Milan Lucic works Patrick Kaleta like a speed bag

Nothing makes me happier than watching Boston Bruins tough Milan Lucic guy work over a rat like Patrick Kaleta.

Kaleta is one of those players that thinks he is pretty tough when he is out on the taking runs at other teams skilled players. I am actually surprised that Kaleta fought a guy like Milan Lucic.



At the end of the night Kaleta catches the ire of Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid. McQuaid  decided he had seen enough of Kaleta's on ice antics and absolutely clobbers the Sabres rat in the head with a monstrous right hand.

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• Lucic, McQuaid Beatdowns On Kaleta Provide Only Highlights Of B's 6-0 Loss (boston.cbslocal.com)
• Ty Anderson: Sabres torch Rask & B's in 6-0 gongshow (hockeybuzz.com)
• Bruins Vs. Sabres Score Update: B's Robbed Of Goal, Down 2-0 Through One (boston.sbnation.com)
• Bruins looks less threatening after getting trounced by the underdogs (theglobeandmail.com)
• GARTH: Punch The Bully In The Mouth (hockeybuzz.com)

Jay Harrison vs Zdeno Chara

This doesn't require a lot of narration. The Boston Bruins lost their cool tonight, and then lost the game 4-1. There is a time and a place for the rough stuff but the Bruins so concentrate on playing hockey first. So far I have been less than impressed with the Bruins play, there is only one word that I can use to describe the defending Stanley Cup champions play, "unacceptable." The Boston Bruins are currently 2-4 and sitting in 11th place in the Eastern Conference.

Can you imagine if the Bruins had traded Tim Thomas?

Imagine if the Boston Bruins had traded Tim Thomas to the Philadelphia Flyers or the Washington Capitals? I don't think they would have made it out of the first series against the Montreal Canadians. Going back to last season I can remember a lot of fans wanting to get rid of Tim Thomas who ended up getting hip surgery in the off-season and returned to his Vezina Trophy winning form of 2008-2009.

Tim Thomas of old 

Tim Thomas came back like gang busters during the 2010-2011 regular season posting a record breaking 2.00 GAA and .938 Save percentage and a 35-11-9 record. Tim Thomas was even more impressive in the post season racking up an impressive 1.98 GAA  and a .940 save percentage with a 16-9 record in 25 playoff games. Thomas retook the starting job away from the younger Tuukka Rask 2.67 GAA and .918 save percentage and a regular season record 11-14-2. I think Thomas proved the Nay Sayers wrong by proving that he could still play at a high level. I can't even phantom what would have happened to the Boston Bruins had Thomas been traded.

Joe Haggerty; CSNNE.COM ---- The B’s goalie was great from his first appearance of the regular season, and broke through with an epic postseason performance after never finding the secret sauce during his previous Game 7 experiences.

A .940 save percentage, a 1.98 goals against average, four shutouts, and a 16-9 overall record following a Vezina Trophy-winning season mean that years from now people will refer to 2010-11 as “The Year of Tim Thomas.”

But it almost didn’t happen that way for Boston, or for the goalie that went into training camp with a snow white set of goalie pads and a white mask free of all Bruins logos that revealed a few hard feelings headed into the season.

That can happen when a player is dangled on the trade market as a necessary evil due to salary cap issues, and it pushed Thomas into “prove people wrong” mode headed into this year. That’s always a good place for Thomas to be once he’d gotten over the initial vexation at being involved in trade whispers.

Chiarelli admitted on Friday morning he’d taken phone calls about Tim Thomas, and sources indicated then to CSNNE.com that the most seriously interested parties were Washington and Philadelphia. The Bruins and Flyers had casually discussed a deal involving Thomas to the Flyers while the goalie was recovering from hip surgery after losing his playoff starting role to a younger goaltending model in Tuukka Rask.

Related articles

• Chiarelli talked to Flyers and Capitals about moving Tim Thomas (prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com)
• Bruins G Tim Thomas named playoff MVP (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Bruins' Tim Thomas has had season to remember (theglobeandmail.com)
• Bruins G Tim Thomas Named Playoff MVP (abcnews.go.com)