Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Chara Named All-Star Captain


The only reason I consider this worthy of writing about is that Captains in the NHL All-Star Game pick their teams. Daniel Alfredsson, of the hosting Ottawa Senators, will be the opposing Captain.

There are a few people that might not make Zdeno's team:

Phil Kessel
Daniel Sedin
Henrik Sedin

Jason Pominville might also not be one of Chara's favorites.

The only Canadien on the team is goalie Carey Price, and I can see Chara selecting him if Tim Thomas is not available.

Unfortunately, the Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs dominate the rosters. There are 7 representatives from the Ontario teams. All 5 of the players voted in by fans were on either team. I love Canadian fan's passion for the game, but their devotion to their team skirts the boundaries between passion and psychologically treatable levels of irrationality.

Lightning Strike Early and Often


In a span of 4 days, the Bruins have lost to the 4th and 5th place teams in the Southeast Division. These are the 14th and 15th teams in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins, an elite team, lost because they were outworked. It's that simple.

What makes the Bruins elite is that they play within a system, and they work just as hard, if not harder than their opponent. Remove the work, and they're not elite.

I'm sure they'll turn things around within the next few games. They always have under Julien. They go through stretches of bad play like this. Stretches when Lucic's passing is as accurate as Tim Tebow's. Stretches when only two or three forwards look like they know how to do anything. Stretches when they commit silly penalties in the offensive zone.

I'd like to see more Tuukka Rask for the next few games. Thomas hasn't looked bad, but he hasn't looked great. Tuukka's been red hot, and the B's should take full advantage of it.

As I said, I'm sure this stretch is just a stretch. We've seen this team struggle then suddenly turn things around. I'm pretty sure that in a few months, I'm not going to be remembering the January 17th loss to the Lightning.

Bruins play the Devils in Jersey on Thursday. Then they host the Rangers and visit the Flyers on the weekend. That's the 6th, 1st, and 4th place teams in the Conference right there. That should be enough to wake the B's up from this winter slumber.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo