Sports Redux: Catching Up With Old Friends

Phil Kessel's played two games in the Garden since became an ex-employee there. We wonder if he's wistful, since his Leafs were smacked around both times. Last night, he watched his old teammate build a 3-0 lead and hang on for a 5-2 win. Goals by Mark Stuart, Derek Morris and David Krejci built the lead, then after Tuukka Rask let in two, Mark Recchi took over and scored the insurance goal and an empty-net lagniappe to put the Leafs away.

"Three-goal leads are the worst," said Recchi, which is a bit of hockey wisdom we'd never actually heard before. Coach Julien was just happy his team could focus on the matter at hand: "I think our guys handled it well. 'Kesselmania' and all that stuff. I thought we were playing hockey, not wrestling." As always with Claude Julien, picture him saying that with a Gallic shrug to increase your enjoyment 115%.

OK, we lied, the Celtics didn't really catch up with old friends last night, unless you include Sam Cassell (now a Wizards assistant coach) and the old friend that is a puzzling inability to put away certain teams that don't look as good as the C's. The Celtics toyed with the Wiz in the second quarter, let them right back into it in the third, and held them off in a wild fourth quarter for their ninth straight win.

The men of the hour in green included Rajon Rondo (yet again), who notched his 10th double-double, broke a tie with a ridiculous baseline dunk, and scored a season-high 21, all while trying to contain the Wizards' Gilbert Arenas. Also noteworthy was Ray Allen, who scored 18, which isn't such a huge deal except that point number 14 was Ray's 20,000th in his career. Congratulations to Ray, who was modest as ever: "I’m just grateful I’ve had great teammates, I’ve had great coaches, and I’ve had pretty good organizations, and that’s helped me be where I am today."

So it was a good day for the two local teams who actually played yesterday. The Red Sox tried to ease the sting of losing Mike Lowell by signing a bunch of players, headlined by Boof Bonser, who will try to fill the reinforced seat in the bullpen that hasn't really been filled since Garces left. Jason Bay got a substantial offer from the Mets, we're told, but we're assuming he spent yesterday learning about the Mets and will probably still be a free agent when the sun sets tonight. He doesn't want to pull a muscle signing his contract, after all.

And Dan Shaughnessy's streak of "Columns That Don't Make Us Want to Buy A Bird Just So We Can Put the Globe's Sports Section At The Bottom of the Cage" ended at one, since he decided to go loco with his column today, where he used Adalius Thomas' excuse for missing practice ("It’s not the Jetsons. I can’t jump up and fly.") as an excuse for telling us everything he knows about cartoons as well as dump on the Patriots during their struggles. This column will be taught in Shaughnessy 101 as soon as our application for guest-lecturer status comes through.