TSN.CA --- The Boston Bruins have locked up next season's No. 1 netminder, agreeing to terms with Tuukka Rask on a one-year, $3.5 million contract.
Rask, 25, played 23 games with the Bruins last season, going 11-8-3 with a 2.05 goals-against average, a .929 save percentage and three shutouts.
He was set to become a restricted free agent on Sunday.
Then there were the references to the rest of the Bruins team as “they” at least five times during his postgame interview. If one were a conspiracy theorist it sounds like there is a clear separation of State and Tim Thomas going on.Thomas would not be the first professional athlete to feel the wrath in Boston, it's a tough city to play in for professional athletes if you catch the ire of the fans, just ask Bill Buckner and Bob Stanley of the 1986 Red Sox, it's not quite as bad as Montreal but it up there.
"What it says about our guys is that they’re battlers and they’re still champions," he said. "They gave everything they had to the bitter end. Unfortunately this is sports and they fell short this time."
The remarks were consistent with Thomas' tendency to paint himself as an individual. [Joe Haggerty, CSNNE.COM]
Image via WikipediaCheck out what former Boston Bruins player and NESN Hockey Analyst Andy Brickley had to say about former Gopher and Boston Bruins forward Phil Kessel, some interesting things. [Click to listen]Brickley said, "I think he was just an really immature kid, he had some baggage, personal baggage when the Bruins first drafted him and they [Bruins] were well aware of it, the immaturity factor. Expectations level not only by the Bruins organization but for Phil himself, I don't think he was prepared for that. Could not not handle criticism, could not handle that you have to earn your ice time,kind of Claude Julian system or whoever was coaching or just the Bruins organizational belief, I don't think he was ready for that.
And then when he had a break out year where season where he scored a bunch of goals he saw how much money everyone was else making across the league, based on those numbers and he wanted that money then and there and the Bruins weren't prepared to pay him."
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.
Image via WikipediaRight away when I read the newspaper article about this incident, it does send up a few warning flags, especially after what has happened this summer. Boston Herald --- Stanley Cup hero Milan Lucic was questioned by police early yesterday after he and his girlfriend got into an altercation in the North End.
According to a police report of the incident, the Bruins [team stats] left winger was “highly intoxicated and hostile” after he and his galpal argued outside a Starbucks on Commercial Street shortly before 1:30 a.m.
Witnesses told police the 6-foot-4, 220-pound hockey player was yelling at his girlfriend, who was on the ground, and at one point threw her shoes and purse at her. However, the woman told police she was not physically assaulted and “was adamant about not being harmed,” the report states. Police “did not observe any visible injuries,” the report says, and Lucic was not charged.
