A Boston Bruins team that can fight and score in almost equal measure...priceless.
What follows in quotes are my Facebook status updates during the first two minutes of the Bruins/Stars game tonight, keeping in mind that there was already one face-off fight at the opening whistle between Campbell and Ott:
"Shawn Thornton rules!!" after he wins a face-off fight three seconds into the game
"And down goes another one! How's that for some old-time hockey, eh!?" after McQuaid almost takes a Stars' head off in another face-off fight six seconds into the game.
"3 fights in the first 6 seconds, and then Lucic scores 35 seconds in. The Big Bad Bruins are coming on!"
" And then Bergeron scores 45 seconds after that. woooooo!"
"Welcome back to Boston Andrew Raycroft...now, take a freakin seat." after Raycroft was benched after seeing two shots, both of them finding the back of the net.
"Never seen a game like this one, at least not in a very long time. Another fight!"
Then I'll skip some back and forth with some sissy soccer fans until "Recchi to Marchand to Bergeron and he scores!!!!!" after Bergeron scores again to make it 3-zip Bruins halfway into the first period.
What's hysterical about this to me is the fact that immediately prior to tonight's game NESN replayed last year's game between the Bruins and Stars that took place in Boston, where the Stars were chippy and the Bruins made them pay with punches to the jaw and goals in the net.
SHAWN THORNTON RULES!!!! Make that 4-0 Bruins, on a Thornton bomb into the back of the net immediately after another nice save by Tuukka Rask. I figured Claude Julien started Rask instead of Tim Thomas because he was afraid Thomas would get into the midst of the fighting.
End of the first period, Bruins-4 Stars-0...man, that was beautiful!
7 comments:
The Fox Sports Roundup of the game
The first-period damage:
* FIGHTS: 4
* GOALS: 4
* SHOTS THAT HIT POST: 1
* GOALIES PULLED: 1
* GLASS PANELS REPLACED: 1
* PENALTY MINUTES: 44
My kind of game! McQuaid and Ference were very impressive in their bouts.
And the hit that Paille threw at Sawada is going to come into play the next time these 2 play. A 4 game suspension for an illegal blindshot intentional shot to the head isn't enough. The sickest thing though is to watch Mike Milbury try and say that he didn't think it was bad. Maybe he should be a ref, cuz he is blind.
From the head-hunting job that Paille did, Sawada has a broken nose and seperated shoulder. If the NHL was serious about eliminating head-hunting they would sit Paille down for as long as Sawada wasn't able to be in the lineup because of those injuries. That would actually make the players think before letting their emotions runaway with them.
We'll agree to disagree, Brent. Paille has no history of dirty hits and he rounded to try to approach him from the front at the same time the guy stupidly dropped his head. As ANY player would do in that instance, he tried to clean the guy's clock but there was no intent to injure. Look at it again...shoulder to shoulder. And the Stars keep losing trying to go toe-to-toe with the Bruins. I wouldn't advise it.
The problem for the Bruins is that the Stars' two enforcers are two of the dirtiest, hit and hide players in the league. So if I were Paille, I'd always know where Ott and Avery are.
I will agree to disagree. Paille jumped up for the collision and it was shoulder to head. Sawada's head was down before Paille jumped up to avoid the shoulder to shoulder contact. In fact, just before contact, Sawada tried to raise his body to avoid getting hit in the head.
Even if there was no intent to injure, as Pialle said, it doesn't matter. He doesn't have a history of dirty hits, doesn't matter. You want to get rid of these shots in hockey, then make it so the suspension is cost-prohibited to the player going in for the kill. I'll let Bruins, Andrew Ference do the rest of my argument for me:
"I mean, it's a bad hit, right?" Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference said after the game. "That's what they're trying to get rid of. You can't be a hypocrite and complain about it when it happens to you and say it's fine when your teammate does it. It is a [hit to the head] that they're trying to get rid of. ... I just talked to Danny and he feels bad. It's tough. That backchecking forward, to make those kinds of hits now, it's so hard to do it in a clean fashion with the new rules. It is what it is."
We'll disagree on the facts (I see the hit differently than you) and the penalty. The prob is that you're going to end up with the NFL QB situation if you take every unintentional hit that injures and penalize it like you're saying. It won't be NHL hockey any more. That penalty is the stiffest yet under that new rule. I think intent and past history should play a huge part in how it's policed.
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