Sports Redux: Even Our Winter Teams Can't Win 'Em All

Well, it was nice while it lasted. The Bruins and Celtics were on a combined 157-game winning streak (or did it just seem that way?), but it all came to an end at the hands of Washington goalie Brent Johnson, whose 33 saves stifled the B's attack and sent the locals away with only their second regulation loss since November started, 3-1.

"If you're Washington, you're going to talk about the unbelievable saves your goaltender made, and we're going to call it missed opportunities," said coach Claude Julien. We're willing to concede that a hot goalie can beat even a scorching-hot team on any given day. For the B's' part, Manny Fernandez had 23 saves, which is good, but got beat twice, which is not as good (the Caps hit an empty-netter too). Milan Lucic scored the Bruins' lone goal - his eighth. Next comes a home-and-home with Atlanta.

The Celtics will visit the same building tonight, against a far less worthy foe. The Wizards are 4-15, the worst team in the East, with little hope in sight. But the Celtics aren't taking them lightly, the Herald, since they had our number last year and surprised Detroit the other night. (Note, however: Detroit's just not that good this year.) The Globe, meanwhile, lays out the case for Rajon Rondo in the All-Star Game. We're so totally on board, but the man himself says, "my goal is to be on the All-Defensive team and win a championship."

Also in the Globe, Dan Shaughnessy says Jim Rice is a lock to get elected to Cooperstown in his final year on the ballot. Talk about the Kiss of Death. Meanwhile, Scott Boras says that the Red Sox have made an offer to Jason Varitek, but you know how far you can trust Scott Boras. The Mark Teixiera Derby got 1/1000 of a percent more interesting, as Washington reportedly made the slugger an offer to be the highest-paid player on the worst franchise in baseball. We'll see how that goes.

The Patriots went through yesterday's practice with Kevin O'Connell taking the snaps. As you've no doubt heard, Matt Cassel is with his family in LA after his dad's sudden death the other day. The Pats don't know for sure if he'll be back for Sunday's game, and they're not pushing him, because (a) it's a lousy situation and (b) if they can't beat the Raiders with anybody at QB, they don't deserve the playoffs anyway.