Tag Archives: James Neal

Boston Bruins, Boston Bruins Heroes, Hockey Journal Archives , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Sunday Flashback: 2013 B’s-Pens playoff column “Sweep dreams will end the Steel City nightmare”

by

An old friend recently reminded me of a column I wrote in 2013, after the Boston Bruins had taken a 3-0 series lead over Sidney Crosby and the vaunted Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference final (you remember- the guys who were anointed Stanley Cup champs when they scooped Boston on Jarome Iginla at the trade deadline?) Alas, the B’s were unable to close the deal against the Chicago Blackhawks, who earned their second of three rings between 2010-15 against the Black & Gold, but he asked me to dig the piece up and so here it is- in its raw and unedited glory prior to being posted on HockeyJournal.com.

All of my old work at NE Hockey Journal that was not in the printed issues is gone forever from the Internet, as no archive exists given the different format changes the website went through over the years since I started covering the Bruins there in the summer of 2000. All I have left are the files on my computer and so, on occasion, I’ll bring out the dead and we can take some trips in the Wayback Machine to save you any time otherwise wasted with a Google search- the old stuff no longer exists online.

Enjoy the column…in the 5 years hence, the Penguins have fared certainly better than the Bruins, with a pair of championships in 2016-17, but I have to admit- this one was a ton of fun to write. -KL

***

Sweep dreams will end the Steel City nightmare (June 7, 2013- HockeyJournal.com)

For some reason, one particular ‘s’ word has somehow evolved to be on par with the one goalies don’t want you using before the shutout is actually in the books.

But say the word ‘sweep’ when your team is up 3 games to none, and everyone starts to get that queasy feeling in the pit of their stomach. In Boston, it’s understandable, given that we are just three years removed from a historic collapse against another team from the Keystone State after building a commanding series lead.

This column is not for the superstitious (another s-word since we’re on the subject), so if you’re one of those types, then you probably should stop reading now. However, if you’ve got an iron constitution and will in line with Gregory Campbell, or don’t take yourself (or sports) too seriously, then forge ahead.

On Friday, the Boston Bruins will sweep the Pittsburgh Penguins to take their place in the Stanley Cup final series for the second time in three years.

There it is. Carve it in stone or put it up in lights…it’s happening, folks.

Just as the B’s exorcised the demons of their agonizing 2010 seven-game loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in style with a sweep of their own just one year later, Boston can revisit history on Friday at the TD Garden. That was important, because it put an exclamation point on the Olde Towne’s first Stanley Cup championship in 39 years. That 2011 Cup victory was a euphoric rush for the Bruins and their fans, but does anyone deny that crushing the Flyers on the way to the summit of hockey supremacy made it all the sweeter?

Two years later, the Bruins have stunned the mighty (and heavily favored) Pittsburgh Penguins in capturing the first three games of the Eastern Conference Final series. This opportunistic, lunchpail group of Black and Gold-diggers have laughed in the face of the vaunted Steel City juggernaut thanks in large part to goaltender Tuukka Rask’s otherworldly performance in net and gritty production from stars like Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Brad Marchand and Nathan Horton.

In short, the B’s have taken everything the Penguins have thrown at them and then counterpunched to the tune of an 11-2 drubbing on the scoreboard. In those three games (and almost two extra periods), the front line skaters like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, Jarome Iginla, and Kris Letang have combined for a grand total of no points between them.

It’s as if Dean Vernon “Zero Point Zero” Wormer were staring down Bluto Blutarsky as we speak.

The Bruins will sweep because even if they decisively won the first two games on the road in Pittsburgh by a combined 9-1 score, the Penguins showed some remarkable pluck by battling back in Game 3 to give the B’s all they could handle.

Aside from a Krejci puck off Matt Niskanen’s skate that got behind Tomas Vokoun at the 1:42 mark, the Penguins netminder was near flawless. Until Bergeron took a Marchand feed (thanks to a play along the boards by veteran Bruins forward Jaromir Jagr that would have made Peter Pan’s pirate nemesis proud) and put a dagger in the hearts of the Pittsburgh hopeful just after midnight in Boston.

By all rights, the Penguins should have won. But the hockey gods…ye gods…frowned on Crosby and Co., allowing the Bruins to hand flightless fowl a soul-crushing loss.

And so- the B’s are in position to not only sweep the Penguins, but to put the screws to one team that has been every bit the villain of any in the Boston franchise’s history.

Back in 1991, it wasn’t Crosby, but Mario Lemieux who led his Penguins back from a 0-2 deficit in the Wales Conference championship series. That club, complete with a 19-year-old rookie wunderkind in Jagr, smacked the B’s down in six games en route to easily handling the Minnesota North Stars for the first of two consecutive Stanley Cups. It was Ulf Samuelsson, however, who’s dirty hit on Boston legend Cam Neely hastened the end of No. 8’s Hall of Fame career.

A year later, the Bruins got a rematch in the Wales final, but without Neely (still suffering the after effects of the Samuelsson low blow), the high-flying Penguins blew Boston out of the water in a sweep. The series was punctuated by a highlight reel goal of Lemieux turning Ray Bourque inside-out, outside-in on the way to a back-breaking goal.

It has been 21 long years since the two teams met in the playoffs, but for many Boston fans, the Pens are still a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Matt Cooke’s blindside hit on Marc Savard in 2010 is only the tip of the iceberg, but the incident served as a flashpoint to escalate the rivalry between the teams.

Many cannot ignore the fact Pittsburgh not only landed a franchise player in Malkin in 2004, but also struck gold with the top lottery pick in the cancelled season a year later, essentially handed another hockey king in Crosby. Some won’t forget that when Ray Shero was on the verge of becoming the GM of the Boston Bruins in 2006, he opted for a more promising situation in Pittsburgh at the last minute.

If hell hath no fury like a Bruins fan scorned, then Iginla is the newest Boston target. In a much-publicized aborted trade fiasco, Iginla, the Calgary Flames and Penguins humiliated Peter Chiarelli and the Bruins. In what everyone but Iginla thought was a done deal, the Calgary captain instead elected to lift his no-trade for the Steel City only, leaving the Bruins holding the bag.

If you know the ever-simmering cauldron of intensity that is one Cameron Michael Neely, then you know that the way Pittsburgh embarrassed Boston by scooping Iginla and seeing the B’s snubbed so publicly must have re-ignited his burning desire to pay them back one hundredfold. So far, his team is doing just that.

Even if Iginla is proving that the best trades are sometimes the ones you don’t make, the smugness with which the Penguins and their fans swooped in to exult in the bitterness of Boston’s disappointment cemented that team’s status as Public Enemy No. 1.

If having a villain to focus your angst and anger is a cathartic, then consider the Penguins the therapist you have on speed dial.

The Bruins are in position to sweep away the nightmares of two crushing playoff defeats more than two decades ago. They’re poised to erase the visceral disgust of having lost so many prime years of Neely’s playing career to one of the dirtiest and unaccountable players in history.  They’re on the verge of gaining the ultimate revenge against all of the real and perceived slights that have accompanied one of the most heralded teams on paper in quite a few years.

They say revenge is sweet.

Or is it sweep?

It’s not over yet, but the best thing the Bruins can do is close the deal in Game 4 and put the bitterness behind them once and for all.

(As a bonus- Here’s the brilliant HNIC opening for Game 3 after the B’s won both games in Pittsburgh to Radiohead’s classic “Karma Police” with some amazing juxtaposition of imagery & lyrics)

 

2015-16 NHL season, Boston Bruins , , , , , Leave a comment

Final Buzzer: Bruins, Gustavsson can’t overcome Predators

by

A Monday night matchup at home with the Nashville Predators ended in a 3-2 regulation loss for the Boston Bruins, who continue to play sub-.500 hockey at TD Garden this season.The play of Jonas Gustavsson, back in net two games after being yanked from action after surrendering three goals against the Calgary Flames, gave the team a chance but it wasn’t enough, as a Viktor Arvidsson goal in the final five minutes of the third period broke a 2-2 deadlock.

Defenseman Roman Josi near singlehandedly took out Boston with a two-goal performance one game after D partner Shea Weber tallied the first hat trick by a blue liner in franchise history. The B’s energy levels were up and down, but as the game went on, the visitors wrested control of the tempo and outshot the Bruins by a wide margin, 33-17.

Kevan Miller gave the B’s an early lead when his shot deflected off of Nashville defender Colton Sissons‘ skate and up under the crossbar behind backup goalie Carter Hutton. David Krejci and Matt Beleskey assisted on the defenseman’s second goal of the season, coming in his first game back after being on the shelf with an injury.

Josi tied the game with a power play marker in the final 25 seconds of the opening frame, getting some open space outside the left faceoff circle and placing the puck in a perfect shot over Gustavsson’s shoulder. The man advantage tally ended Boston’s string of 13 consecutive penalties killed.

Boston re-took the lead at 10:53 of the second period when Preds forward James Neal was  given a minor for embellishment and Loui Eriksson jammed a Ryan Spooner pass home for his 10th goal of the season.

The garden party was short-lived, however, as a poor Zdeno Chara clearing attempt was intercepted by Josi while the B’s were killing a Patrice Bergeron hooking penalty taken at 11:08.  It appeared that Chara was yelling at the referee for something that happened while he made the pass, and he compounded the situation by turning the wrong way and allowing Josi to skate by him with a direct path to the net. Cutting in from the right side, Josi not only evaded a weak stick check attempt by Chara, but then beat Gustavsson across the goalmouth to put the puck in on the far side, giving him his seventh goal of the season and second of the night.

That set the stage for a see-saw affair in the final frame, which saw Nashville enjoy the advantage in puck possession and scoring chances. Arvidsson took a Cody Hodgson pass, evaded Miller in the Boston zone, then deftly closed on Gustavsson, getting the goalie to bite on a failed poke check before putting the winning shot past him after skating around his prone form.

UP

Jonas Gustavsson- His 30 saves gave the Bruins a chance to win a game they could have been blown out in. The winning goal was scored on an aggressive but ultimately ill-advised play, but the rest of Gus’s mates weren’t there last night to give him better support. If he wanted to send a message after being off his game against Calgary, mission accomplished even if he didn’t achieve the desired outcome.

Patrice Bergeron- The assist on Ericsson’s second period PPG was the 575th point of his fine career. It tied him for 11th place on the team’s all-time list. 13 more points will move him past Peter McNab for 10th place and 591 points will jump ahead of Cam Neely. Bergeron is on pace to occupy eighth place, currently held by Terry O’Reilly with 606 points. On the down side, his hooking penalty in the second period allowed the Predators to tie the score on Josi’s second power play goal of the game.

Tyler Randell- Showed Eric Nystrom why he has a reputation for being one of the nastiest fighters during his tenure with Providence. One he got his right hand free during their second period bout, Randell began pistoning his fist into Nystrom’s head, at first making contact with his helmet, but then dropping him with two consecutive shots to the face. With four goals and the toughness needed for the bottom line, Randell is doing the tough work that the B’s need for balance in their lineup.

Ryan Spooner- His pass to Eriksson was vintage Spooner, and although he was denied on what should have been a layup goal after deking Hutton out of his jock in the second period, he impressed on a couple of hard-working defensive plays. For a player who receives significant criticism for his 5-on-5 play, Spooner skated hard and made one memorable back check deep in his own zone to separate the puck from Filip Forsberg and deny a quality scoring chance.

Roman Josi- His two goals made a big difference in this one, but he also engaged Brad Marchand in his first career NHL fight. It wasn’t much of a bout, but the Swiss defender killed the Bruins last night.

DOWN

Joonas Kemppainen- Suffered some kind of injury that kept him out of the lineup. Will be interesting to see how the lines look if he is unable to suit up Wednesday against Montreal.

James Neal- Called for a dive, which he may not have been guilty of, but this is what happens when you build a reputation for gamesmanship and embarrass on-ice officials. Tim Peel’s profanity-laced call was picked up by the microphones, which made it even more interesting. Neal is one of those players who generates a lot of schadenfreude, especially since it took the B’s just nine seconds to make him pay for it. When you talk  about players who don’t get the benefit of the doubt in those kinds of situations, Neal is exhibit A. But, he’s not the only one…ahem…Mr. Marchand.