a lot either. He was kind of in tears a little bit, too.”
The time before the game was long.
Some tried to sleep.
“But there was zero chance of that happening,” Campbell said. “That felt like two months alone just waiting for that 5 o’clock game.”
Campbell was rooming with rookie Tyler Seguin.
“He was just as cool as a cucumber. I don’t think he even knew what was going on,” Campbell said with a laugh.
Campbell went for a walk near the water.
“I remember sitting there for a while and just reflecting on everything,” he recalled. “You try not to get ahead of yourself and think of (if) we were to win and what that feeling would be like.”
Campbell’s father is former NHL player and coach Colin Campbell, currently a long-serving NHL executive. Gregory Campbell looked at the moments leading up to the New York Rangers’ seminal Stanley Cup win in 1994 (oddly enough also over the Vancouver Canucks in a classic seven-game series) when his father was an assistant coach with the Rangers. Gregory Campbell was 10 at the time Mark Messier raised the Cup after breaking a drought dating back to 1940.
Campbell was in an early group that took a cab to the rink.
Brad Marchand, Chara and Ference were also along.
Vancouver fans, already partying in advance of the game, saw the group.
“Next thing you know you had a mob of people following us and taunting us and taunting Marchy,” Campbell said. “Knowing him it could have been dangerous, but he was pretty focused too. We just put our heads down and rushed down and into the rink. That was pretty funny. And a little bit scary, too.”
The late afternoon local start presented problems for some of the other players vis a vis eating. Did they eat two small meals, one large breakfast and a snack, or some other variation?
Kelly went for breakfast and then lunch, well, sort of.
“I remember trying to choke down some chicken at lunch but nerves were a big part of it,” he said.
Before the Bruins left for Vancouver after Game 6, Ward and members of the training staff decided it might be a good idea if they had some good karma from home when they got to Rogers Arena where they were 0-3 in the series. So they chipped some ice into a plastic water bottle and transported it across the continent.
Then, it was decided that injured Nathan Horton would be the one to drizzle the ice now turned to water onto the ice surface at the Bruins’ bench during warmups.
Whether it was the presence of Boston ice or not, for the first time in the series Boston capitalized on its chances with Bergeron opening the scoring with just more than five minutes left in the first. He and Marchand added second-period goals, and an empty-net goal by Marchand with 2:44 left in the third period was the final tally.
Even with a substantial lead, it wasn’t until the second Marchand goal that players began to relax. Players started to look at each other, making eye contact, with the understanding of what was about to happen.
“To a certain point, you do lock away your emotions as much as possible,” Ference said.
For Ference, those final minutes were among his most treasured memories.
“Those last two or three minutes when everybody kind of got it,” he said. “It’s like, are you thinking what I’m thinking? That this shit’s for real?”
Not everyone was able to relax, however.
Jarvis, a four-time Cup winner, was the coaching staff’s “eye in the sky” up in the press box. As the game wound down, another staffer asked Jarvis if he felt they should make their way down to ice level, understanding the celebration that was in the offing.
“I’m like, ‘no, I’m sitting right here until this thing was over,’” Jarvis said.
The cliché of the bond that comes from winning may be timeworn but it doesn’t make it any less true or meaningful.
“It’s more than just a collection of good players,” Ference said. “You’re in a group where you share some pretty deep stuff and let each other into what’s going on and what you’re going through.”
Ward called the final few minutes of the game the oddest he’s ever encountered on the bench, as players began to break from the “zoned in” mode, understanding that they were about to be Stanley Cup champions.
“There was almost an empty feeling,” defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. “It’s like you work so hard and you’re asking yourself what’s next, when are we going to play next and then you realized, we were at the end and we were at the top.”
At one point late in the third period, Julien looked over to see longtime trainer Don DelNegro weeping.
As the minutes ticked down, the management team arrived behind the bench in anticipation of the celebration.
Julien had won a Memorial Cup as a coach so he understood something of what was about to unfold. He tried to make sure that Recchi was on the ice for the final shift of not just the game but his career even though it meant disrupting the normal flow of the lines.
For Julien, the moments that still resonate are watching the impact of the outcome on people. Not just the players but their families, the coaches and other staff.
“I was just looking around soaking it in,” he said, of a moment he shared with his wife and daughter, who was not quite 6 years old at the time.
If there is one regret for Kelly, and he admittedly has very few, it is that he didn’t have family with him in Vancouver for the game. His wife was very pregnant at the time and couldn’t travel. He thought about having his parents there, but they team had lost three times in Vancouver in the series and he wondered what would happen if they came all the way and then the Bruins lost, plus Air Canada was having labor issues so he ended up without anyone.
Still, his wife watched him lift the Cup at home on television and said she’d never seen him look so happy. Even the miles and distance of a television screen couldn’t hide what was revealed in the moment he raised the Cup.
They say it weighs 35 pounds, Kelly recalled, but you don’t even remember the heft.
“You don’t even remember, it just goes over your head,” Kelly said.
On the ice after the game for something so personal and momentous, some of the details become jumbled.
A number of the players and coaches could only vaguely recall Ward’s letter and some were equally unsure of just how they came to be holding the Stanley Cup.
“Tomas Kaberle,” Ference said. “I’m 99 percent sure it was Kaberle and then I gave it to (Michael) Ryder.”
The detail that Ference does recall is that it hurt like hell when he hoisted the Cup after taking a shot late in the game from Jannik Hansen.
“My shoulder was messed up for that entire summer,” Ference said.
But he still got the Cup fully extended over his head.
Eight years later it still gives Campbell chills to reflect on that moment.
“Oh yeah, nobody forgets that,” he said. “This is just something you honestly can’t even describe. There’s a lot of things that go into being in the NHL and to making it and it’s a lifetime of work really so it was almost like a lifetime of feelings coming out.”
Who gave the Cup to him?
“I think it was either Shane Hnidy or Michael Ryder,” Campbell said.
He recalled fans booing him, possibly because of his father even though Colin Campbell had recused himself from meting out discipline because of his son’s presence on the Bruins.
Outside Rogers Arena a riot erupted in the aftermath of the Bruins’ 4-0 victory. Campbell recalls the team fairly quickly hopping on a bus to leave the arena area and take the team charter back to Boston.
“It was almost like we stole the Stanley Cup from Vancouver,” he said. “It hadn’t quite sunk in yet.”
Who handed Thornton the Cup? There is silence.
Ference … he thinks.
“I think you’re in such a euphoric state at that point that the little details sometimes escape you,” Thornton said.
One lesson Thornton learned when he was with the Anaheim Ducks when they won a Cup in 2007 was to try and enjoy the Cup moment.
“In Anaheim when we won I got it and I panicked. I only had it for 10 seconds and gave it to next person,” he said.
In Boston, he gave a tiny little twirl with the Cup and then passed it along.
And that’s one of the greatest things about hockey players, Thornton said, is that you work your whole life to get ahold of the Cup, but the thing you want to do most is share it with the next teammate.
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 9:54:28 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 10:21:30 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 10:33:39 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 10:35:01 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 10:53:00 GMT -5
David Backes has waited his entire career for this moment.
The veteran forward and former captain of the St. Louis Blues decided to sign with the Bruins as an unrestricted free agent prior to the 2016-17 season in hopes of hoisting a Stanley Cup.
Well, when puck drops for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final between the Bruins and Blues on Wednesday at TD Garden, Backes will be a healthy scratch. Boston coach Bruce Cassidy will go with the same lineup as Game 6 — which includes rookie Karson Kuhlman, who scored a goal in that game as Backes’ replacement on the team’s second line with David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk.
It can’t be an easy situation for the 35-year-old Backes, who will watch the only two organizations he’s ever known face off in the biggest game in years. After the team’s final practice of the season on Tuesday at TD Garden, Backes walked out of the locker room en route for lunch with his teammates.
When asked to describe his emotions in a situation like this, he told The Athletic: “I’m trying to gather that myself. It’s complex.”
The Bruins signed Backes to a five-year, $30 million deal in 2016, and he’s faced more adversity during his relatively short time in Boston than he did his entire career in St. Louis. Between concussion issues and playing time concerns, little has come easy for Backes during his Bruins tenure, though he has had his moments. He was a healthy scratch to start these playoffs, but was then thrust back into the lineup and made an immediate impact with his veteran presence on the ice and in the room. Although he will be watching Game 7 from press level, Backes understands the Bruins have the potential to win the Stanley Cup and will do anything he can to help facilitate that goal — even when that means doing nothing.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We’re all in for whatever’s best for the team. That’s the position we’re in and we’ve got one game to win a Stanley Cup and that’s where you want to be. Not being on the ice is tough, but I’ve got faith in our guys they’ll get the job done and I’ll be doing whatever I can to assist from an arm’s length.”
Backes adds a physical component against a heavy St. Louis team, which has been important for Boston’s success in this series. But he’s not the only player that can offer pushback for the Bruins in that category, so Cassidy is trying to best balance the speed and physical aspects, and Kuhlman’s pace may pay dividends in this situation.
For example: There was a play early in Game 6 at St. Louis when Krejci had control of the puck on the offensive blue line and chipped it deep into the corner. Kuhlman used his speed, broke in behind the St. Louis defense, won a puck battle in the corner and made a play to the front of the net. It was an important play for the Bruins to execute consistently.
Kuhlman adds speed and his physical play surprises a lot of opponents. Backes offers that emotional lift and that was evident in the first round when he returned to the lineup against the Maple Leafs. At this point, that type of motivation is coming from the fact that captain Zdeno Chara is playing with a broken jaw.
As difficult as it is for Backes, he’s not alone in being forced to watch, and will share this bittersweet moment with injured teammates Chris Wagner, Kevan Miller and Matt Grzelcyk. The difference is Backes is healthy and could argue that he deserves to be in this game, but it’s a coach’s decision and Cassidy is doing what he feels is best to propel the team to a Stanley Cup.
“He’s a true professional,” said team president Cam Neely when asked about Backes. “Anybody that’s healthy wants to play. Even if you’re not healthy you want to play, but he’s handling it extremely professionally, which is not surprising.”
Former Blues teammate and close friend Alex Pietrangelo also felt for Backes, but noted that his contributions this season helped the Bruins get to this point.
“I’m sure he’d rather be playing, but he’s still a big part of why they’re here,” Pietrangelo said.
Backes doesn’t know how the rest of his Bruins career will play out. He has two years remaining on his current deal at $6 million per season and there’s a possibility the Bruins could buy out his contract this summer. As far as Game 7, if the Bruins win, Backes said he doesn’t know how he’ll handle the postgame celebration if there is one.
“I’m not going to speculate,” he said. “It’s, get a job done and we’ll go from there; whatever feels right, whatever seems right, whatever direction it ends up going that’ll be it. Without accomplishing that you’re just getting ahead of yourself and setting yourself up for failure.”
If the Bruins do win then everybody in that locker room will be happy whether they played or didn’t.
Including Backes.
“I’ll be all smiles,” he said.
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 11:14:10 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 12, 2019 11:50:46 GMT -5
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Post by kjc2 on Jun 12, 2019 12:55:45 GMT -5
I want this win and Cup for Rask more than for any other player. Rask is elite but a cup makes all the doubters go away.
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Post by offwego on Jun 12, 2019 15:00:13 GMT -5
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Post by DonnyBrook on Jun 13, 2019 6:40:49 GMT -5
i see the mob w/pitchforks forming as we speak. more of the same for bruins nation.
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 17, 2019 12:39:29 GMT -5
2010 Winter Classic win: ✅
2010 soul crushing playoff loss: ✅
2011 Stanley Cup Champions: ✅
2019 Winter Classic win: ✅
2019 soul crushing playoff loss: ✅
2020 Stanley Cup Champions: ??
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 17, 2019 12:54:21 GMT -5
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