NHL.com --- The Boston Bruins signed center David Krejci to a three-year contract extension Thursday. Financial terms of the deal, which will carry Krejci through the 2014-15 season, were not released. TSN, however is reporting the contract will have an annual value of $5.25 million.
Krejci, 25, has 4 goals and 9 assists in 20 games this season, and in 318 NHL games in six seasons with the Bruins, he has 62 goals and 165 points. He's led the team in scoring each of the last two seasons.
SUNRISE, FL. – Milan Lucic called the Sunday disciplinary call with NHL Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy a “slap on the wrist” while talking about it following Monday’s morning skate at Bank Atlantic Center.
Lucic said he was ecstatic about avoiding a suspension.
The Bruins’ top left winger was slapped with a match penalty in the middle of the line brawl in the third period of win over the Thrashers, and some assumed he’d end up with a one-game suspension after the incident.
Instead, Murphy and the NHL took into account the dangerous nature of Meyer’s hit that precipitated the entire chain of events -- and Lucic’s contrition after the fact certainly didn’t hurt his cause.
“That’s basically what it was: a slap on the wrist,” said Lucic. “They made it clear it’s something that shouldn’t be a part of the game, and I feel the same way. Looking back on it it’s something I shouldn’t have done, but sometimes you do things that you don’t mean to do once you get your adrenaline going.
“I’m just happy it wasn’t a game suspension and I’ll take the fine. We were looking back at some previous sucker punches and mine was more of a straight jab. I didn’t cock my hand back or anything like that. You can look at the Scott Walker/Aaron Ward incident where he brought his hand fully back for a haymaker where mine was a jab.”
The big power forward admitted wrongdoing while talking about the punch thrown to Freddy Meyer’s head, and the middle finger he “accidentally” extended out at the Atlanta bench as he was escorted off the ice.
Lucic was fined a total of $3500 by the NHL for both the punch and the obscene hand gesture, and chalked it up to a matter of basically seeing red.
“I didn’t feel anything on kind of hit to my chest. That was straight to the head area,” said Lucic. “He’s a lot shorter than me and he did leave his feet.
“I took it right on the head and the chin, and that’s why we reacted as a group. It was great to see that all of the guys had my back. We all had each other’s back on the ice. It’s a great feeling to know the other guys have your back no matter what the situation.”
Freddy Meyer came in high with a hit on Lucic in the third period that the refs deemed an “elbowing” penalty, and the 22-year-old said Meyer’s hit was very reminiscent of a Bryan Berard hit during his rookie season that knocked Lucic out for five games with a concussion.
With his mouth bleeding and his anger stirred, Lucic went at Meyer after he was tackled by Andrew Ference – and eventually found him with a right-handed jab that decked the surprised Meyer after refs had begun regaining order in the scrum. Lucic said he’d be ready if the Thrashers come looking for revenge against him when the Bruins travel to Atlanta on Wednesday night.
Boston - Blake Wheeler has signed his one-year, $2.2 million contract, officially putting him in the fold for 2010-11.
"Before the hearing, I was anxious, obviously," Wheeler said during a conference call. "You hear all the horror stories of different things that go on in those rooms. But once you're in there hearing both sides being argued, it was handled extremely professionally. Nothing was said in the room that I didn't already know myself. There were no low blows or anything like that taken by either side. It was handled extremely well. When the hearing was over, I felt great about it. I was really happy to be through that process."
Wheeler earned his $2.2 million arbitration award last night following his hearing on Tuesday.
"It is never a pleasant experience for either side to go to arbitration," GM Peter Chiarelli said in a statement. "However, as a manager, you know that the player will be under contract for the following year either way. We talked to Blake before and after the hearing and we are satisfied to have a good, young player under contract for another year."
With the two sides failing to come to a last-minute agreement, Blake Wheeler and the Bruins have proceeded to arbitration. The hearing started at 9 a.m. in Toronto this morning.According to Joe Haggerty's twitter post Wheeler's hearing went well.
Matt Keator, Wheeler's agent, will start the hearing with an affirmative case for Wheeler. The Bruins will then present a similar affirmative case for the club. Wheeler's camp will then have a chance to present a rebuttal case and closing argument. The Bruins will also issue a rebuttal case and closing argument. Both parties have a maximum of 90 minutes to present their cases. [Boston Globe]
Awful? Worse than awful. The Bruins tomorrow night should be playing in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, but instead they are framed in shame after last night’s diabolical 4-3 loss to the Flyers.
“We had a 3-0 lead in the series. We had a 3-0 lead tonight. And we blew both,’’ said coach Claude Julien. “There are no excuses.’’
In a season-ender that will live with them forever and a day, like the ball that rolled between Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series, the Bruins essentially dismissed themselves from the 2010 postseason — and they underscored their own undoing by getting caught for having too many men on the ice with 11:10 gone in the third period.
Too many men. Haunting. Almost sadistic. A ghost from more than three decades ago, dating to an identical call at the Montreal Forum in 1979, revisited the Boston bench on Causeway Street, and had Vladimir Sobotka jumping on the ice as a sixth, and most unwanted, Boston skater. Only 1:42 later, Simon Gagne used the power-play advantage to pot the winner, completing one of the most dramatic comebacks in Stanley Cup history for the Flyers, and driving a stake into the heart of Bruins fandom.
[Boston Globe]
WILMINGTON -- As trades are made, and more rumors continue to swirl, Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas realizes that his name has been mentioned in potential deals prior to today's 3 p.m. trade deadline.
But unlike many of the rumors, Thomas also pointed out, Wednesday after practice, that any potential trade would have to be OK'd by him.
"I have a no-trade clause, that nobody seems to want to mention," said Thomas. "Despite the best efforts of some of the media, I don't think that anything's going to happen."
One rumor has had Thomas and a draft pick going to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Tomas Fleischmann and Jose Theodore. When asked if he had been approached by Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli regarding a trade, Thomas declined to give that information away.
"I wouldn't discuss that with you if I were," he said. "That's private. Even a contract should be private. That wouldn't be something that I'd discuss with the media, anyhow."
One surprising rumor which just hit the wire is that the Boston Bruins are shopping last year's Vezina Trophy winner, Tim Thomas. If this is true, is it too early for the Bruins to give up on their down-to-earth goalie, a player they have a very heavy financial commitment to? (5 Million USD per year).
Does Chicago have faith in Cristobal Huet to take them to the promised land? It is possible that these two teams are disappointed enough in their respective goalies to try a switcheroo. But of course, that's easier said than done.[The Rink]
A practical man with a Harvard education, Chiarelli now founds himself in a most precarious position. He may have to do something that goes against his nature; he may have to do something purely for the sake of doing it. Last week, Chiarelli told anyone who would listen that he had no intentions of trading the Toronto selection in this year’s draft because of the depth of talent available at the top of the first round. During his weekly segment on 98.5 The Sports Hub, he went so far as to say that current Islanders rookie John Tavares (the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft) might be no better than the No. 4 overall selection in this year’s event.
By the way, Tavares is 19. He has 33 points and 17 goals this year, the latter a total unmatched by any Bruin this season. And dare we even mention that Kessel has the same number?
As encouraging as the Bruins’ efforts were over the weekend, goal-scoring remains a problem of colossal proportions. In the overtime loss to the Kings on Saturday, the Bruins had six chances to score in the shootout and managed just two tallies, by Michael Ryder and Marc Savard. Zdeno Chara, Blake Wheeler, Recchi, and Patrice Bergeron all failed.
For what it’s worth, Chiarelli last week gave no indication that the B’s were close to any deals, be it for Phaneuf, Ilya Kovalchuk or anyone else. To the contrary, Chiarelli suggested that the asking price for all trades was still much too high. (Of course, these things can change quickly.) Regardless, the addition of Phaneuf suggests the Leafs are far closer to being the Bruins than the Bruins are to being, say, the Penguins or Capitals, setting the stage for the kind of scenario that would drive the most loyal Bruins fans absolutely wild.
What if the Bruins do not make the playoffs? And what if the Leafs somehow end up finishing in front of Boston? The end result will have the Bruins picking before the Leafs following the most highly anticipated Bruins season in years, all after trading away their top goal scorer, regardless of whether Kessel wanted to be in Boston.
[Boston Globe]
It wasn’t that long ago that the Bruins were irrelevant in this town. Last year’s miracle season went a long way towards “making Boston a hockey town again” as Marc Savard recently put it. They were an entertaining team to watch last year, with the second best offense in the NHL, and several bangers and brawlers to put exclamation points on their wins and to give fans something to cheer about in their losses. Fans came back in droves. Attendance went up. TV ratings went up. Season ticket sales spiked. And the revival was underway.
But then things started to go wrong…
The Bruins had a very public, very messy divorce with one of their most popular players in Phil Kessel. Which reminded many of these casual Bruin fans of the days when the Bruins constantly put profit ahead of winning. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t one of those times. And the Bruins rushed right out and signed Lucic and Savard to long term deals, as if to send a message to these fans that they really weren’t being cheap- they just didn’t like Kessel’s game. But the damage was done.
The Bruins also failed to capitalize on all of their pre-season hype and excitement by flopping on opening night, and getting off to a miserable start. The fans that came back, eager to watch a winner, were suddenly getting turned off by a team that wasn’t winning.
To make matters worse- the Bruins were not very entertaining either. Their offense had gone from best in the conference last year to 2nd worst in the NHL by Thanksgiving. Their most entertaining non-scorer, Milan Lucic, was put on long-term-injury-reserve, only to come back for 4 games, get re-injured, and go right back on the LTIR. So even when they finally started winning games consistently, they were boring, low scoring affairs. And while hardcore hockey fans take plenty of gratification out of a hard fought, defensive win, the casual fans that the Bruins need to become relevant again- want to see goals, hits and fights.
[Lunatic Fringe]
Nobody in Boston wants to hear this, but these Bruins sure could use Kessel. Somebody in the Bruins dressing room mentioned Kessel's stats from the Toronto game and it was met with an ugly look from one of the Boston players. The look was clear. Kessel is gone; nobody here wants to know how he's helping another team.
Julien said as much on Monday, even before his team turned in another zero.
"We made a deal and we've moved on," Julien said. "We've got guys who have moved in and done a pretty good job with (replacing Kessel). It is what it is. Phil Kessel has moved on and we've moved on."
If only the part about replacing Kessel were true. It's not easy to replace 36 goals. The hope was that a healthy Marco Sturm would help.
"We replaced one (30-goal scorer) with another," Mark Recchi said.
Sturm has two goals. Another potential 30-goal scorer, Michael Ryder, has three. David Krejci has one. Recchi has two.
Not the goal totals of players jumping in to pick up scoring production that left with Kessel.
"When you replace people, it takes a little time," Recchi said. "We've got guys who can do what he was doing. Right now, it's just not happening. Eventually it will." [Sporting News]
This year, the Bruins have done a complete 180. Through their first 13 games, they have scored a total of just 31 goals, good enough for 27th in the league and have the worst pp scoring 11.5 percent of the time. In the eight games the Bruins have lost, they have scored one goal or less in six of them. This year, their leading goal scorers are Patrice Bergeron and Blake Wheeler, with four goals each.
There can be many different excuses for why this has happened. The first is the fact that the B's traded their No. 1 goal scorer last year Phil Kessel to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kessel scored 36 goals to lead the Bruins. While he put up some great numbers a big reason was because of the playmaking abilities of Marc Savard. So this is not the reason why the Bruins are slumping as much as they are.
A second reason would be the losses of Marc Savard and Milan Lucic. Both were lost earlier in the year to injuries and won't be back for at least another 10-15 games. Savard is the Bruins best playmaker finishing with 63 assists last year. Losing him really hurt the Bruins because he could make the pass that no one else could on the team. [Bleacher report]
BOSTON, MA - Boston Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli announced today that the club has placed forward Marc Savard on long term injured reserve (broken left foot) and has recalled forward Trent Whitfield from Providence on an emergency basis.
Savard is expected to miss four to six weeks with the injury. He has led the Bruins in scoring each of the last three years and currently leads the team in scoring this year, with 4-3=7 totals in seven games. In 2008-09, Savard played in all 82 games with a 25-63=88 line.
David Krejci, who skated between Blake Wheeler and Michael Ryder during the morning skate, will be in his No. 2 center slot tonight.
"I'm excited," Krejci said. "I'm ready to go."
Claude Julien said he'll keep an eye on Krejci and monitor his play to determine his ice time. Krejci didn't play in the preseason. [Boston Globe]
Fred Cusick, the popular play-by-play voice for the Bruins for more than 40 years, has died, his family confirmed to the Globe this afternoon. He was 90 years old..
Cusick, who is scheduled to be inducted to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame tomorrow night, was a signature voice of the Bruins during their 1970s heyday.
His simple trademark call of "Score!" whenever Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Cam Neely and countless other Bruins put the puck in the net served as familiar punctuation on their goals.
Upon returning from a stint with the Navy during World War II, Cusick began his career with the Bruins in 1952, handling the play-by-play on their radio broadcasts until 1970.
In 1963, he led the push to get the Bruins on television, editing and voicing over tapes of the Bruins' Saturday night games, which would then air on Sundays. The replays were popular enough that the games aired on live TV within a couple of years.
Cusick called the Bruins' 1970 Stanley Cup championship for WBZ-FM (1030), then moved to television in '71, taking over play-by-play duties at Channel 38 and holding that position until 1997, when he retired after 45 years calling Bruins games.
He also was the play-by-play voice of the Bruins on NESN from 1984 to '93.
[Boston Globe]