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Post by SeaBass on Oct 26, 2021 16:26:18 GMT -5
Come on...we're best friends
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Post by kjc2 on Oct 27, 2021 9:13:51 GMT -5
Come on...we're best friends 😂
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Post by madmarx on Nov 4, 2021 16:07:48 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 5, 2021 8:34:00 GMT -5
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Post by kjc2 on Nov 5, 2021 12:01:59 GMT -5
If a kid , boy or girl leaves a game in tears because of fans the refs and coaches need to shut the game right down. That kind of behaviour can’t be allowed to happen without repercussions.
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 5, 2021 12:33:34 GMT -5
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Post by nfld77 on Nov 5, 2021 14:41:55 GMT -5
If a kid , boy or girl leaves a game in tears because of fans the refs and coaches need to shut the game right down. That kind of behaviour can’t be allowed to happen without repercussions. Just terrible human behavior,fucking idiots!!
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Post by fforr on Nov 5, 2021 16:12:03 GMT -5
These friggin yutes now a days..... no respect, no manners no work ethic.
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 16, 2021 9:10:20 GMT -5
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Post by madmarx on Nov 16, 2021 16:43:22 GMT -5
Jakub Zboril said the first year or so after getting drafted was difficult – given his status as a 1st-round pick.
"I was on social media — I was just getting roasted every single day."
Zboril is now off social media and said he's no longer dwelling on those draft expectations.
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Post by kjc2 on Nov 16, 2021 18:14:30 GMT -5
Jakub Zboril said the first year or so after getting drafted was difficult – given his status as a 1st-round pick. "I was on social media — I was just getting roasted every single day." Zboril is now off social media and said he's no longer dwelling on those draft expectations. I hope he doesn’t look back, his last two games have been an extremely pleasant surprise and we needed it.
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Post by KSJ08 on Nov 16, 2021 18:33:22 GMT -5
Jakub Zboril said the first year or so after getting drafted was difficult – given his status as a 1st-round pick. "I was on social media — I was just getting roasted every single day." Zboril is now off social media and said he's no longer dwelling on those draft expectations. Great play like what got you to a 1st round pick & NOT the yahoo wantta bee's on Social Media!!!
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 19, 2021 9:32:01 GMT -5
Tuukka Rask has a .921 all-situations save percentage over his 560 career regular-season games. It is the second-highest mark in NHL history behind Dominik Hasek (.922). Rask is also the Bruins’ leader with 306 regular-season wins as well as 57 playoff victories.
These traditional statistics, bundled with common sense, signaled that the Bruins would miss their ace in 2021-22 — perhaps doubly so as they transitioned to Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, the ex-Buffalo goalie and the 22-year-old rookie who have combined for zero NHL postseason starts.
Looking beyond the traditional statistics, we can get an even better understanding of just how much Rask is missed.
Clear Sight Analytics logs every NHL shot on goal using 34 points of data. Examples of variables are the type of screen a goalie is facing on a shot, or an attempt’s degree of danger. Tracking it all is not an easy job. According to John Healy, co-founder and vice president for data collection, a team of 10 part-time trackers watches every game and manually logs every piece of information.
The result is a robust data set from which Clear Sight Analytics can determine, among other statistics, a goalie’s goals saved above expectation. The metric, which accounts for shot situations as well as historical averages, is critical. It captures a sharp picture of a goalie’s individual performance, more so than blurrier and possibly team-influenced statistics such as save percentage, goals-against average and wins.
So far, the goals saved above expectation are not good for the Rask-less Bruins: In all situations, Swayman has saved 0.11 fewer goals than expected over seven starts and Ullmark has saved 1.21 fewer over six starts.
For comparison, Igor Shesterkin has saved 13.28 goals above expectation over 12 starts, and Robin Lehner was right behind at 12.52 over 13 starts.
Swayman and Ullmark, in other words, have been performing below expectation. They are especially poor in stopping high-percentage five-on-five shots off the rush, a category in which the Bruins are worst in the league.
One maneuver Clear Sight Analytics can execute is a “goalie swap,” applying one puck-stopper’s historical performance and dropping him into any team. It is, however, a deeper exercise than simply inserting one goalie’s numbers in place of another’s. The query also takes team play into consideration — how regularly the Bruins, for example, allow screened shots or one-timers from the high slot.
After crunching the numbers from the Bruins’ 13 games this season and Rask’s performance from the two previous seasons, Clear Sight Analytics determined that the 2013 Vezina Trophy winner’s goals saved above expectation would be 1.99 goals better than Swayman’s and 1.22 goals higher than Ullmark’s. The latter result factors how Rask would have fared, in all likelihood, against Edmonton and Toronto, two of the flammable opponents Ullmark drew.
In Swayman’s case, a 1.99-goal delta may not seem like much over seven starts. It’s difficult to say, in other words, if the Bruins would have won either of the two games Swayman lost (6-3 to Philadelphia, 3-0 to Carolina) had Rask been in net.
But by projecting similar performance for Swayman over 56 games, which would be a reasonable workload for Rask, the goals saved above expectation would swell to 15.92 goals.
In the analytics community, the belief is that two goals saved above expectation equal one point in the standings. In this simulation, then, a Rask-for-Swayman full-season swap would net the Bruins approximately eight points. In 2018-19, the NHL’s most recent 82-game season, the Bruins finished with 107 points. Carolina, the first wild-card entry, had 99.
“You’re going from league-average Swayman and below-average Ullmark,” said Healy, “to Mr. Top Five, Tuukka.”
By that, Healy was referring to Rask’s status as one of the five best goalies in the league over the two previous seasons. Rask saved 25.08 goals above expectation during this timeframe, third-highest after Connor Hellebuyck (37.32) and Marc-Andre Fleury (29.39). Andrei Vasilevskiy (24.63) and Jordan Binnington (23.97) rounded out the top five.
Deeper numbers confirm Rask’s stoutness. On rebounds, Rask saved 8.92 goals above expectation, best among the top-five-goalie cohort. Vasilevskiy was No. 2 (6.93). On breakaways and partial breakaways, Rask saved 3.96 goals above expectation, second-most after Binnington (8.4).
The part that surprised me was that Rask did all this in 2019-20 and 2020-21 while playing behind a below-average defense. I had always believed the Bruins defended well. But by Clear Sight Analytics’ data, of the 69 goalies who saw 500-plus chances over the past two seasons, Rask played in the 17th-hardest defensive environment.
Rask’s expected save percentage was .891. His actual save percentage was .908. The 1.7 percent differential was best in the league, tied with Shesterkin.
“The illusion was that they were sound defensively,” Healy said of the Bruins. “In actuality, they were OK defensively, but they had Tuukka.”
It’s been a different story this season. Clear Sight Analytics ranks the Bruins as No. 2 in the NHL in five-on-five expected goals against in the defensive zone. This correlates to Natural Stat Trick’s data: 1.92 xGA per 60 minutes, No. 2 behind Minnesota. The chart also shows how the 2021-22 Bruins are fighting to score: second-worst in the league in expected goals for:
Rask, performing at his historical average but playing behind this season’s defense would make the Bruins a defensive powerhouse. Instead, because of their below-average goaltending, the Bruins are allowing 2.6 goals per 60. Coach Bruce Cassidy said it best: “The goalies aren’t making the saves the analytics people think they should.”
All of this is subject to change. Ullmark continues to transition from Buffalo to Boston. The more experience Swayman gets, the more settled he should become.
Of course, the most radical adjustment would be a Rask return. The 34-year-old has been skating at Warrior Ice Arena as he recovers from offseason hip surgery.
“I was told, originally, that the timeline for him to return to play — wherever that is, whether it’s Boston or somewhere else — would be January to February,” Cassidy said on Nov. 9. “The best I could tell you is he’s on target for that.”
A Rask reunion is not guaranteed. His rehab has to continue progressing. He’s also an unrestricted free agent, so he would have to agree on a contract. Both he and the team would have to be confident in his ability to resume high-level performance.
But if the past can reasonably predict the future, Rask would be a very good goalie. The Bruins could use him back.
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 19, 2021 13:26:04 GMT -5
The Bruins are tied for the fewest games played in the NHL so far. Yet they’re currently in the middle of nearly a full week off, going from Sunday’s win over Montreal to Saturday before they finally get back in action in Philadelphia.
While some teams have played as many as 18 games already, the Bruins are sitting at 13. They have struggled to really get into the flow of the season at times, in part because their schedule hasn’t allowed it.
They were one of the last teams to begin their season, playing their first game four days after the league’s opening night. Then they had three more days off, watching some teams play four games before Boston had played its second.
The Bruins had another four-day break just two weeks ago, then a normal schedule for about a week and a half, and now another long layoff. It’s all been pretty bizarre, to say the least.
Making his weekly appearance on The Greg Hill Show, Mike Milbury said he believes the Bruins’ schedule puts them at a competitive disadvantage, and that they should have “screamed bloody murder” when it came out.
As Milbury points out, not only have the stops and starts affected the Bruins’ ability to find any rhythm early, but they’re also going to have to pay for it later in the season. After the Olympic break in February, the Bruins close out the regular season with 33 games in 65 days and never have more than two consecutive days off.
“That’s every other day, on the road or at home. That’s a nightmare,” Milbury said. “Whoever made the schedule for the Bruins, they should’ve screamed bloody murder at the time it came out. … It’s almost a show-stopper, a killer for them at the end of the year. I mean, how do you put money on them to go deep into the playoffs when they’ve played 29 games in 60 days at the end of the year?
“They’re gonna have to call up all of Providence to get people time off and get them reasonably fresh for the playoffs. It’s not a good deal. And it’s not a good deal for Bruce Cassidy this week to try to keep them fresh and keep them motivated for what’s a pretty tough stretch against teams like Philly and Calgary.”
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 23, 2021 11:06:31 GMT -5
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Post by madmarx on Nov 23, 2021 16:23:50 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 29, 2021 10:00:10 GMT -5
Erik Haula was a spare forward in Saturday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena. Bruce Cassidy was not ready to confirm whether that will be the case for Sunday’s game against Vancouver.
But the coach was willing to acknowledge he needs far more from Haula, signed to be the Bruins’ No. 3 center.
When asked if Haula could move to left wing, Cassidy responded, “He could. I just think his game right now, we need more compete out of him. He tends to get moving more in the middle. We haven’t seen him on the wing. So I guess I can’t rule it out. But right now we have some left-shot wingers, an abundance of them. That’s why he’s in the middle. That’s what he was signed for: to sort of anchor that line. It hasn’t worked out as well as we’d like.”
Trent Frederic, out because of a concussion since Nov. 9, practiced as the No. 3 center between Nick Foligno and Karson Kuhlman. Frederic has played almost all of his shifts at left wing since last season.
“Just being in the middle of the ice is probably where I’m more comfortable,” Frederic said. “It’s just what I’ve done my whole life until last year. Just the comfort of that. Playing in the middle, you get more freedom, skating-wise. More ice. More under pucks. More responsibility in the D-zone, which I like.”
Haula was one of five newcomers the Bruins signed on July 28 upon the opening of free agency. Here’s how he and the rest of the newbies have performed so far:
Nick Foligno Signed to a two-year, $7.6 million contract. … Zero goals and three assists in nine games. … Missed eight games because of an upper-body injury. … Started the season as the No. 3 right wing. … Practiced on the third line Saturday after playing most recently on the second line with Taylor Hall and Charlie Coyle. … Strength appears to be as the first forechecker and winning battles in the danger areas. … Tasked primarily with puck recovery on the No. 1 power-play unit. … Has yet to score on the man advantage. … “Really positive,” Frederic said. “He’s easy to play with.”
Conclusion: Underperforming expectations
Derek Forbort Signed to a three-year, $9 million contract. … Four goals and one assist in 17 games. … Played most recently on the No. 2 pairing with Brandon Carlo, his penalty-killing partner. … Calling card is five-on-five defense and penalty killing (team-high 2:51 of short-handed ice time per game), but he leads the team defensemen with four goals. … Practiced with Charlie McAvoy on the No. 1 pairing Saturday. … Fourth in average ice time per game among team defensemen (18:34). … “As advertised,” Cassidy said.
Conclusion: Meeting expectations
Erik Haula Signed to a two-year, $4.75 million contract. … One goal and two assists in 17 games. … Shooting a career-low 3.9 percent in all situations. … On the ice for two goals against in Friday’s 5-2 loss to the Rangers. … Started the season centering the third line. … Began Friday’s game on the fourth line between Anton Blidh and Curtis Lazar.
Conclusion: Underperforming expectations
Tomas Nosek Signed to a two-year, $3.5 million contract. … Two goals and two assists in 17 games. … Has served mostly as the No. 4 center. … Moved up to the third line in the previous two games against the Sabres and Rangers. … Rapidly becoming a Cassidy favorite because of his dependability and professionalism. … Has won 56.3 percent of his faceoffs, second-best among team centers after Patrice Bergeron (63.7 percent). … “I feel he’s been a good player no matter where we’ve played him, who we’ve played him with,” Cassidy said. “He’s had a bunch of different wingers. He’s had a lot of D-zone starts. He’s competing in the circle. He’s made plays when we’ve moved him up to different flavors of wingers. I just think he’s been a real good add for us. He comes from a winning culture. It’s a ‘What can I do for the team?’ type of mentality. No-maintenance. A guy that goes to work every day. Likable guy. Just a lot of positives. He’s not flashy. He doesn’t play with as much pace as other guys, but he’s still able to get where he needs to go. He’s a good fit on that bottom six for us so far.”
Conclusion: Exceeding expectations
Linus Ullmark Signed to a four-year, $20 million contract. … Expected to be the opening-night starter given his experience but was beaten out by Jeremy Swayman. … 4-3-0 with a .908 all-situations save percentage in seven games. … Was at 1.21 goals saved below expectation through six starts, per Clear Sight Analytics. … Started camp slowly, as expected given the transition from Buffalo. … Was coming off a solid 29-save performance against Philadelphia on Nov. 20 and was expected to start four days later against Buffalo but was unavailable because of an injury. … Will start Sunday against Vancouver as he looks for some traction. … “There hasn’t been a rhythm,” Cassidy said. “Some of that is schedule-related, getting both goalies involved, now missing a couple starts. This would have been a good opportunity for him to roll into a couple. Nothing we can do about that. Sway goes in, he gets his rhythm a little bit more. So yes, with Linus, there’s still some unknowns there. He’s a good goalie in this league. We know that. How good remains to be seen.”
Conclusion: Underperforming expectations
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Post by fforr on Nov 29, 2021 10:34:29 GMT -5
Would think you’d get more for 15.7+mill/year.
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Post by KSJ08 on Nov 29, 2021 12:09:54 GMT -5
Are you fvcking kidding me!!!!!https://www.nhl.com/news/brad-marchand-to-have-player-safety-hearing/c-328446542
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Post by madmarx on Nov 29, 2021 16:15:44 GMT -5
Are you fvcking kidding me!!!!!https://www.nhl.com/news/brad-marchand-to-have-player-safety-hearing/c-328446542 Bruce Cassidy on Brad Marchand's tangle with Oliver Ekman-Larsson: "Two guys battling for the puck."
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Post by madmarx on Nov 29, 2021 17:25:36 GMT -5
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Post by kjc2 on Nov 29, 2021 17:32:57 GMT -5
Crock of shit, Marchand was off balance from the upper body contact just as much as OLE. His foot coming up was purely from trying to regain his own balance. No way there was any intent there. Time for Parros to resign, he’s out to lunch. I hope someone from front office has Marchand’s back on this one. I know it won’t change anything but at least defend him. Also, where’s OLE’s hearing for running Blidh?
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Post by madmarx on Nov 29, 2021 17:57:25 GMT -5
This is where the league is losing Me , One Player can continually slew foot Players who end with serious injuries 5k fine .
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Post by fforr on Nov 29, 2021 17:58:25 GMT -5
Two refs and two linesmen watch the whole battle and don’t blow the whistle…
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Post by orym on Nov 30, 2021 11:40:47 GMT -5
Crock of shit, Marchand was off balance from the upper body contact just as much as OLE. His foot coming up was purely from trying to regain his own balance. No way there was any intent there. Time for Parros to resign, he’s out to lunch. I hope someone from front office has Marchand’s back on this one. I know it won’t change anything but at least defend him. Also, where’s OLE’s hearing for running Blidh? I don't agree at all with the league on this. OEL falls forward and it looks more to me that the upper body contact is what is taking him down not the leg driving in behind. It doesn't look to me like Marchand's leg factors in as much as the video is suggesting. We have seen some dirty slewfoots and trips from Marchand in the past (for sure factoring into why he got the 3 gamer). This is not one of them. Feels like the "Wheel of Suspensions" is hard at work again.
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Post by kjc2 on Nov 30, 2021 12:16:25 GMT -5
I hear Butch is gone into Covid protocol and several players.
Don’t know who or how many🤷♂️
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Post by KSJ08 on Nov 30, 2021 12:20:15 GMT -5
I hear Butch is gone into Covid protocol and several players. Don’t know who or how many🤷♂️ WT Heck is CV-19 Protocol!?!?!?!
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 30, 2021 12:26:04 GMT -5
Brad Marchand said he told Artemi Panarin that “nobody likes you in Russia,” and said if that’s what’s getting players offended these days, “it’s a soft league.”
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 30, 2021 12:26:32 GMT -5
Brad Marchand: “I didn’t kick his legs out, I didn’t do anything like that. That’s why I was a little bit caught off guard.”
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 30, 2021 12:35:27 GMT -5
Don Sweeney on Jake DeBrusk: "Jake has certainly made it known he would prefer a new opportunity. We expect Jake to play well. This comes down to the Boston Bruins having to make a hockey decision. For Jake, this comes down to him playing his best hockey.
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