Hub Hockey

Thomas & Chara Named To SN's All-NHL Team (Thomas: "Goalie of the Year")

Sporting News has donned their Black & Gold yet again this week, when they named Tim Thomas and Zdeno Chara to their 2009 All-NHL Team on Friday. This list is comprised of the best of the best from around the league this season including Ovechkin, Parise, Malkin and Green. If being the only team with two players to be selected wasn't enough, on top of this Tim Thomas was also named SN's "Goalie of the Year" via a poll of 292 NHL-players. Thomas now joins Claude Julien ("Coach of the Year") and Peter Chiarelli ("Executive of the Year") on the list of Sporting News award winners this post-season.

Both Thomas (Vezina) and Chara (Norris) will also be looking to take home some hardware at the NHL Awards Show in Vegas on June 18th.

Fenway To Host The Winter Classic: Confirmed?

(photo credit: The Boston Globe)

"Yes, there will be a sheet of ice in Fenway Park for a Jan. 1 Winter Classic. It's a done deal, Bruins vs. either the Capitals or Flyers. The league will make it official at the start of July, with a splashy media event in the old ballpark. NHL free agency begins July 1, which grabs headlines around league cities (except for Phoenix, of course) for 2-3 days. The Sox play at home July 3-12. If the league wants the day for full media attention, it likely will wait for July 13-14 to make official all details, including how to purchase tickets." -KPD via The Boston Globe

Kessel Had Successful Surgery Today

Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli announced today that Phil Kessel underwent a successful surgery earlier today to repair his torn rotator cuff and labrum at Mass General. The surgery was performed by Dr. Peter Asnis and Dr. Jon J.P. Warner. As mentioned when I first reported on the injury, the injury recovery will mostly likely sideline Kess for about six months. This of course could mean that Kessel will not be ready for the start of the season, missing possibly two-months.

Phil Kessel played in 70 games this season and lead the Bruins with 36-goals. Kess also totaled 24-assists for 60-pints during the regular season. He also netted 6-goals and grabbed 5-assists during his 11 playoff games.

Bitz Heading To Providence? Not So Fast

Earlier in the week it was reported that Bruins rookie Byron Bitz would be assigned to the Providence Bruins roster as extra help during their playoff run this season. The Baby-B's are are currently tied 1-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals against the AHL powerhouse Hersey Bears. This was a major sign of Calder Cup hope in the eyes of Providence fans. Bitz, who played 37-games with the team earlier this season, can be considered one of the Bruins best players during the Bruins/Carolina series. So it wouldn't hurt having him in your lineup. But all the hype was worthless because now it looks like it won't happen.

According to Mark Divver of the Providence Journal, one day after the move was announced Bitz has been benched for the rest of the season with a rib injury. By the sound of it, it looks like the rib injury is nothign new and the rookie was suffering through the playoffs with it. I guess Bitzy was just another banged up player on the Bruins roster that needs to be added to the "M*A*S*H list".

Sporting News Loves The Bruins

Yesterday, Sporting News Magazine named Bruins head coach Claude Julien as their "Coach of the Year". Now today, the love keeps on coming as Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli has been named the "Executive of the Year". Both well deserved and huge honors, especially considering that the results are based on votes by 39 of their peers.

This was really a no brainier for me. Just look at what these two have done since joining forces. The Bruins went from the cellar of the league to having a Cinderella season last year, almost droping their arch rivals in a brutal seven-game series. But that didn't stop them as they kept improving all the way through this year, winning a Division Title and making it to the second-round in the playoffs for the first time since 1999. So I guess even though the B's bid for the Cup was "Staal'ed" (yeah I made that joke), we really can't forget about what a success this season truly was. From the upper management all the way down to the bench bosses, this team has turned things around in the past few years. And by the look of it, things will only continue to get better.

Also, hopefully this is a sign of things to come as Claude Julien looks to take home the Jack Adams Award in Las Vegas at the 2008-2009 NHL Awards. Congrats guys!

"Breakup Day": Julien & Chiarelli Press Conference

Hits Keep On Coming: Krejci, Ference, Kobasew & Recchi...

Now Fluto Shinzawa is reporting that David Krejci will be having hip surgery sometime during the off-season. This is the same case as the Kessel injury in that no other details have been released on the severity of the injury. This is a huge blow to two of the biggest restricted free-agents that the Bruins have the job of resigning in the next few months. As with Kessel, I will keep you posted as new details come in.

On top of Kessel and Krejci, there were others that suffered through the second round. Andrew Ference will undergo surgery soon to repair a groin tear he suffered back in early April. Chuck Kobasew broke two ribs in Game One of the Carolina series. And Mark Recchi was suffering though a rib injury and also had emergency surgery before Game Seven to remove kidney stones.

I'm not going to use the injury excuse because every team has to play through injuries, but god damn. That is a lot for one team to go through that early in the playoffs. Especially when taking note of the players involved.

Kessel To Have Surgery Thursday: Torn Rotator Cuff & Labrum

According to Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe, Bruins forward Phil Kessel will undergo surgery Thursday (May 21st) of this week to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum. As of right now, this is all that is known about this injury. I would expect that after today's "media send-off" day, in which the Bruins players and staff will be available to the media one last time, that more details will be revealed. Just as a side note, the normal recovery time involved in a procedure such as this could be between 4-6 months to completely be back at 100%.

B's Season Comes To An End Via Scott Walker

Round Two - Game Seven
Boston Bruins vs. Carolina Hurricanes
May 21st, 2009 @ 8:00PM

	1	2	3	OT	F
Boston Bruins	1	0	1	0	2
Carolina Hurricanes	1	1	0	1	3

(credit: Reuters Images)

WE STILL WANT IT! B's Lose In A Game Seven Overtime Thriller
Bitzy Kicks Off The Heartbreak With First Career Playoff Goal
Lucic Snaps One In From To Tie The Game At 2-2 In The 3rd
Tim Thomas Was The Bruins Star Of This Game & Playoffs
Timmy Made 33-Saves & At Least Three Saves That Got Us To OT
Power Play Costs B's A Series Win?: 0-for-4 In Game Seven
B's Dominate The Faceoff Circle Though Winning 42-of-77 Draws
Public Enemy #1: Scott Walker Buries Bruins Season In OT
Our Prayers Go Out To Scott Walkers Wife Though

Sorry that I have taken over two-days to finally post a Game Seven recap but the shock and just flat out disappointment after that overtime goal left me speechless. The only thing that I could really express was anger and disgust for a few days. And when I realized this I told myself to wait a few days because I didn't want a completely negative post to represent myself and Hub Hockey when putting a close to this amazing season. That's right, the Bruins may have lost to a team that many thought they would dominate but there was just too much positive from this season for one to be even close to being disappointed. Even though I still thought the B's could advance to the Stanley Cup finals and even had a legitimate shot at Lord Stanley itself, one needs to remember that the B's are still in the middle of "re-building" their team. No one expected the B's to finish first in the East or even sweep the Habs in the First Round before the start of this season. So its understandable to be disappointed taking into account what the B's could have accomplished but how anyone could look at this entire season and post-season as a whole and still be and still be disappointed, simply amazes me. So thank you Bruins, thanks for a great fucking season.

As for Hub Hockey, I posted on Friday that we will still be around during the whole off-season and I mean that. Just because the Bruins are done, doesn't mean that our job is over. From the NHL Awards Night to the Entry Draft there will be plenty of Bruins and hockey action to cover. Not to mention the huge job that GM Peter Chiarelli has ahead of him with the amount of free agents this team has hitting the open market. And not all the Bruins are out, Providence kicks off their run at an Eastern Conference championship tonight.

So what can you expect? Well in the upcoming week I will present the 1st Annual Hub Hockey Awards, which will handed out to players and personnel alike for their accomplishments during the 2008-2009 season. But we won't stop there, the weeks following will be made up of our complete season recap in which we break down from start to finish. Each player will be graded with the first annual Hub Hockey Report Cards, and you might surprised at who we failed this season. And what would an off-season be made of without some top 10 lists? How about the top 10 best hits, goals, plays, saves, fights and posts to keep your mouth watering until next season. I have also been in talks with someone to come on board as our very own prospect expert to breakdown the Bruins prospect system and the Entry Draft. So with all of this and plenty more, you should be all set in the upcoming months here. Thanks for a great season, and thanks for supporting Hub Hockey.

Updates...?

Last nights Game Seven recap will be coming later today (need some time to regroup) along with a series recap. And just giving you guys a brief preview. Over the weekend and next week we will be presenting our season awards and bringing you our season recap and top 10 favorite goals, plays, fights and posts from the 2008-2009 Bruins season. Now I'm going to go back to crying and drinking until the pain goes away.

We Actually Won Something...?

Tuesday night the New England Sports Blog Awards winners were finally announced. Thanks to you guys Hub Hockey ended up taking home the Bruins Blog of the Year award. We did come up short though in our bid for the Blog of the Year, but being nominated for that was an honor in itself. So I just wanted to take a minute to thank every single one of our faithful readers that not only nominated the site but then also voted and even campaigned for us. You don’t know how much that means to us and we really appreciate your support. Also, congratulations to all the other winners and nominated blogs, it was great finally getting to meet some of you. And finally I would like to thank Rafe Anderson of TruFan.com for putting this whole thing together. Thanks once again to everyone who voted and lets try to repeat next year.

Best Red Sox Blog: Sox Space News
Best Celtics Blog: Real Boston Sports Fans
Best Patriots Blog: Patriots Daily
Blog of the Year: Surviving Grady

Also, I want to thank Evan of Stanley Cup of Chowder, who definitely deserved to win the Bruins blog award also, for his support in our bid for the Blog of the Year. Great meeting you finally and we will have to set up some type of B's viewing party in the future.

Bruins Newest Enforcer: Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake

UPDATE (5:55PM): Matt Kalman of The Bruins Blog is reporting that Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake will indeed be in attendance tonight at the Garden.

(First and foremost, let me give some major props to Matt Kalman of The Bruins Blog for sending me this picture and to Keith Robinson, the Bruins assistant equipment manager, for taking it. If you guys haven’t checked it out yet, go check out The Bruins Blog.)

Back at the start of the Bruins/Hurricanes series, Joe Haggerty of WEEI’s Big Bad Blog spotted none other than Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake taking in a Bruins practice at Ristuccia Arena. For those of you not familiar with the WWF, now known as the WWE, “The Barber” (whose real name is Edward Leslie) was a former Tag Team Champion and cult icon from the mid-80’s to the early-90’s as a pro-wrestler. I can still to this day remember his wrestling figure, which I owned, because it came with mini-rubber garden shears. Anyways, since then "The Barber" has called Boston home and even made the news in 2004 after being involved in a “anthrax scare” on the T.

So why is this news? Well as Evan of Stanley Cup of Chowder pointed out earlier this month, the Hurricanes have the support of Ric Flair so why shouldn't the Bruins get some "muscle" on their side? Plus, according to Matt Kalman, the Bruins have gone 2-0 this series with "The Barber" in attendance. Hopefully, someone bought him tickets for tonight. 

Game Seven (Rally Video): "Victory Or Death"

(video credit: goeagles13)

(video credit: mikewendt779)

Jack Edwards BINGO Meets "Ward Wednesday"

Toucher & Rich of WBCN yesterday featured a double dose of Black & Gold. First up, they played a little game of "Jack Edwards BINGO" in studio to the audio from Tuesday nights Game Six NESN feed. Needless to say, I really need to start DVR'ing the games before I head out to a bar to watch them because I miss so many classic "Edwardisms". Also, who didn't see Fred getting pissed off going into this bit? Anyways, here are just a few classic ones from last night:

• "And Bergeron almost squeezed the top of his head off like a teenager popping a zit"
• "I'm not sure if Jokinen has his own web address but I have a feeling if he does it has a couple of backslashes in it."
• "Yelle attacks the puck hard and from his fanny kicks it over"
• "Scott Walker is sitting in the electric chair and the Governor called"
• "You can pencil it in, its not in pen yet but there just might be a Game Seven on Thursday night"
• "Zdeno Chara gobbles up a rebound"
• "I dont know what hes been smoking but when they legalize it I think I might try some, that is powerful hallucination"

JACK EDWARDS BINGO AUDIO

Next up, the guys had Aaron Ward on the show for his weekly appearance and attempted to hopefully put an end to all the "Punch Gate" talk. Ward got into a lot of detail on the whole incident and actually got to explain what happened without being baited into a "headline worthy sound bite" so kudos to the guys of T&R for that one. So to recap, it happened... Walker spoke his mind... Ward spoke his mind... its over... now lets move on. After that Wardo talked about some other subjects including his favorite analyst and former coach/GM Mike Milbury, the complete series as a whole thus far and how the Bruins have retooled their play in order to win Games Five & Six.

"WARD WEDNESDAY" AUDIO

Providence Advances To Calder Cup Conference Finals

(P-Bruins Conference Finals schedule)

"Providence, RI - The Providence Bruins are Atlantic Division champions after defeating the Worcester Sharks 5-1 Wednesday evening at the DCU Center. The P-Bruins got their goals from Brad Marchand, Jamie Arniel, Kirk MacDonald, Jordan Knackstedt and Martin St. Pierre. The P-Bruins win the best of seven series 4 games to 2. The P-Bruins return to the Dunkin' Donuts Center on Friday, May 22 at 7:05 p.m. for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals." -Official AHL Press Release

Hub Hockey: Congrats to the boys in Providence for a pretty damn impressive playoff performance thus far. After dropping their first game in the first-round they haven't looked back, winning four straight in that series eliminating the Portland Pirates. Next up was the Worcester Sharks, in which Providence battled in a back-and-forth six-game series that really saw their offense pick it up. Now finally with momentum on their side they are set to meet the Eastern Conference regular season champion Hersey Bears for the Conference Championship. The Bears finished the season with 106-points and have been cruising through the first two rounds of the Calder Cup playoffs so far. The Bears are lead by strong goaltending, 3-shutout this post-season so far, and will be a true test for the young Providence squad.

B's Officially Sign Jamie Arniel To Entry-Level Contract

"BOSTON, MA -- Boston Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli announced today that the club has signed center Jamie Arniel to an entry-level contract. Per club policy, terms of the deal will not be disclosed.

Arniel, a 5’11”, 183-pound center was selected by the Bruins in the fourth round (97th overall) in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. He spent the 2008-09 regular season with the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) where he tallied 32-36-68 totals in 63 games, ranking third on the team in both goals and assists. In five playoff games this season he posted 1-2-3 totals for Sarnia. Arniel is currently playing for Boston's American Hockey League affiliate - the Providence Bruins - where he has skated in two postseason games to date.

The 19-year-old from Kingston, Ontario, split time between the Sting and the Guelph Storm during the 2007-2008 season. He played in 20 games for Guelph with 9-4-13 totals before finishing the year with the Sting where he notched 18 goals and 16 assists for 34 total points. His 27 regular season goals were enough to rank him third overall on the Sting." -Official Bruins Press Release

Hub Hockey: Last Friday I originally posted about Jamie Arniel, the Bruins steal of a draft pick, signing an amateur try-out agreement with the team. Since then Arniel has dressed for 3-games with the P-Bruins during the second round of their Calder Cup run, recording one goal and a +1 rating. Funny thing about that one goal was that it ended up being the game winner in the P-Bruins series clincher that sent them to the Conference Finals. So I guess by this announcement of an official signing, the Bruins liked what they have seen so far in Arniel. It will be interesting to see what happens with this kid, after dropping from the leagues radar as a high profile first-round prospect to a blacklisted fourth-rounder after running into some on and off-ice issues.

Zaza Reminds The 'Canes That "Nothing Easy"

(H/T to the HFBoards and YouTube user: ernestlives)

Game Seven Tickets On Sale Today @ 11:00AM

"BOSTON, MA – The Boston Bruins announced today that tickets for Game Seven of the 2009 Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes will go on sale at 11:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 13.

Game Seven is scheduled to take place at the TD Banknorth Garden on Thursday, May 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

The B’s and Canes are currently tied 3-3 in the best of seven game series.

Tickets for Game Seven will be available for purchase online by clicking here, at the TD Banknorth Garden Box Office, all Ticketmaster outlets, or by phone at 617.624.BEAR(2327)." -Bruins Official Press Release

Don't Call It A Comeback: B's Win Forces A Game Seven Thursday

Round Two - Game Six
Boston Bruins Carolina Hurricanes
May 12th, 2009 @ 7:00PM

	1	2	3	F
Boston Bruins	2	2	0	4
Carolina Hurricanes	0	1	1	2

(credit: Getty Images)

Sleeping Bears Wide Awake: Bruins Send The Series To A Game Seven
Recchi Kicks Off The Game With A Goal & Ends It With An Assist
Montador Is Dressing? Scores 1st Goal Of The Series & Blocks 3-Shots
Kobasew Comes Alive With A Goal & Assist
Ryder, Bergy & Lucic Improving: Each Grab An Assist
Savvy Scores The GW Then Leaves Game After Knee-to-Knee Hit
Initial Word From Claude Julien, Savard Will Be Ready For Game Seven
Thomas Has Another Huge Game In The Crease: 31-Saves
Bitzy: My Star Of The Game For His All Around Performance In All Zones
Thanks For Voting Me As The "Best Bruins Blog" Of The Year

Game Six (Rally Video): "Seize The Day"

(video credit: goeagles13)